Visit the DocLab exhibition and discover new interactive documentary projects. Installations, VR, games, digital art, DocLab Playrooms, and special performances — all at De Brakke Grond. Free entry.

When actress-director Bárbara Mestanza sets out to find the man who sexually assaulted her and bring him to justice, she turns her trauma into art while confronting the question she can’t escape: why didn’t she do anything?

A Mongolian herdsman’s son tries to build a livelihood both as a livestock farmer on the grasslands of his native region and through an online presence, but as the years pass, he is forced to rethink his dreams.

Three young Afghan refugees spend a hot summer day by a Swiss river. Against a backdrop of lyrical landscapes and wild waters, a new law on migrant returns threatens their longing for a peaceful and secure existence.

Screening continuously at sex theatre Casa Rosso is a film about sexual pleasure in the digital age, created in collaboration with a group of international (cyber)sex workers, porn actors and their friends.

Book fifty minutes in the DocLab VR Gallery, with a headset reserved just for you. Choose from a curated selection of this year’s standout virtual reality experiences, from 360° films to interactive works.

Screening continuously at sex theatre Casa Rosso is a film about sexual pleasure in the digital age, created in collaboration with a group of international (cyber)sex workers, porn actors and their friends.

The construction of a highway in northwestern China causes a deep rift of opinion in a previously isolated village, splitting it in two. For four years, the filmmaker, who grew up in the village, follows the construction work and its consequences for the villagers, including his own family.

Screening continuously at sex theatre Casa Rosso is a film about sexual pleasure in the digital age, created in collaboration with a group of international (cyber)sex workers, porn actors and their friends.

Six projects in the final stages of production or at the rough cut stage will be presented to IDFA Forum and Docs for Sale professionals.

The wooden sailing yachts built at Brooklin Boat Yard are works of pure craftsmanship. This warm portrait of a companionable boatyard on the coast of Maine draws you into the life in and around the harbor.

Paul and Dan, a couple who spent ten years working illegally as cleaners in the Netherlands, return to the Philippines as a success story. But before long their plans begin to unravel, and they face a difficult choice. A love story.

On dance floors in Japan, Indonesia and the Netherlands, queer ravers celebrate the lives and works of Fumiko Hayashi, Suwarsih Djojopuspito and Beb Vuyk, female authors who challenged patriarchal and nationalist politics from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Impact producer Khadidja Benouataf and Hasse van Nunen guide you through the creation of an impact strategy for your own film.

Paul and Dan, a couple who spent ten years working illegally as cleaners in the Netherlands, return to the Philippines as a success story. But before long their plans begin to unravel, and they face a difficult choice. A love story.

A meditative forensic investigation into the exploitation of women workers on Dutch colonial rubber plantations, contrasting what was spoken and recorded with what was systematically concealed.

In this session, documentary and independent film distribution expert Jon Reiss outlines eight principles for creating a high-impact theatrical release, based on current, real-world case studies from the United States. 

Filmmaker Afsaneh Salari and Sales agent Maëlle Guenegues dive into their preparation and strategy for the release of a film.

An afternoon of round tables at the IDFA DocLab R&D Summit, bringing artists, researchers and industry leaders together to explore the future of immersive art and collaboration. Invite only.

Meticulously unearthing buried histories and their reverberations into the present; these evocative films perform an exhumation of repression and complicity.

A portrait of painter Peter Dumas, the father of photographer and filmmaker Charlotte Dumas, is interwoven with observations of her daughter Ivy as she grows up. The creative process connects their lives.

Twenty years after fleeing Afghanistan, a Hazara family in Pakistan must decide whether to stay together amid growing persecution or leave, separate from each other, knowing they may never meet again.

In the shadows of the International Chopin Piano Competition, the world’s most important piano contest, a group of expert tuners spend a month trying to achieve the perfect pitch.

Amsterdam-based collective Eastern Playgrounds brings together queer Asian voices for a conversation on family, belonging and diaspora, followed by karaoke — a space to let go, be loud and share joy.

