With around 220 documentaries (of which 90 are premieres) and an estimated 165 000 visitors, this year’s IDFA will quite likely improve on the success of previous editions. But with the increasing media exposure experienced by the general public and the escalating attraction documentaries are manifesting towards other media, we’re left wondering whether the truth is, unconsciously, becoming too difficult for spectators to digest.

Take for instance Janus Metz’s Armadillo, winner of this year’s Cannes Critic’s Week and part of IDFA’s Reflecting Images: Best of Fests section. The film crew follows a group of young soldiers volunteering for a 6-month training in camp Armadillo, Afghanistan. There they have to learn how to handle not only the conflicts with the Taliban but also the frustration and anxiety that war induces upon their lives. Are we still able to really understand the gravity of the situation, that these young teenagers are turning into cynical soldiers? Or are the news-flash headlines we’re so used to, concerning the war in Iraq, terrorists and bombed cities, blocking any type of emotional engagement? And if the beautiful cinematography and dramatic editing do manage to make us connect with the young soldiers, isn’t Armadillo’s fiction-inspired filmmaking style going to make us believe the film is like any regular Hollywood blockbuster war movie? Are we still able to “see” that the blood is not paint, the bullets are not blanks, the filming crew is not safe, and the dead are actually gone forever?

We could pose similar questions about You Don’t Like the Truth - 4 Days inside Guantánamo, directed by Patricio Henriquez and Luc Cote, which is selected for IDFA’s feature-length competition. The story is focused on a series of interrogations performed by the Canadian Intelligence Service in the Guantanamo Bay prison, filmed by security cameras. The suspect is 16-year-old Omar Khadr, a Canadian Afghani citizen accused by Washington officials of killing an American soldier. Again we have to ask ourselves whether the multitude of TV series based on crimes and interrogations (e.g. Law and Order, Criminal Minds CSI, NCIS and their spin-offs) have completely damaged our perception, or if we can still regard this film as different, true and thus more serious.

What’s even more worrying is that after watching both movies we don’t attempt to know for sure what is right and wrong, who is guilty or innocent. Another nasty habit inherited from TV series, in which everything is always solved.

Whether we’re still able to watch documentary films as they deserve to be watched remains an open question - one that only going as often as possible to the IDFA cinemas during the next two weeks might answer. Remember though to leave part of yourself at the entrance door together with the tickets, and try to view the films with fresh eyes, forgetting what you normally see on any day of the week.