Thumbs up for Morgan Knibbe - Those Who Feel the Fire Burning nominated at IDFA

Morgan Knibbe doesn't do that badly at all. Graduated from the Film Academy two years ago, already on par with the world's best documentary makers at IDFA. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning is his unconventional portrayal of the world of refugees who ventured across to Europe. Now nominated for IDFA's top prize, the award for best feature-length documentary.

The subject did not come out of the blue. His Locarno award-winning short film Shipwreck and another short film he shot in Greece even before graduating were already preliminary studies of sorts. It all has to do with his frustration with the superficiality with which this subject is usually discussed in the media.

"You read something about a shipwreck and victims far away, but it stays at a distance, it doesn't do anything to you. My ambition was to make something that allows us to really experience what it feels like, what that experience is like. It is also a subject in which many current problems converge. They run away and try to achieve a better world, we try to keep them out. That imbalance remains. That touches me. I want to convey their experience without attaching a political or moral judgement to it."

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What is striking is the free form that draws the viewer into a kind of stream of images. From dazzling aerial shots to scenes where we get oppressively close. "It seems free because it is different from what we are used to. But we actually filmed according to a very rigid concept of form. Everything is in line with the metaphor we used. We see everything from the point of view of the ghost of a drowned refugee who now wanders among the survivors. A dark film set in a kind of purgatory. The editing is as invisible as possible. It is always like flying from one scene to another. You impose restrictions on yourself as a filmmaker with that, but through that restriction you find freedom again."

On Friday night, IDFA will announce the winners. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning will be released in cinemas during next year. Don't miss it.