Short Film News (SFN) - French director Gonzalo Arijon's Stranded won VPRO Joris Ivens Award Saturday at closing ceremony of the 20th Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA).

The documentary details the 1972 plane crash in the Andes Mountains which saw survivors reduced to eating the flesh of fellow passengers to survive, and features interviews with survivors for the first time.

The jury of the Joris Ivens Competition also awarded a Special Jury Prize to Kim Longinotto for Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, which focuses on the day to day life at a school for dysfunctional children.

To See If I'm Smiling by Tamar Yarom, about the experiences of young women in the Israeli army in the territories occupied by Israel received the Silver Wolf Award.

In the Silver Cub Competition, for documentaries up to 30 minutes, The Tailor by Oscar Perez from Spain won the top award, while the First Appearance Award went to Robert Nugent's End of the Rainbow.

The first IDFA Student Award which presented by Heddy Honigmann, went to Elina Hirvonen for Paradise - Three Journeys in This World from Finland.

This year, the festival audiences cast more than 32,000 votes for the films and eventually, To See If I'm Smiling won the Volkskrant Audience Award.

At the ceremony, Festival director Ally Derks presented an award to Hupert Sauper, acclaimed director of Darwin's Nightmare. To mark the twentieth year of the festival's existence, the public chose the twenty best documentaries from the past twenty years, whereby Darwin's Nightmare was the first public choice.

IDFA that kicked off 22 November by Richard Robbins' Operation Homecoming screened about 320 films in this edition.