IDFA 2023

Louisiana Mees-Fongang’s feature doc debut concerns 15 unaccompanied minors living in a community centre who arrived in Belgium as refugees. “Part of their reality is complex and hard. They had tough moments. But, at the same time, they’re young, active and full of energy and potential. This is also something I really found important to show,” the director tells Business Doc Europe.

IDFA announced October 18 that A Picture to Remember by Olga Chernykh will open the festival in 2023, an unveiled the selections for the Envision and International Competitions, the entire IDFA DocLab program and the nominations for all cross-section awards. The official selection of more than 250 titles is now complete. The 36th edition of IDFA takes place in Amsterdam from November 8 to 19.

The film, which world-premiered in IDFA Envision section November 10, concerns recent archaeological findings in southern Portugal which reveal Portugal's forgotten role in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people. “We're proud to be part of a project that sparks important conversations and helps us understand our shared history better,” says CEO Irena Taskowski, whose company celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2023.

What is death? This is one of the questions asked in Ömer Sami’s wry new documentary Eternal Father, about Nasar Ghafoor, a Virgin Media engineer from Rochdale who wants to live forever. Dying is defined in many different ways: clinical and legal among them. Some, including Nasar, refuse to accept these definitions. The director explains more to BDE.

IDFA paid tribute this week to NFTS doc luminary Dick Fontaine, who died unexpectedly last month, with a screening of his 1982 film I Heard It Through The Grapevine, which features author James Baldwin. “It was the most sudden news because we wanted to celebrate Dick Fontaine. We planned to invite him and have him with us - but then he passed away,” IDFA director Orwa Nyrabia tells Business Doc Europe. “It [the screening] became much more like a posthumous tribute, a way of raising our hat to him.”

US director Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land, The First Wave) was in Amsterdam during IDFA this weekend. He gave a Q&A following a Soho House screening of his new feature doc American Symphony (available globally on Netflix on 29 November) that follows the Grammy and Oscar winning musical maestro Jon Batiste as he composes a major new work. Heineman also spoke to Business Doc Europe about the film.

Vita Maria Drygas’ Danger Zone is described as “a front-row, unfiltered, look at the global war tourism industry,” a film in which its subjects prefer being in the most lethal conflict zones to lounging on the beach. “The most important thing that drove me to the subject, it wasn’t to tell the story of these particular characters. I really thought it was more universal - that the subject shows the condition of our world. It was for me like a mirror of our times,” Drygas tells BDE.

IDFA 2023 opening film A Picture to Remember by Olga Chernykh has been acquired for world sales by Stranger Films Sales (France). The film will world premiere in IDFA’s Envision competition and marks the first time a Ukrainian film will open the Amsterdam-based fest. “We firmly believe in the therapeutic potential of documentaries like this,” says Stranger Films Sales’ Tijana Djukic.

IDFA staff posted an onsite message November 12 which looked to reach out to the aggrieved parties affected by the events of the opening night when protesters took to the stage to present to display a ‘from the river to the sea’ banner.

Last year, filmmaker Niki Padidar opened IDFA with All You See. This year she is back as Curator of the festival’s Youth Competition. “With adults, you can get away with using big words and metaphors that nobody understands and won’t admit they don’t. But with children, they will never put up with that! They challenge you to be really good at what you do - and when you reach them, it is really rewarding,” she says of her target audience.