In a chalet in the Ukrainian mountains, four women attend therapy sessions to recover from their very different, deeply traumatic experiences of the war. They each try, in their own way, to resume their former lives.

In-depth conversation with IDFA’s Guest of Honor 2026 Tatiana Huezo, moderated by IDFA’s Artistic Director, Isabel Arrate Fernandez.

The Grote Zaal is available for networking following IBF & IDFA Talent Presentations.

The fragility of the democratic process is laid bare in this document from the early days of independent Georgia. Video footage of a parliamentary session on 10 June 1993 shows Georgian politicians debating the introduction of a national currency.

The Bovenfoyer is available for you to network with other participants or industry professionals.

When Freddie Nole drives to meet a man walking out of prison, he’s not just offering a ride, he’s offering hope, dignity, and a path to permanent freedom.

This monumental portrait plunges you into the lives of a group of passionate young women who rank among Russia’s last independent journalists. They may now have fled the country, but no one can silence them.

A radio journalist travels to an Italian village in search of audio traces of a horrific event in her family history. Silence and all that remains unspoken take center stage in this deconstruction of the true-crime genre.

Producer and psychotherapist Rebecca Day opens a space to discuss and exchange how the filmmaker's role affects you and the protagonists, creatively and emotionally, through all stages of production.

Round table meetings with renowned professionals.

Round table meetings with renowned professionals.

How do you write a eulogy for a melted glacier? An Icelandic writer explores his family’s love of glaciers and the memory of his grandparents and the natural phenomena that connected them.

Using old home videos of her Colombian family celebrating the end of the previous millennium, a woman explores the connection between her mother’s sadness and the violent state of her country.

Past, present and future collide in these hybrid cinematic fables, exploring the transformative space between reality and fantasy as they drift through transcendent landscapes.

Fair co-productions are a recurring topic at IDFA. This session equips producers with concrete tools, budget strategies, and negotiation frameworks to build co-productions where value, not just money, and trustful collaboration take center stage. 

Long, observational shots of people and animals going about their activities in the landscape surrounding a gigantic, ever-growing landfill site prompt reflection on the traces we as humans leave behind on our planet.

Join IDFA Delegations Drinks and meet documentary professionals from nineteen delegations representing fifteen countries across five continents, alongside Dutch producers, for an informal evening of conversation and connection.

Guided by a prophetic dream, Gift travels through Niger, Algeria, and Tunisia on her way to Europe. This poetic film follows her struggle to stand on her own two feet and shows the personal cost of her dangerous search for a better life.

After his death, Thomas Heise’s longtime collaborators shaped his final, unfinished film project into a biographical testament, guided by Heise’s intellectual visual language and precise observations of modern-day Berlin.

Screening continuously at sex theatre Casa Rosso is a film about sexual pleasure in the digital age, created in collaboration with a group of international (cyber)sex workers, porn actors and their friends.

The Israeli town of Shlomi was built on the lands of the destroyed Palestinian village of Al-Bassa. Using personal archival material and intimate 16 mm footage, director Yuula Benivolski creates a study of memory and violence in her childhood home.

IDFA introduces a new series of conversations bringing together producers, film funds and institutions from around the world to explore ways of working together. Each session takes a closer look at the opportunities, challenges and practical realities of international documentary co-production, encouraging exchanges around existing funding structures, success stories, new partnerships and alternative routes for collaboration.

Join fellow artists, researchers and new media professionals for closing drinks after the DocLab R&D Summit. Continue conversations, exchange reflections on the programme and meet other participants in an informal setting.

All Docs for Sale and IDFA Forum passholders are invited to this daily Happy Hour. Thank you to Autlook Filmsales, Millennium Against Gravity, Rise and Shine World Sales and See NL for sponsoring the Happy Hours. 

IDFAcademy 2026 comes to an end with closing drinks.

Amid the ongoing struggle to preserve and sustain Palestinian narrative and cinematic continuity, the Palestine Film Institute (PFI) engages with international platforms such as IDFA as spaces for structured connection and collaboration.

