The IDFA organizers have picked 250 documentaries which will be shown in movie theatres around Amsterdam until December 4 from 2,000 submitted films.

Last year the festival welcomed almost 2,000 film professionals and sold over 120,000 tickets.

This year the IDFA has several themes. For the Green Screen section, it presents 17 documentaries about the environment and the relation between farmers and their land.

"The Real Dirt on Farmer John", winner of the Sundance festival audience award, shows how one American farmer reinvents himself as an eco-friendly grower and an artist.

French documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon will show his "Profils paysans: le quotidien", the second in his series about farmers in central France.

Depardon, a previous IDFA laureate, is being honoured this year with a retrospective that will run until February 5 and an exhibition of his photographs at the Dutch Museum of Photography in Rotterdam.

During the IDFA festival Depardon and his wife and producer Claudine Nougaret will give a special master class to filmmakers.

Another important theme in the IDFA selection is terrorism with documentaries focussing on Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq and Sudan with filmmakers often choosing a personal rather that a journalistic approach.

In "Our Own Private Bin Laden" the Iranian director Samira Goetschel tries to show Osama bin Laden, head of the Al-Qaeda terror group, as the result of a historical, political and economic evolution in the last century.

"Hamas, Behind the Mask" is a portrait of the one of the most controversial political organisations in the world.

During the festival there will be several public debates on terrorism and the media asking the question 'who is taking advantage of whom?'.

IDFA's opening film "Sisters in Law" shows West-African Muslim women fighting for their rights in court.

The film is part of another IDFA series which shows documentaries about the position of women in the developing world. In "The Zartale's Women's Journey", men and women in an Afghan village talk about the roles of men and women.

IDFA opens Thursday night with "Sisters in Law" and runs until December 4. Information about the festival can be found on its english language website www.idfa.nl.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.