IDFA reveals main competition lineups and opening film for 36th edition

During today’s press conference, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam's (IDFA) artistic director Orwa Nyrabia reflected on the role of documentary film in response to urgent and devastating global affairs.

“Where journalism offers an immediate response or direct commentary to historical events as they unfold, documentary film offers a broader perspective. Documentary filmmakers have known and have told us that these terrible events were coming. No matter how atrocious, it is not a surprise. The signs were clear, and filmmakers integrated them into their films. Films that have been shown at IDFA recently and over the past 36 years of the festival’s life. Films that tell us and remind us that oppression breeds extremism. That the lack of hope breeds anger and violence. That violence breeds violence. That pains breeds pain. And that echoes over generations. The festival brings us together again. Let us listen better, so to break from our definitions of ourselves and our warring identities. Let us not get trapped in our own ideas and patterns. IDFA gives space for serious, responsible, and in-depth debate. The festival gives space to films and filmmakers to tell us how they see the world in their own subjective view and what they see for the future. I believe that things would have been much better if we had all listened more carefully. Let’s do that now, let’s have a festival and listen better, to honor all victims.”

Also during today’s press conference, IDFA announced A Picture to Remember by Olga Chernykh as the opening film to IDFA 2023, alongside the main competition lineups for the fast-approaching edition. Newly unveiled selections include the Envision and International Competitions, the entire IDFA DocLab program, and the nominations for all cross-section awards. As of today, the official selection of more than 250 titles is complete. The 36th edition of IDFA takes place in Amsterdam from November 8 to 19.

IDFA 2023 opens with the world premiere of A Picture to Remember by Olga Chernykh. The film presents a deeply personal and essay-style account of the ongoing war in Ukraine and its violent history, seen through the prism of three generations of women: Chernykh herself, her mother, and her grandmother. In a bid for connection and intimacy, the filmmaker uses old family films, recordings of conversations, and news reports to bridge the distance between her and her grandmother. The result is a kaleidoscopic and personal film that travels through time fluidly.

A Picture to Remember has been selected for the Envision Competition and received IDFA Bertha Fund support in 2023.

“This is a film by an independent filmmaker that is both personal and political. By building her film around three generations of women in her family, Chernykh carriers us to the daily experience of Ukrainians today. The director does not shy away from trying to build a cinematic world with fragile elements. The courage and originality of the film’s approach opens up to a much larger world view. That’s what place films like A Picture to Remember at the heart of IDFA,” said IDFA’s Artistic Director, Orwa Nyrabia.

The International Competition presents 11 films that explore contemporary conflict and turmoil through deeply personal experiences. Nine of the selected titles are world or international premieres. With seventeen countries represented, the selection takes us on a profound and human journey through the harsh realities of the most tumultuous conflicts of our time—from Gaza, Myanmar, to Nagorno-Karabakh. By revisiting archives and engaging in recent debates, several filmmakers take to the critical re-examination of our established recounts of history. With the ever-rising urgency of climate crisis, a number of selected filmmakers turn their attention to the rapidly unfolding consequences to our natural world.

The Envision Competition offers 12 unparalleled films, each of them stylistically arresting, as visionary filmmakers forge new cinematic languages. By refusing to abide to conventional film structures and embracing subjectivity, the films in this selection deviate from the widely established definition of documentary film. Several filmmakers are explicit in the constructing of their world view, each shaped by their own emotions, aesthetics, and ethics. Others turn to look at recent socio-political history through a personal gaze. The selection additionally presents compelling takes on form, with singular aesthetics, hybrid films, and a new era of typography and associative narratives in documentary film.

The 13-title Immersive Competition boldly expand the genre’s horizons, featuring a selection of multisensory experiences, live performances, artistic VR creations, and immersive installations.

The selection features multisensory explorations into the frontiers and limitations of artificial intelligence—ranging from how we ascribe emotional value to an AI void of meaning and interactive experiments reimaging cinematic classic and film scores. XR remains a medium of choice for groundbreaking immersive works, with interactive projects that explore everything from worlds unknown to speculative digital utopias.

With 10 selected titles, the Digital Storytelling Competition builds on the rich history of interactive storytelling with captivating works by both new talent and established names.

Taking a playful approach to familiar technologies, several projects in this selection use gaming elements and augmented reality to create engaging and thought-provoking experiences. Broaching anti-capitalist activism, football realms, and insightful scenic drives, these projects are designed to engage audiences with creativity and unique narratives. Multiple projects critically explore AI beyond our collective marvel, to examine the implications of this new technology—including governmental risk-based profiling and scripted social realities.

With 10 selected titles, the non-competitive DocLab Spotlight section brings award-winning VR projects, immersive theater, and an expanded offering of fulldome projects, affirming the latter as a flourishing stage for new media.

Several works take the age-old medium of literature as the starting point for new media explorations—crafting augmented experiences to demonstrate cyberfeminism’s legacy and immersive non-linear storytelling that explores the self, life’s catastrophes, and our psycho-geographies.

IDFA has also announced the nominations for the IDFA Award for Best First Feature, IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film, and the Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award. The winners will be announced during the IDFA 2023 awards ceremony on Thursday, November 16.

• Envision Competition is supported by Ammodo
• Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award is supported by Beeld & Geluid
• IDFA DocLab is supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, CLICKNL, The Netherlands Film Fund, Onassis Foundation, and IDFA's Special Friends+.
• IDFA DocLab research collaborations are: MIT Open Documentary Lab, Beeld & Geluid, ARTIS-Planetarium, Atlas V, Bombina Bombast, Cassette - Nu: Reality, Diversion cinema, East City Films, Eye Filmmuseum, Kaspar AI, National Film Board of Canada, ONX Studios, Polymorf, POPKRAFT, ScanLAB Projects, The Immersive Storytelling Studio (National Theatre), Tiny Planets, Unity for Humanity, Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond