Nick Cunningham

Short and Youth Competition titles have been announced alongside Signed, Best of Fests and Paradocs selections. Over 100 films have now been added to the IDFA 2024 program, “showcasing a wide selection of works by both critically acclaimed filmmakers and exceptional newcomers,” organisers write. The 37th edition of IDFA runs from November 14 to 24 in Amsterdam.

She works behind the counter at a food market in Connecticut, but nobody knows that single mother Lhakpa Sherpa from Nepal has reached the summit of Mount Everest ten times. Nor that she has been the victim of domestic abuse. In the Netflix doc Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated director Lucy Walker tells the eponymous heroine’s story of perseverance, not only as a climber but as an immigrant and survivor. Walker discusses her film with Academy Award-winning James Marsh.

Richard Bachman was the pseudonym that Stephen King used for five novels up to 1985, and two more afterwards. To protect his own identity back then as the secret author of those books, King had to put flesh onto Bachman’s imaginary bones, and create a persuasive but nonetheless fictional narrative to support his invention. In his new film Max Eriksson tells this ‘true’ story of Bachman, in the process going “beyond the fragments, clues, myths, rumours, and hearsay” to build a “compelling visual story.”

Danish producer Kasper Lykke Schultz discusses his feature doc project about a man who has endured more orphanage placements than anyone in Denmark’s history. “Through writing his autobiography and confronting his past, Peer finds new purpose - not being the perpetual victim, but someone who can inspire others, especially past and present children in care, while challenging society to rethink its approach to both trauma healing and foster care,” Lykke Schultz tells BDE.

Karen Stokkendal Poulsen’s third feature tells of the nuclear agreement that Italian diplomat Federica Mogherini brokered between Iran and the West in 2015, only to see it torn up by Trump two years later, setting the world onto a treacherous road towards conflict. “The film addresses the urgency of political dialogue and diplomacy over polarization and ultimately armed conflict,” Danish producer Vibeke Vogel tells BDE.

In their dramatically titled feature doc project, Terese Mörnvik and Caroline Troedsson will take audiences on "a journey down the rabbit hole of involuntary celibates [incels], whose longing for love transforms into hate.”  “They [the incels] are men who normally hide in dark corners of the internet and only communicate in closed forums,” says producer Ove Rishøj Jensen of Malmö-based Auto Images. “But in our film, you get to meet them.”

“Lights will be a stylized and playful observational documentary where we follow an eclectic group of men in a remote exotic Norwegian valley famous for its mystical light phenomena,” Norwegian producer Christian Falch (UpNorth Film) tells BDE. “We follow the men in their search for answers to the unexplainable, possibly to find meaning in their own lives...It will NOT be a UFO film, it will be a human film.”

Directed by Marek Šulík, Ms. President is described as “time-lapse portrait of Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová.” The festival programme, extended this year from six to ten days (October 25 – November 3), will offer up new documentaries from across the world, retrospectives, the best of experimental filmmaking and a number of non-competitive programme sections. Industry runs October 29-November 1 2024.

The annual celebration of Nordic doc kicks off September 19 in Malmö (Sweden) with Zara Zerny’s Echo of You, one of 15 films selected for the event’s Best Nordic Documentary competition. Other key features of the packed event include the Nordisk Panorama Forum for new projects. “The strength of the Nordic documentary industry is no accident. It’s the product of a stable support system, good film schools, and a culture of creative producers willing to take risks on emerging talent,” Executive Director Heidi Christensen tells BDE.

Co-produced by ZDF/3sat, the documentary looks at the phenomenon of light from both scientific and artistic perspectives. “Thomas Riedelsheimer’s documentaries are a delightful celebration of light and sound,” says festival director Christoph Terhechte. “They sharpen our senses. Twenty years after opening our festival with ‘Touch the Sound’, we’re proud to be doing it again with Tracing Light.”