IDFA 2022

At IDFA 2022, Amsterdam’s Royal Theatre Carré hosted a 90-minute conversation with Golden Lion, Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras (Flag Wars, Citizenfour, The Oath, My Country My Country, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed), moderated by IDFA’s artistic director, Orwa Nyrabia.

Eighty-one more titles have been added to the program, shaping “an increasingly international selection” that covers much of the globe,” say IDFA staff. Luminous and Frontlight are the two premiere-only cornerstones of the programme. The 35th edition of IDFA takes place in person from November 9 to 20.

Autlook boss Salma Abdalla outlines to Business Doc Europe the highlights of her IDFA 2022 slate, which includes the recent pick-up, My Name Is Happy, a world premiere in Frontlight and directed by Nick Read and Ayse Toprak; One In A Million, the new doc by Jack MacInnes and Iota Azzam, and three Oscar hopefuls, Three Minutes - A Lengthening, Myanmar Diaries and Sirens by Rita Baghdadi.

“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.

Apolonia, Apolonia wins Best Film in Int’l Comp, Manifesto wins Best Film in Envision Comp. Both awards are valued at €15,000. The IDFA Award for Best Directing (worth €5,000) in Int’l Competition goes to Simon Chambers for Much Ado About Dying (Ireland, United Kingdom) while the Best Editing nod in Int’l Comp Mario Steenbergen went to Journey Through Our World (The Netherlands). All awards…

The subjects of Maryam Ebrahimi’s Forum doc, produced by Stina Gardell of Swedish outfit Mantaray Film, are the Kurdish guerrillas who fought in the war against ISIS and Turkey. “I was wondering how these guerrillas, mostly women, can fight face to face with the most brutal men in the world, ISIS men. I wanted to be close to them and to see how they could get this power,” Ebrahimi tells BDE.

Khaled Jarrar’s documentary (a world premiere at IDFA) is a refugee story with a difference. The Palestinian artist and director joined a family fleeing the Syrian war on their nightmarish trip across Europe. He wasn’t a news reporter, exploiting their predicament for headlines. He was their friend, looking on at events with their eyes, sharing their hunger, cold and humiliation as well as their fury. He explains more to BDE.

A beautiful portrait of aging and loneliness, Simon Chambers’ Much Ado About Dying dwells on an often-tragicomic but warm relationship as filmmaker Chambers returns to London to grudgingly look after his Shakespeare-loving uncle, a former actor who has grown old and infirm but who still yearns for a diet of attention and applause that clearly he feels his nephew can provide.

It is tough to strike the right tonal balance when it comes to looking at the impact of poverty on the vulnerable in society, but while Łukasz Kowalski’s humour in his new doc may well be pitch-black at times, the Best of Fests film is also astutely compassionate as it dwells on staff and customers as they struggle to deal with their harsh lives.

“The name is Bond…James Bond.” “Hey, me too!” Paris-based sales outfit Reservoir Docs arrives at this year’s IDFA handling a Bond movie with a difference. Its new film The Other Fellow directed by Matthew Bauer explores just what it is like to share a name with the most popular spy in movie history. Company boss Anaïs Clanet gets shaken (but not stirred) with Business Doc Europe.