Alongside the VR Gallery (ticket required), a free-to-use VR booth is located in the DocLab exhibition in De Brakke Grond. Anyone can queue for this booth, but priority will be given to wheelchair users, people with mobility needs and holders of an industry pass.

Play, explore, and experience interactive documentary projects that use VR, AR, AI, games, new media, digital storytelling, and performances. Free entrance. Please reserve online to secure your spot.

Alongside IDFA DocLab's main location at de Brakke Grond, the exhibition continues just a short walk away at gallery @droog. Here, you can explore even more interactive documentary works. Free entrance.

Four years prior to 9/11, Grimonprez made this film essay rewriting the history of plane hijackings in parallel with the rise of a catastrophe culture. The emerging television era turned terrorism into a spectacle while hiding the bigger picture.

None of the children in Ilkay Idiskut’s class are native German speakers, all needing extra attention. There’s a major shortage of teachers in Vienna. What this means for the children becomes clear when their teacher goes on maternity leave.

Endless folding, cleaning, tidying up: behind the scenes at a hotel in the Italian Dolomites, the staff do everything they can to prevent complaints. We see no tourists in this film, only the people who do the dirty work.

Retrieved from the archives, this rarely presented work by esteemed Syrian director Omar Amiralay delves into the historical events of that region, and is paired with the incisive contemporary work of artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, establishing a dialogue between past and present.

An emotive mixed-reality tour of a Ukrainian living room in which elements appear—borscht on the table, a cuddly cat on the sofa—before, during and after the whole area is dragged into the war.

Argentine sisters Julia and Claudia studied architecture until Claudia fled to Sweden in 1977 during the dictatorship. Their letters, read aloud and accompanied by everyday cityscapes, follow their two increasingly divergent lives.

A compelling exploration of the messiness of family love. When her troubled mother goes missing, Irish filmmaker Myrid Carten returns home to find her, but risks losing herself.

Four films for 9-12. The Flower by the Road is a dreamy journey without words, allowing us to make up our own story. In What’s the Film About?, two brothers and sisters refuse to talk about sex education. In A Place to Call Home, two young girls find themselves in an Alice in Wonderland-type world, searching for home. In With Grace, a family shows us how any setback can be overcome with a sense of humor.

Vicky Du goes in search of the story behind the silence of her parents, whose families fled Communist China, and who ended up in the US via Taiwan. Through family interviews, photos and videos, she reveals intergenerational trauma.

Powerful audiovisual report on two years in Ukraine, close to and far from the front line. From the panic surrounding the invasion to the resigned acceptance of war as a part of everyday life.

An unraveling of the murder of 49 Palestinian villagers by the Israeli Border Police in 1956. Featuring survivors, historians, a courageous journalist and a re-enactment of the trial of soldiers involved in the massacre.

No one in director Misha Vallejo’s family ever talks about his grandfather. A collection of photographs and slides is the starting point for a visually poignant exploration that digs into the effects of absent father figures throughout a family tree.

A group of young women in a remote Egyptian town form an emancipated street theater company. After following them for four years, it appears that dreams are likelier to come true on stage than in reality.

Four adult siblings return to their parental home to clear it out following their mother’s death. The time has come to dissect the fairy tales of their unorthodox youth and look their monsters in the eyes.

IDFA thanks its Friends with a special Friends’ Screening of Home Game. After the film, journalist Femke van der Laan will talk to filmmaker and protagonist Lidija Zelović. IDFA Friends receive a free ticket. Not a Friend of IDFA yet? Sign up at idfa.nl/friend

A chronological collage of excerpts from film history accompanied by their original soundtracks, in which only a starry sky is visible. This raises an ever-expanding number of questions and, for those who are lucky, cosmic answers.

Two films for 13+. In Hey Dad, a young boy finds his father in an enchanted forest. Can he finally tell him his secret? In Hard to Break, Instagrammer Atte (18) tries to juggle his socials, addiction and relationship. Is all this freedom a blessing, or a curse?

Curated by Johan Grimonprez, this program is made up of two shorts and one mid-length film: every day words disappear | Michael Hardt on the politics of Love; What I Will, Raymond Tallis | on tickling and Blue Orchids.

Three films for 13+. In Crushed, Camille (18) shares her love story that has turned violent. In Everything Will Be Alright, Samrawit (18) reenacts fleeing her home all by herself when she was eight. In Hey Dad, a boy finds his father in an enchanted forest. Can he finally tell him what’s bothering him?

