Short Film News (SFN) - The twentieth International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) will open with Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience by Richard Robbins.

This film which competes in the festival's Joris Ivens Competition, centres on the letters, poems, essays and diary fragments of American soldiers serving in Iraq.

According to the IDFA official website, In Operation Homecoming, descriptions by American solders are used to create a penetrating and detailed impression of the human aspect of the war in Iraq. At the same time, Robbins places these experiences within a broader context, by setting them alongside universal themes from war literature.

The film resulted in some 1,600 poems, letters, stories, diaries and essays, a number of which forms the heart of this film and the texts are read by actors, including Beau Bridges and Robert Duvall, as well as the authors themselves.

The Festival is going to be held from November 22 to December 2.