Latvian director Laila Pakalniņa's latest documentary 33 Animals of Santa Claus is listed among this year's competitors for the 24th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) award. The festival is running between November 16 to 27.

IDFA is one of the world's leading documentary film festivals, held annually in Amsterdam in November since 1988.

33 Animals of Santa Claus, this year's only representative of the Baltic region, is selected for the competition for mid-length documentary, along with productions from Australia, China, Poland, Russia, Serbia, the USA, and other countries.

The festival's programme contains 327 titles (from more than 3,600 submissions), including 88 documentaries that will have their world premières during the festival.

33 Animals of Santa Claus is a lovely story about aunty Līvija and her pets: 7 dogs, 6 cats, 2 rabbits, 1 crow, 1 pigeon, 1 chinchilla, 1 guinea pig, 10 degus, and some fish living on the 4th floor of an apartment house. The film was premiered at the Arsenāls Film festival in end-September.

Pakalniņa will also participate in the 2011 IDFA as a member of the jury for feature-length documentary competition.

Over the past 20 years Latvia has been represented at IDFA several times: Crossroad Street by Ivars Seleckis (1989, Grand Prix), Flashback by Herz Frank (2002), Bacon, butter, and my Mom by Ilze Burkovska-Jacobsen (2008), Family Instinct by Andris Gauja (2010).