IDFA 26

Dutch-based Romanian director Raluca Lupaşcu discusses her feature debut about life within a vibrant Roma family in eastern Romania. “They are still holding to their traditions because they were so much persecuted in the past,” Lupaşcu underlines. “Throughout the history, they went from nomads to slaves, and from slaves to victims of the Holocaust. You have to understand their culture to understand where their fight for survival and behaviour comes from. Sometimes, tradition was the only thing they could hold on to.”

Vincent Sparreboom’s new feature documentary, world-premiering at IDFA, takes viewers to a sanatorium in Ukraine which offers brief respite to soldiers fighting on the front line. In his visual approach, the director was inspired by French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas who believed that if you look into the eyes of the other, you immediately feel a responsibility for their suffering. “That was the goal basically, to look behind the eyes and into the faces of the people who are fighting this war and to really take it in what is the cost of their sacrifice.”

Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo will be the Guest of Honour at IDFA 2026, which takes place from November 12 to 22. IDFA will present a Retrospective of Huezo’s work, alongside a personal Top 10 film selection. "Huezo's cinema is rooted in close observation and shaped by a highly attentive visual and sonic language—allowing memories and experience to surface through atmosphere and deeply personal stories,” the festival writes.

An obscure parliamentary sitting in the South Caucasus some 33 years ago might not seem the most obvious material for a feature documentary. Yet, in An Incomplete Day in the History of Georgia 10.06.93, Georgian filmmaker Salomé Jashi transforms deteriorating VHS recordings of a debate over the country’s new currency into a portrait of a state struggling to define itself. The 100-minute film, set to world premiere in IDFA’s International Competition, also carries uncomfortable echoes of Georgia’s political present. Director Jashi talks to Business Doc Europe.

The Dutch-based Chinese filmmaker discusses his latest feature documentary, The Year of the Ghost, the second film within his very personal trilogy telling of life in his family. It is a film in which animation is used very effectively. “Ghost stories are not just products of our imagination. They can also express a tender wish to soothe our wounds,” expresses HotHotHot. “Animation is one of the best ways to tell ghost stories, allowing me to explore my deepest fears and desires.”

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) announced October 13 the main competition line-ups for its 39th edition, running November 12 to 22. Newly unveiled selections include the International and Envision Competitions, Luminous, Frontlight, the IDFA DocLab competition selections, and the nominations for all cross-section awards. The IDFA 2026 official selection includes 253 titles from 80 countries and opens with the world premiere of White Tiger Column by Robert Mentov, Dwight Jantzi and Bryan Dickie.

Ava DuVernay’s new feature documentary explores how the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects birthright citizenship, has been under savage attack by President Trump and his acolytes. One point that the film underlines is how Confederate iconography remains embedded in US popular culture. “It’s our swastika,” she tells BDE. “In the American South, Black people really know what that means. It really is a silent warning of the hierarchy of this country.”