Short Film News - The 19th edition of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) would be open with 4 Elements, a peotic documentary by Dutch filmmaker Jiska Rickels.

This four-episodic documentary is about man's struggle with the primordial elements (Water, Fire, Earth & Air).

Fire episode shows Russian firemen efforts in extinguishing fire in Siberian woods. In Water episode, the fish men in Alaska are trying to catch lobsters.
  
The Earth episode, which is the shortened version of a film by this director when he was a student, is the story of two German miners and the last episode, Air, talks about the astronauts' efforts in reaching an International space station.
 
Air episode is the part of 4 Elements and shows the result of the film.

The complete schedule of IDFA, the most important event in documentary cinema, would be announced soon.

The two definite parts of this festival till now are Top Ten section in which some films selected by Alan Berliner, the American documentary filmmaker, would be shown and also showing documentaries about China in the themed section of this festival.

The 19th edition of IDFA is going to be held from 23 November - 3 December 2006.