The directors of these poignant films transform the endless stream of state-manufactured images of surveillance, protest and repression into creative reflections on trauma, disillusionment and the propaganda machine, using cinema as a form of poetic resistance.

This posthumous masterpiece by William Greaves, completed by his son David, captures a unique gathering at Duke Ellington’s home in 1972. It is a rare privilege to be present as the surviving icons of the Harlem Renaissance converse, laugh, and reminisce.

Unflinching and intimate portrait of Adelina, a transgender woman who leaves the Georgian village, where her parents kept her confined to the house, to build a life in the big city of Vienna. There, her glamorous expectations collide with harsh reality.

Ruslan Fedotov (Where Are We Headed) follows the course of the Dnieper to observe the lives of young people in Russia and Belarus, tracing how collective memory enters the lives and imagination of youth.

During this screening, the film They're Here will be followed by Masao Adachi Takes a Passport Photo.

In an intense and deeply personal family portrait with surreal elements, filmmaker Pepa Lubojacki explores the underlying causes of a pattern of addiction and mental health issues that run through her family.

Whose voices are missing from our history? The Invisible Woman takes us from 17th century archives to the present, and from VR to the opera stage. One-off preview of a live immersive opera in the making.

Actors recreate the experiences of former members of the Danish Faderhuset cult. Former members appear on-screen as advisers, sharing their experiences of the intimidation and manipulation they suffered at the hands of cult leaders.

Through reenacted scenes, the filmmaker reconstructs the final years of his father's life. For 20 years he had meticulously recorded all his daily activities and expenses with mathematical precision.

On one randomly selected night in July 2025, 40 professional camera operators and 300 members of the public filmed nocturnal life at more than 60 locations across Ukraine. The result is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a society at war.

An energetic portrait of Michael Greenberg, who disrupts events with the activist group Climate Defiance in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election. However grim the political climate may seem, these idealists remain stubbornly hopeful.

This multilayered, poetic film in three chapters, like a musical triptych, reflects a range of fundamental human feelings and mental states that war evokes without showing one image of violence.

Join us in celebrating Polish documentary films at IDFA 2026!. As part of Polish Docs PRO, the Krakow Film Foundation promotes Polish documentaries at international festivals and film markets, recommending them to festival programmers, sales agents and decision-makers. The project is co-financed by the Polish Film Institute.Hosted by Polish Docs PRO and the Wajda Film Centre

A major earthquake will occur along the San Andreas Fault in California sometime—that much is certain. But when? A free-associative road trip with mineral meditations about life on the edge, where tectonic plates collide.

A filmmaker completes medical training to work on the front lines in Ukraine. His diverse group of colleagues patch up the wounded in improvised operating rooms and reflect on war and sacrifice.

A glimpse into the creative mind of video artist Douglas Gordon, courtesy of filmmaker Finlay Pretsell. He engages in an empathetic dialogue with Gordon, who hijacks the directorial role in this unconventional portrait, peppering the film with confessions, insights, and blatant fabrications.

A portrait of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, told in his own words through never-before-seen archival footage. The film explores his art, activism, politics, family and sexuality, and whether the artist can still create change.

In diary-like form, jumping back and forth through space and time, bicultural filmmaker Viv Li searches for a home between traditional Beijing and queer Berlin, East and West, family and friends. A vivid self-portrait that moves between humor and tears.

In a small square in Mexico City, Haitian migrants live in a makeshift tent camp. This observational film follows three women whose daily life finds its own rhythm, despite the instability.

Punkie Johnson is loud, crude, and unapologetically herself. But with a breakthrough within reach, the question is whether mainstream audiences will embrace her too. An energetic, intimate portrait of a Black lesbian comedian with no intention of toning herself down.

Activists in Berlin push back against government repression surrounding pro-Palestine protests. Between protests, they channel their activism into rehearsing and performing the queer play The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions.

A playful, shared VR experience. A small group of people enter a virtual world together, where their bodies consist of points of light and connecting lines that continually form new relationships.

