Nick Cunningham

Dok.incubator director Andrea Prenghyová discusses her high-end professional programme, its raison d’etre and modus operandi, as well as its presence at IDFA, centering on the November 12 showcase of seven new projects. “There are many good films, but we help people to make their films outstanding,” she tells Business Doc Europe of the eight filmmaker teams selected each year.

“Being dead is BOOM,” says one kid in Sara van Oostrum’s very touching short doc about death, receiving its international premiere at IDFA. Another kid opines how, “when you’re dead you don’t fart anymore, and your heart stops beating.” Other children reflect on their very painful experiences of the passing of grandparents, and some older participants talk movingly about their late partners. The director tells BDE why she made her new doc.

There can be few documentaries that make their point as succinctly, or indeed as persuasively, as Sarah Vos’ White Balls on Walls, world-premiering November 11 at IDFA. It is a film very much of the time in which we are living, that tackles head on the subject of ethnic and gender diversity, or rather the lack of it, both within the board room and within the culture we consume.

Czech sales company Filmotor arrives at IDFA with a slate of award-winning festival films and the international premiere of the home-grown Art Talent Show (A. Komrzy & T. Bojar, Luminous), which picked up the Fipresci prize at Karlovy Vary and sales to Slovakia and the US (Film Movement). The Peruvan title Steel Life is selected for Best of Fests. Both titles join Laura Sistero’s Tolyatti Adrift in Docs for Sale.

“It's about diversity, inclusion and making sure that people find the way to connect to their audiences and articulate their very personal artistic voices,” Industry Head Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen explains to BDE of the offer to professionals on the eve of IDFA 2022. “We really want to be influential when it comes to exploring new ways of storytelling.”

IDFA 2022 opened November 9 with Niki Padidar’s All You See at Amsterdam's prestigious Royal Carré Theater. The film was simultaneously screened at 35 theaters throughout the Netherlands. During the opening ceremony, the €50,000 Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Stipend was awarded to media artist and filmmaker Pim Zwier.

The 35th IDFA kicks off today, 9 November, running through to November 20, presenting an official selection of 277 films from all corners of the globe, and most places in-between. “If I am to summarize what I hope our impact would be like, that would probably be to evoke self-reflection and openness towards the Other,” Creative Director Orwa Nyrabia tells BDE. “In daily arguments we’re always defensive, but in the dark room, with a good film, we can actually lose our defenses, and be honest with ourselves.”

Anneke de Lind van Wijngaarden discusses her affectionate portrait of a favoured aunt who, during her final years, succumbed little by little to dementia. The portrait is funny, touching and very personal. At one point, when tasting a delicious morsel Ria remarks how it is “even better than an orgasm,” a phrase that the director claims her aunt was happy to resort to even when having her toe nails clipped.

The European Film Academy announced November 8 the five documentary nominees in the European Documentary category of the 35th European Film Awards. The award ceremony takes place on 10 December in Reykjavík and will “celebrate the best of European Film culture.”

The Australian International Documentary Conference has announced its the first confirmed guests - including Sara Dosa, Shaunak Sen and Rita Baghdadi – as well as the theme for its 2023 conference: Agents of Change. AIDC 2023 will take place in-person from 5-8 March at ACMI, Melbourne, followed by an online international marketplace, running 9-11 March.