Innovative American documentary filmmaker Alan Berliner will be a Special Guest of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (idfa), the leading showcase and market for non-fiction film. The Festival, which brings together film, television and industry professionals, as well as a local enthusiastic audience, opens on November 23 in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Berliner has been chosen as a Master of Documentary and will give a special lecture on his varied film career. Those familiar with the director's brand of dry wit and piercing humor will be in for a treat.

For the past twenty years, Berliner has carved an interesting niche of documentaries that serve as "personal essays" on the universal subjects of love, family, career and finding one's place in a chaotic, demanding world. Some of his most celebrated films include THE FAMILY ALBUM (1986), where the filmmaker attempts to find some essential truths in the scratched and out of focus home movies of his upbringing; INTIMATE STRANGER (1992), a portrait of Berliner's maternal grandfather; NOBODY'S BUSINESS (1996), the filmmaker's paen to his outspoken father; and the surrealistic THE SWEETEST SOUND (2001), where Berliner assembled a group of people who all shared his first and last name, and just let the sparks fly.

His latest film WIDE AWAKE (2006) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was a big hit on the film festival circuit. The film details a common urban dilemma: insomnia. The filmmaker has suffered from sleep disorders since he was a child. This illuminating film illuminates the filmmaker's neurosis and the reaction it causes with his wife, mother and siblings. Berliner has the great gift of being universal when he is most specific. WIDE AWAKE also screens at the Festival, along with a retrospective of Berliner's films.

In addition to documentaries, Berliner also makes installations and short experimental films. In his career, the celebrated documentarian has won major awards at the Berlin, Nyon, San Francisco, Sundance, Florida and Taos film festivals, as well as winning an International Documentary Association Award.

As an added honor, Berliner will present his Top Ten documentary favorites, which includes several quirky choices. Berliner joins a distinguished line of documentarians who were asked to curate a Top Ten list, including such seminal filmmakers as: Krzysztof Kieslowski (1989), Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (1990), Agnès Varda (1991), Robert Kramer (1992), Johan van der Keuken (1994), Barbara Kopple (1995), D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus (1997), Kazuo Hara (1998), Werner Herzog (1999), Michael Apted (2000), Walter Salles and Joao Moreira Salles (2002), Jannie Langbroek (2004) and Hany Abu-Assad (2005).

Sandy Mandelberger
Online Festival Dailies Editor