Johan Grimonprez, the critically acclaimed director of Sundance-winning Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, will be Guest of Honour at IDFA 2024, taking place November 14 to 24. The festival also announced September 11 its new Dead Angle programme, a dedicated Spotlight on Cuba, and first titles within IDFA on Stage and IDFA DocLab sections.
Guest of Honour Johan Gimonprez: Top 10 and Retrospective
IDFA 2024 Guest of Honour Johan Gimonprez’s most recent film Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, which won the Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation at Sundance 2024, unravels the decolonization of Congo, using jazz as a smokescreen and means of protest in the examination of the international context behind the 1961 murder of Congo’s prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.
“IDFA will be highlighting [Gimonprez’s] uncompromising approach to challenging narratives and reinterpreting historical events through a critical, contemporary lens,” the festival underlines.
Grimonprez first gained international acclaim with his 1997 film dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, which examined the history of airplane hijackings and the media’s role in shaping public perception. Other Grimonprez films screening in Amsterdam include Double Take (2009), Shadow World (2016) and Blue Orchids (2017).
“With this retrospective, IDFA invites audiences to discover and reflect on Grimonprez’s singular exploration into the development of present-day media, from how world crises are represented to our own relationships to these platforms and technologies,” the festival writes.
IDFA will soon announce Grimonprez’s full Top 10 selection. Additionally, the Belgian director will be the subject of the festival’s centrepiece Talk.
Dead Angle: Borders
In 2024, IDFA will introduce the multi-year curated program Dead Angle. “The program presents an ongoing exploration into our blind spots, both past and present – using documentary cinema as a torch to illuminate the dark corners of our awareness,” the festival writes. “This year’s program delves into the complex symbolism of borders, exploring them not just as physical barriers, but as profound metaphors for identity, community, and the human condition.”
Confirmed titles include The Great Wall by Tadhg O’Sullivan, an essay film that maps the borders around Europe in light of the migration crisis, based on a short story by Franz Kafka. In Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel by Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan, the Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers travel along the 1967 partition lines that divided Palestine, exploring how people evoke the frontiers that separate them from their neighbours.
“By reflecting on how documentary filmmakers approach these simple yet complex territorial perimeters, the program will invite the audiences and artists to engage in meaningful discussion and nurture critical awareness,” IDFA writes. Nine film have been announced* (scroll down). The complete list of Borders titles will be confirmed on October 15.
Spotlight on Cuba
The 19-film Spotlight on Cuba programme will invite audiences and industry to revisit the complex political history of Cuba. With a retrospective of the pioneering Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez, alongside a curation of films made by students of the EICTV (International Film and TV School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba), the program “will explore the paradoxes of our perception of Cuba as both revolutionary utopia and dystopia.”
“The program also offers a glimpse into the ways these students exercise artistic freedom in one of the world’s most distinguished film schools,” IDFA adds. Scroll down to see the 19 titles** that make up the programme.
IDFA on Stage
With “its most collaborative edition to date,” the IDFA on Stage selection presents its “boundary-breaking” and interdisciplinary program of live cinema events. Bridging film, new media, and the performing arts, highlights include two projects presented together with IDFA DocLab—the innovative performance Thanks for Being Here by Belgian theater group Ontroerend Goed, presented together with De Brakke Grond, and live performance Drinking Brecht by New York and Istanbul-based artist Sister Sylvester that puts microbiology into the mix. The full program IDFA on Stage program will be announced in October.
IDFA DocLab
The 18th edition of IDFA’s pioneering new media program IDFA DocLab has confirmed the first titles set to premiere at its immersive documentary art exhibition, this year presented at De Brakke Grond, ARTIS-Planetarium, and the newly added location, Droog. These first announced titles are the works of the four winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant*** (scroll down), ranging from augmented reality apps to immersive installations. The full IDFA DocLab program selection will be announced in October.
Further announcements
Program announcements will follow throughout September and October. The final competition titles and full program will be announced on Tuesday, October 15, during the IDFA 2024 press conference—available to stream online at idfa.nl.
Dead Angle: Borders program*
- Would You Have Sex with an Arab?, directed by Yolande Zauberman
- Respite, directed by Harun Farocki
- Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel, directed by Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan
- Black Harvest, directed by Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson
- Infiltrators, directed by Khaled Jarrar
- There Are So Many Things Still to Say, directed by Omar Amiralay
- Jakub, directed by Jana Ševčíková
- The Great Wall, directed by Tadhg O’Sullivan
- The Diary of a Sky, directed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Spotlight on Cuba program**
- Guanabacoa: Crónicas de mi familia, directed by Sara Gómez
- Isla, directed by Marcos Pimentel
- Los viejos heraldos, directed by Luis Alejandro Yero
- Isla del Tesoro, directed by Sara Gómez
- Los niños lobo, directed by Otávio Almeida
- Y… temenos sabor, directed by Sara Gómez
- Si no puedo bailar, esta no es mi revolución, directed by Lillah Halla
- Sobre horas extras y trabajo voluntario, directed by Sara Gómez
- La despedida, directed by Alejandro Alonso Estrella
- La bonita, directed by María del Mar Rosario
- De bateyes, directed by Sara Gómez
- Abecé, directed by Diana Montero
- Una isla para Miguel, directed by Sara Gómez
- Iré a Santiago, directed by Sara Gómez
- El árbol, directed by Roya Eshraghi Safaifard
- El enemigo, directed by Matias Aldemar
- De cierta manera, directed by Sara Gómez
- Indicios, del inscrito, directed by Rafael Ramírez
- Mi aporte, directed by Sara Gómez
Winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant***
- Töngö Sondi by Ruben Cabenda
- The Liminal by Alaa Minawi
- Future Botanica by Marcel van Brakel, Hazal Ertürkan from Polymorf
- Me, a Depiction by Lisa Schamlé