The Shinto shrine Gokogu in the Japanese coastal town of Ushimado is a refuge for stray cats. Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda calmly and amiably observes not only the animals, but also the people who come and go.

Campaigning is fierce where the majority of the public school board members are up for reelection in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Tense observational portrait on a micro level of a deeply divided nation.

The Bunong, indigenous inhabitants of Cambodia, are trying to maintain their traditional way of life. But their efforts are being thwarted by deforestation, land grabbing and the construction of a dam. An account of depopulation in slow motion.

An intimate portrait of Gaël Kamilindi’s mother, who died when he was five. From Switzerland, where the filmmaker grew up, he travels to Rwanda to reconstruct her life with those who loved her.

Artist couple Lynn Cruz and Miguel Coyula deploy a string of secret audio recordings to expose the various forms of control and intimidation that independent artists in Cuba have to suffer. In true Kafkaesque fashion, oppression looms everywhere.

A warm observational portrait of daily life in a shelter for Ukrainian refugees in the Dutch city of Weesp. The central kitchen is where memories are shared, and where cooking and eating offer comfort as well as an escape from homesickness.

Around 150 anarchists and farmers live in ZAD, an activist community in France. In unhurried, observational style, this film captures the group from within by showing everyday scenes and direct action—the antidote to “eco-anxiety”.

IDFA Meets is collaborating with interdisciplinary publication MacGuffin to together explore the impact of ‘the wall’—not merely as a physical barrier dividing space, but as a socio-political boundary with a profound psychological impact.

Collection of stories about people living in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, which was left without electricity when inundated by flooding in late 2022. Despite their precarious lives, the community manages to reinvent itself.

It’s August 1965 and the Beatles are in New York. While they are driving their fans wild in that city, images of the Watts riots emerge from the other side of the country, in Los Angeles. The result is unembellished realism with a poetic touch.

The digital revolution has opened up boundless possibilities. Are we the freest generation ever, or are we prisoners in a virtual universe deprived of true connection?

An emotive mixed-reality tour of a Ukrainian living room in which elements appear—borscht on the table, a cuddly cat on the sofa—before, during and after the whole area is dragged into the war.

Using AI, a simple selfie becomes a lifelike vision of the future. During this interactive group experience, the abstract idea of “generations to come” is brought home in a striking way.

Using DNA extracted from a hat worn by actors in Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble, this interactive installation explores the past and present of genetics and synthetic biology. A documentary in a drink, Drinking Brecht is a celebration of science for the people.

Associative, music-driven video collage that captures the soul of Brazil in words and visuals, revealing that colonial thinking is still deeply rooted in everyday life.

Found footage documentary consisting entirely of commercials shown during the post-socialist period in Romania. Besides promoting all sorts of products, these absurd and sometimes vulgar advertisements extol the virtues of the new capitalist ideology.

Nasreen wants to become a singer—a far from obvious choice for a woman in Iran. Her sister Leila films Nasreen’s transformation from a vulnerable stay-at-home mother to a woman who takes matters into her own hands.

Through painstaking excavation, the directors of these captivating films expose histories that have been hidden, ignored or suppressed. This compilation program consists of The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing; On the Battlefield; Entretierra; and Whoever Deserves It, Will Be Immortal.

In search of understanding and healing, filmmaker Bassam Mortada explores his father’s arrest, imprisonment and torture in 1989, re-constructing and reconsidering the experience that traumatized and divided his family.

During this screening, the short film The Ban will be followed by Eyes of Gaza.

A portrait by Yolande Zauberman of trans women in nighttime Tel Aviv, many of whom have fled Palestine. The search for the mysterious title character is the red thread which loosely ties this intimate and unorthodox film together.

An emotive mixed-reality tour of a Ukrainian living room in which elements appear—borscht on the table, a cuddly cat on the sofa—before, during and after the whole area is dragged into the war.

Brian Eno, former keyboard player with Roxy Music and producer of Bowie and U2, has been at the forefront of using generative computer systems to create his music. In keeping with this spirit, Eno is a film that changes with every screening.

As there’s not much chance to dance in the cinema, we invite you after watching your marvellous documentaries to the IDFA Dance Nights in Café Kuyl!

