New titles confirmed for Signed, Best of Fests, Current Future and Paradocs

Signed showcases the latest cinematic adventures of some of the most original filmmakers of our time. The program celebrates those with a unique artistic signature, beyond the canon.

Several acclaimed names return to IDFA in this year’s selection. Following his IDFA Bertha Fund-supported debut Kabul, City in the Wind, Aboozar Amini’s Kabul, Between Prayers presents an intimate portrait of a Taliban soldier caught between ideology and an unpredictable reality. IDFA’s 2020 Guest of Honor Gianfranco Rosi returns with Below the Clouds, a mosaic documentary that explores the city of Naples and its volcanic depths.

The selection also includes deeply personal filmmaking. In With Hasan in Gaza, Kamal Aljafari revisits footage of his 2001 road trip through Gaza—unknowingly capturing fleeting moments of everyday life, a reality now irreversibly altered by the ongoing genocide.

Touching on the critical importance of journalism and literature, award-winning Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’s Cover-Up offers a dark portrait of the US through the lens of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. Critically acclaimed Claire Simon turns to the classrooms in Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students, a devoted portrait that captures the living power of the Nobel Prize-winner and contemporary feminist icon Annie Ernaux.

The expansive Best of Fests section presents the year’s most eye-catching and celebrated films from various festivals from around the world. The selection uses vastly diverse styles and genres to take us to the world’s most pressing topics.

Several films in the selection examine the fragile meaning of belonging and home. In Imago, Déni Oumar Pitsaev follows the filmmaker’s journey of personal discovery after inheriting a piece of land in his estranged motherland of Georgia. By means of a poetic portrait of his mother, The Attachment by Mamadou Khouma Gueye documents the forced relocation of her residential community in Dakar.

Other films portray urgent stories of resistance and grassroots activism. Reporting from the front line of the refugee crisis, The Travelers by David Bingong documents young African migrants attempting to enter Europe on the heavily guarded border between Morocco and Spain. Brittany Shyne’s contemplative film Seeds captures the daily lives of Black farmers in the American South, as they struggle to preserve their way of life and ancestral land.

This year, IDFA takes the next step in its approach to youth documentary by presenting its youth selection as a cross-section program, curated by filmmaker Niki Padidar. Current Future showcases works that defy our understanding of youth documentary, showing the complexities of our current reality to young audiences—with films now included across the entire festival program.

The cross-section program sets out to present works that challenge conventions, spark curiosity, and even leave space for confusion—encouraging young audiences to question their own understanding of the world. The full selection will be announced in October.

Paradocs showcases the year’s non-fiction film art, in which visual artists and filmmakers present their explorations into non-fiction filmmaking.

This year’s selection embraces the speculative and the imaginative, blending history, memory, and fantasy. In his mesmerizing essay film BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, Kahlil Joseph offers an Afro-futurist journey through Black history, identity, and potential. Maureen Fazendeiro’s The Seasons combines archaeological field notes, local legends, and dreamlike 16mm footage to paint a lyrical portrait of Portugal’s Alentejo region.

Isabel Pagliai blurs the line between fiction and documentary in Fantasy, introducing her protagonist through diary entries and inner worlds. In Underground, Kaori Oda guides us through Japan’s subterranean spaces—caves, tunnels, artificial lakes—where fragmented memories and haunting images unearth a buried past.