Photo: Courtesy of West Lake International Documentary Festival

The 7th West Lake International Documentary Festival (IDF), which ran from Friday to Sunday, was held in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, by the China Academy of Art (CAA).

According to CAA, IDF, which also stands for I Documentary Fact, aims to explore the relationship among creative subjects, methods and interviewees. As a platform for documentary film, it integrates documentary evaluation, screening, forums, proposals and workshops.

Xu Xiaoming, dean of the School of Film Art at the China Academy of Art, said, "Since its very beginning, IDF has paid attention to current contemporary and social contexts, individual lives and inner states as well as China's aesthetics. The theme of this year's event is 'Co-existence.'"

The screening section will bring 44 documentaries and 42 after-screening talks to seven spots across the city. The academic section includes five events for exchanges, talks and lectures.  

The IDF Competition aims to discover and award "documentary makers with attitude" and "documentary works with warmth," and promote and encourage documentary filmmakers to explore and persevere on the road of creative growth. This IDF received a total of 613 applications from 92 countries and regions. After preliminary and re-evaluation, a total of 15 documentaries stood out and were finally shortlisted for the IDF Competition.