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.

A space to sit and work, and to take meetings. Open to all IDFA attendees.

Docs for Sale is IDFA's sales market and distribution market incubator for creative documentary cinema. Visit Docs for Sale website for more information.

Docs for Sale is IDFA's sales market and distribution market incubator for creative documentary cinema. Visit Docs for Sale website for more information.

In her relentless search for her father whose body has never been found, a daughter is forced to face her deepest grief as she uncovers painful truths and the unending cycle of political violence consuming the Philippines.

A hard-hitting investigation by Rafael Guendelman, whose family has both Jewish and Palestinian roots. The deeper he digs, the clearer it becomes that large parts of history have been deliberately suppressed and erased.

A dedicated space for IDFA passholders to take a break and connect with one another. A perfect spot to schedule a meeting and exchange ideas with fellow IDFA guests. 

A loving ode to the resilience and solidarity of the inhabitants of a mountain village annihilated during the civil war in El Salvador. Nevertheless, many of the surviving former residents returned after 12 years of war to rebuild the village.

De Volkskrant’s film editor Bor Beekman and media and culture reporter Aimée Kiene present highlights from the festival in a full day program in which their personal choices guarantee a unique cross-section of IDFA. 

There seem to be many channels for distributing a documentary film, but it will face a huge amount of competing content. This is why pinpointing your audience and finding a way to reach and expand it is crucial – this is what Jolt's new tool offers. 

This hour-long session is conducted with a small number of participants, creating networking opportunities and time to ask Kenji Sekine questions about United People.

A panel of experts give feedback on participants’ presentations and trailers.

During this screening, the film The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner will be followed by Belovy.

In Canada, winter ice is freezing later and later, and polar bears are increasingly seeking food in populated areas. The Canadian government relocates the problem by moving the animals to areas inhabited by Inuit people.

The residents of an idyllic corner of Italy are struggling with the effects of mass tourism as it overwhelms their villages. The camera captures all the complications with warmth, humor, and an eye for detail.

K-DOCS Pitch presents eight Korean feature documentaries in development, selected by K-DOCS and EIDF Industry. Each team pitches to international decision-makers, then meets one-on-one to find partners for co-production and distribution.

In the emergency room of a hospital in Paris, Depardon delicately films the distressing conversations between the staff and people who have run amuck in the anonymous big city and who cannot or can hardly hold out.

Mietta, a retired judge in Milan, welcomes her longtime friend Ibu, originally from Senegal, into her home. When Ibu’s pregnant wife later joins them, an unusual and complex living arrangement takes shape.

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.

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.

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.

In the remote highlands of Montenegro, a shepherd fights to preserve an unspoiled landscape. Meanwhile, her foster daughter is growing into a young woman determined to break a cycle of domestic violence that has lasted for generations.

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.

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.

Essay film about the non-Western oil-producing states that joined forces in 1960 to form the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The album Rhymes and Songs for OPEC, released to mark the organization’s 20th anniversary, serves as the guiding thread.

Bridging the voices of EU-supported aid workers and communities affected by crises, The Sound of Hope is a story of resilience and human connection.

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.

When in 1990 plans are made to build a golf course on land sacred to the Mohawk people, their resistance holds out for 78 days despite the authorities’ disproportionate use of force. This award-winning documentary closely follows the historic occupation.

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.

This hour-long session is conducted with a small number of participants, creating networking opportunities and time to ask Wendy Bernfeld questions about content strategy and opportunities in the international VoD/digital/streaming sector, going beyond just the ‘big 5’ Netflix/Amazon types.

Filmmaker Mahsa Karampour takes a road trip with her brother Siavash, an underground punk musician who fled Iran. Separated by exile and marked by the deaths of their father and his bandmates, as well as the recent war, they seek a way back to each other.

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.

Dutch Association of Editors (NCE) and IDFA proudly present an international masterclass with filmmaker Viv Li and editor Christoph Bargfrede. They will unravel the editing process behind  the success of Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest. 

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.

This session will dive into different paths for international producers to work with ARTE.

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

Round table meetings with professionals working in funding.

It’s 2023, and a US union representing transportation and warehouse workers is preparing to strike alongside 340,000 UPS employees. Their workload has been increasing faster than their wages, but some are still unsure whether to join the strike.

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.

Renowned filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer shares his creative approach to documentary cinema including his latest short film presented at IDFA.  

Discover five compelling documentaries in progress from Northern Norway. Bold, personal and distinctly different, these films offer fresh perspectives on the world – and are ready to connect with international audiences.

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.

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.

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.

This hour-long session is conducted with a small number of participants, creating networking opportunities and time to ask Rebecca Day questions about Film in Mind.

Richly textured music film in which 11 artists enter into a dialogue with the architecture, raw acoustics, and history of a huge concrete Dome on Oscar Niemeyer’s unfinished exhibition site in Tripoli.

