The nominees for this year's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Joris Ivens Award and $16,000 (Euros 12,500) have been announced.

  • Burma VJ - Reporting From a Closed Country by Anders Ostergaard;
  • Necrobusiness by Fredrik von Krusenstjerna, Richard Solarz and Monika Sieradzka; and
  • Yodok Stories by Andrzej Fidyk.

In the running for the $12,700(Euros 10,000) Silver Wolf competition prize for mid-length documentary are:

· Boris Ryzhy by Aliona van der Horst;

· Lady Kul el Arab by Ibtisam Mara'ana; and

· Love on Delivery by Janus Metz. The winner receives 10,000 Euros.

Online sales platform

Around 500 documentaries have been presented in the festival's 'Docs For Sale' market.

This year, Docs For Sale is offering an on line platform where documentaries can be viewed by accredited buyers, sales agents, producers and festival programmers all year round.

'We're frontrunners with this platform. We've been developing it for some time and many of the technical obstacles have been overcome. Now that broadband is available in most countries around the world, we're confident it will be a great platform', industry office chief Adriek Van Nieuwenhuyzen stated in an interview earlier this week.

Buzz titles

Among the films generating buzz have been:

· Let's Make Money by Erwin Wagenhoder, handled by Celluloid Dreams and already sold to Ad Vitam for France and Cineart for Benelux;

· The Age of Stupid , Franny Armstong's global warming doc, also sold by Celluloid;

· and Carmen Meets Borat, about the 17-year old Carmen from a Romanian village where an American film crew shot part of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, sold by Pieter Van Huystee Film.

The front-runners for the audience award are:

  • Persona Non Grata by Fabio Wuytack, sold by Vienna-based Autlook Film Sales; and
  • RIP: A Remix Manifesto by web activist Brett Gaylor's, exploring the concept of copyright in the era of Napster, Bit Torrent and peer-to-peer file sharing. This is represented by the National Film Board of Canada.

Also ranking high in both audience preferences and among the most viewed titles in docs for sale was Burma VJ, sold by First Hand Films and featuring footage from Burmese reporters working undercover during last year's uprising against Burma's military regime.

Several titles in IDFA's programme are expected to be selected for Sundance.

The IDFA winners will be announced at the closing ceremony November 28.