A radio journalist travels to an Italian village in search of audio traces of a horrific event in her family history. Silence and all that remains unspoken take center stage in this deconstruction of the true-crime genre.

Israeli filmmaker Anat Even returns to the kibbutz where Hamas sowed death and destruction on October 7, 2023. She documents the remains of her former home as well as the destruction of Gaza taking place on the other side of the barrier.

Every week, Bobby drives from Vienna to Salzburg and back, chatting with an assortment of ride-share passengers about family, friendship, migration, war, and death. This blend of documentary and road movie paints a portrait of contemporary Europe—and of Bobby.

With a photobook in hand and an accompanying soundtrack, you are guided through a distribution center controlled by algorithms. A power outage creates an unexpected opening for playfulness, humanity, and defiance.

Ten years after her acclaimed 2016 documentary 13th, Ava DuVernay views the long historical arc from Jim Crow to Donald Trump through the lens of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.

In addition to its VPRO Preview Day, the broadcaster also presents two specials screening at IDFA 2026. VPRO Cinema Live: The Siege of Paradise and VPRO Extra: De documentaire van de toekomst.

As the granddaughter of a Roma king, ten-year-old Nicoleta seems destined for a fairy-tale life. She will marry young and live in a palace. But looking at her grandmother, mother, and aunt, she also sees a traditional life constrained by patriarchy.

Following the final voyage of the enormous, ageing cruise ship Royal Splendor through the Three Gorges on the Yangtze, this meandering film explores the river as a living repository of memory.

By employing daring cinematic languages, these experimental films insist on the ongoing resistance of oppressed communities to refute colonial myths of absence, to subvert attempts at cultural assimilation and to oppose violent occupation.

Thirty-eight-year-old A Wen is a Chinese restaurant owner in Barcelona, a family man, and a former gangster. He is also the brother of filmmaker Xisi Sofia Ye Chen, who observes his struggle with this past and his search for help from Buddhist monks in China.

Celebrating the future of documentary storytelling. IDFA's markets will open this year's edition with drinks in Het Documentaire Paviljoen. Hosted by ITA – Italian Trade Agency and Doc/it

IDFA Club Night brings festival energy to the dancefloor with a line-up of house selectors known for their depth, warmth, and soul.  Open to all IDFA passholders.

During this screening The B-side of the Landscape will be followed by The Making of the Lure.

The camera films the screen tests of actors, while a second camera also records the director, and a third films the whole thing. Like the audience, the crew is caught in a no-man's land between fiction and non-fiction, accompanied by a jazz soundtrack.

Amid the rubble of societal destruction and personal collapse, these directors uncover moving stories of devastation, exile and hope.

Nine-year-old Sasha is put through rigorous training in aerial acrobatics at a circus in Ukraine. When the company flees the war and relocates to Budapest, not only are his surroundings changed, but also his motivation to perform.

In Brazil, bereaved families from different eras search for the remains of their loved ones and the truth about how they died. In old home movies, the dead come back to life. But even decades later, the authorities would rather keep the facts hidden.

Amid the bombardments in Gaza, journalist and new father Osama documents the daily devastation with his camera and smartphone. People try to preserve their resilience and hope as they search the rubble for food and solace.

During a confrontation in the forests of Argentine Patagonia, a young Mapuche activist was killed. The trial of those who shot him forms the backbone of a broader story about systemic state violence against the Indigenous population.

Women, muscle cars and global collapse: a fantastical vision of the apocalypse, featuring the art of Florentina Holzinger and an eclectic cast including musician Peaches.

After his wife dies, 64-year-old Patrice takes a new direction in life and transitions to living as Lilou. In this intimate family portrait of loss and healing, Tom Fontenille follows his father’s transition over a four-year period.

Shepherds belonging to a small group of nomadic Berbers in a desert in central Morocco are forced to give up their way of life to make way for a vast sustainable energy park. To them, it all feels reminiscent of earlier colonial practices.

During this screening, the film The Sacred Circle will be followed by The Last Season.