SOME of the world's top documentaries will be screened during the Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) next month.

Among them are two award-winners from an event considered the best documentary showcase in the world ? the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)., by Dutch film-maker Leonard Retel Helmrich, and , by two-time Emmy winner Jonathan Stack, will both be featured at this year's event.

" won the grand jury prize at the IDFA in November, and last month captured the world cinema documentary grand prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival," a BIFF spokesperson said.

", by two-time Emmy winner Jonathan Stack, won a special jury prize at IDFA. Mr. Stack's film, , which screened at BIFF in 1998, won the grand jury prize at Sundance that year, and was nominated for an Academy Award."

The films will be featured in BIFF's World Cinema Showcase alongside four others: ; which won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at Sundance 2005; and , which won a special jury prize at Sundance as well as the grand prix award at the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film.

"The six films are very different," said BIFF deputy director Duncan Hall. "Even though politics plays a central role in each, they come at the subject from different angles. , and are deeply personal stories, whereas and are more overtly political. What they have in common however, is that they are among the best documentaries screening on the festival circuit."

q The eighth Bermuda International Film Festival will be held from March 18 through 24. Tickets go on sale online, Wednesday, March 2, at www.biff.bm. Tickets will also be on sale at the BIFF Front Room box office in the Number 1 Passenger Terminal, Front Street, as of March 5. The box office will remain open, Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., until March 23. Individual tickets are $10.