Short Film News - The American documentary filmmaker Alan Berliner will present his top 10 favorite documentaries in the 19th International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).

He has also been chosen as a Master of Documentary and will explain about his works in a special lecture.

Berliner is one of the most prominent and innovative independent filmmakers. He became famous with such films as The Family Album (1986), Intimate Stranger (1991), Nobody's Business (1996) and The Sweetest Sound (2001), which were screened at festivals worldwide, IDFA included.

In addition to documentaries, Berliner also makes installations and short experimental films. Humor, self-mockery and refined editing are the elements that make his latest film Wide Awake (2006) an audience favorite. The film, which is about Berliner's insomnia, will be screened at IDFA this year.

In a similar lecture, the Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky will also shed light on his films, methods and point of view. Almost all of Kossakovsky's films got their world premiere at IDFA. These include Belovy (1993), Tishe! (2002) and Svyato (2005).

Also, IDFA 2006 will screen about 15 documentaries from and about present-day China in its theme program, China Transit.
 
The films selected for the theme programme China Transit are about a country in transition in all respects and all of them are Chinese productions.