Veteran documentarian Claire Simon follows the daily routines at a progressive elementary school in a multicultural suburb of Paris. The heroes of the film are the tireless teachers, caregivers in the broadest sense of the word.

With great enthusiasm, Erik van Lieshout roams the Brabant countryside of his youth. Farmers, local people and nature are caught between nitrate pollution and agricultural stench. For the artist, this is fertile ground.

As a child, filmmaker Inadelso Cossa was shielded from the cruel reality of Mozambique’s civil war. Now he visits the village of his youth, in a penetrating, sensory search for the ghosts of the past.

Valentina lives in rural Sicily. She is 27, and wants to escape the sometimes suffocating love of her parents. On the nearby American military base, meanwhile, communications satellites are causing dangerous radiation.

Using film as her impetus, Eleonora Camizzi asks her father with schizophrenia the questions she never wanted or dared to ask before. What begins as an interrogation about the past becomes a meaningful conversation in the present.

In these poignant films about hope, joy and grief, the directors creatively explore complex family dynamics and tensions. This compilation program consists of Milk; A Move; and Tough Love.

Award Ceremony for the presentation of the NPO Doc IDFA Audience Award, made available by NPO Doc. The winning film was chosen by the audience and screens after the ceremony.

The very pregnant Lucy gives up her music studies in England, driven by financial struggles and the desire for a family life. What will her future look like now? A sensitive portrait of an unconventional artistic Sicilian family.

Victoria Verseau travels back to the hotel room in Thailand where she stayed during her gender-affirming surgery. Her memories provide the loose structure for reflections on femininity, loss, and death.

The British advocacy group Hope Not Hate investigates the working methods and finances of various far-right organizations. They regularly go undercover, because members of these groups only really speak their minds behind closed doors.

More than 20 years after the release of her iconic electroclash album Peaches still has a lot to teach us, as this rousing document proves. A portrait of a feminist icon, queer fighter and all-round who-gives-a-shit.

In scenes without commentary, Sergei Loznitsa observes the impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion on every aspect of daily life in Ukraine. The war impacts on the population in countless ways, but never weakens their courage and resilience.

In 1892, the French looted hundreds of works of art from the Kingdom of Dahomey, located in present-day Benin. In 2021, 26 works were returned to their country of origin. This award-winning documentary offers a fresh perspective on this key moment.

A contemplative portrait of the patients and staff in a French psychiatric hospital. In long, unhurried scenes, we see the philosophical, intelligent, sometimes hopeful human being beneath the layers of complex delusions, fears or depression.

A portrait of Polish mountaineer Wanda Rutkiewicz, who conquered eight Himalayan peaks before an apparently fatal fall in 1992—but is she in fact still alive, living in a Tibetan monastery? The search becomes a tribute to an inspirational sportsperson.

In a haunting, autobiographical essay, Iranian filmmaker Ali Asgari questions what it means to be an artist, as censorship drains the color from his home city of Tehran, and from his life.

Compilation program featuring extraordinary films from the Paradocs selection: Like the Glitch of a Ghost; Misty Man; and Being John Smith.

Four wonderfully cinematic films that navigate personal narratives, geological transformations, and spiritual realms through landscapes and universes. This compilation program consists of Perfectly a Strangeness; Lanawaru; How to Suture the Soil?; and Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya.

Ernest Cole (1940-1990) was one of the first photographers to capture what apartheid meant to Black South Africans like himself. During his exile in the US, he photographed scenes of untold freedom next to scenes of overt racism.

Palestinian theatre maker Jamal Hindawi, who lives in Lebanon, goes in search of a lost prop. His quest produces a compelling picture of damaged life in south Beirut.

Summer, 1989. The Tiananmen protests have just been crushed and the Eastern Bloc is showing cracks. These tensions are palpable at the World Youth Festival in North Korea. In unique footage, it looks like a socialist dance on the edge of a volcano.

In this contemplative urban symphony, a queer director returns to his hometown of Tripoli, Lebanon to interview a cross-section of the population about their ideas and beliefs.

In a Lebanese beauty salon, Bouba injects her clients with Botox and fillers. The close-ups of the tortured and bleeding faces are gruesome and intriguing. Customers vent their worries as they paralyze their expressions. Meanwhile, war is at the door.

In her directorial debut, the filmmaker reflects on her life under the Iranian regime after 1979. The lives of countless strangers seep into her story through purchased home videos. Together, they create a single narrative about living in two worlds.