Time and space are territories shaped by power, memory, technology, and imagination. This Playroom brings projects that use technology to question how space and time affect eachother, how they are mapped, remembered, governed and (re)imagined.

French-Chilean filmmaker, writer, and political activist Carmen Castillo breaks a 50-year silence surrounding the political and personal events that profoundly shaped her life and that of her children.

From the basketball courts of Kingston to Mumbai’s fashion scene and Montreal’s Haitian cinema underground, this showcase presents eight new documentaries from Canadian and Indigenous filmmakers.

Round table meetings with renowned professionals.

Round table meetings with renowned professionals.

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.

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

When does a documentary film become an act of resistance? From revolutionary archives to citizen footage and courtroom records, Sofia Bordenave, Laura Poitras, and Mohanad Yaqubi explore how cinema can challenge power beyond documenting abuse.

Based on a Japanese writer’s text and local testimonies, using hypnotic imagery and an eerie soundscape, experimental Brazilian filmmaker Ana Vaz attempts to capture the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

An Indian film student writes letters to her forbidden lover. Her pain, dreams, and observations about the changing political climate reflect those of many of her fellow students. Fact and fiction intertwine in this Cannes award-winning film.

When ski mountaineer Jim Morrison loses his partner Hilaree Nelson during a descent, her death only strengthens his resolve to ski down the world’s highest mountain. But Mount Everest doesn’t give in easily.

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

The distinctive collages of artist Romare Bearden (1911–1988) captured the African American experience with dynamism and a grounded perspective.

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.

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. 

In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, childhood ends abruptly. Zahra and Zalgai, both twelve, are still enjoying their youth for now, with a children’s circus as their playground and refuge. But when they turn fourteen, everything will change.

Five strangers meet at a retreat, each hiding a loss of religious faith that jeopardizes family, community and security. Inspired by music and kinship, the "Heathens" resolve to reclaim their lives, and return home to learn what the truth will cost.

Should they embrace a traditional rural life or leave for the city? Three young men, lifelong friends, in an Armenian community in southern Georgia are torn between their own dreams and the expectations of home.

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.

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

Join fellow IDFA passholders at the daily Guests Meet Guests drinks to make new connections, catch up with colleagues, share experiences and stay up to date with everything happening at the festival in a relaxed setting.

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.

Decades after the execution of poet and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, oil extraction still ravages Nigeria. His friend and comrade Nnimmo Bassey inspires a new generation of poets to fight repression and environmental destruction caused by oil companies.

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.

Palestinian filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi enters into dialogue with the militant films made by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab (1948–2019) in countries including Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran. In them, he rediscovers the hope he thought he had lost.

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.

Is he a visionary savior or a cunning con artist? This unsparing portrait of Elon Musk depicts the businessman as someone who is indifferent to the human cost of his grand ambitions.

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

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.

A psychiatric ward in a Paris suburb is threatened with closure. Director Mehran Tamadon persuades the medical staff to experiment. Can the patients take over some of the staff’s tasks? And is all that sedation really necessary?

Following his father’s death, Louis HotHotHot turns the camera on his mother and sister in China. With fearless affection, he explores how misogyny has affected the lives of the women in his family across generations.

How should prisoners be treated? And to what extent does reality correspond to what you are taught at school? Trainees at the Administration Pénitentiaire school in France learn more and more about the moral minefield of their work.

In Mali, Sékou Timité wants to become a djeli like his father, a storyteller. He embarks on a journey to seek out master storytellers, while also grappling with the demands of modern times.

In January 2025, devastating wildfires broke out across Los Angeles County. In static, extended shots, we watch the disaster unfold before us. A powerful documentary about the consequences of increasingly extreme weather.

Argentine truck drivers live in their cabs as if on quiet islands in a hypnotic mosaic poised between fiction and nonfiction. A meditative series of glimpses into lives we would normally pass by without a second thought.

From documentary to the dance floor! Grab a drink, join the party, and celebrate at the IDFA Dance Night. Great music, fantastic vibes, and celebratory festival energy. IDFA Dance Night is the afterparty for everyone! Access is free.

As the Jordanian capital Amman continues to encroach on their home, an Afro-Palestinian Bedouin family faces an impossible dilemma. Three generations each fight their own battle to survive in a relentlessly changing world.

Scenes of protests being brutally suppressed and testimonies from people persecuted for political reasons paint a compelling picture of the ruthlessness with which Aleksandr Lukashenko’s dictatorial regime in Belarus suppresses dissent.

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?

Amid the chaos of the civil war in Syria, a Syrian activist-cameraman provides footage to a Lebanese journalist living in London. A story about love in times of war, revolution, and exile, and an award-winner at festivals including Sundance.