What was the inspiration behind LIDF and why 2007?
The inspiration and the timing involved, like so many things, a fairly healthy dose of serendipity. The initial spur was quite simple, a recognition that film, and especially documentary film was being used ever more frequently within research and teaching contexts and that documentary film was also becoming for many people a primary source of information. This being so, we felt that perhaps it might be interesting to bring people together – academics, filmmakers, policy makers etc. to discuss the impact, the reception of this sort of material and see how those using the medium might benefit from each other’s expertise. This idea of a coming together, of a critical space, proved so popular that a momentum was developed, and eventually the right people merged with the ideas and the LIDF was born. However, behind this seemingly pragmatic development there do lie certain preoccupations that are raised frequently at our screenings, and represent a series of more focused questions that it i
