Dead Angle: Common Ground | IDFA Festival

Nov 12-22, 2026

Dead Angle: Common Ground

Dead Angle: Common Ground

Dead Angle is a multi-year focus program that uses documentary cinema to reveal what remains outside our direct field of vision. This year, it explores the act of finding common ground: how people come together through solidarity, collective resistance, community and public space.

Dead Angle is supported by Vfonds

A

American Dream

American Dream

Compelling account of a prolonged strike at a meat processing plant in the US state of Minnesota. In her Oscar-winning film, Barbara Kopple poignantly portrays the unequal struggle between labor and capital, and the consequences for the local community.

B

The Balcony Movie

The Balcony Movie

Paweł Łoziński

The sidewalk in front of his apartment is the stage at which director Pawel Lozinski directs his camera. Passersby stop for a chat, tell their life story, and collectively paint a picture of contemporary Poland.

The Battle Front for the Liberation of Japan – Summer in Sanrizuka

The Battle Front for the Liberation of Japan – Summer in Sanrizuka

Farmers and students join forces to prevent the controversial construction of an airport near Tokyo. Their protest is a direct indictment of the undemocratic conduct of Japan’s dominant ruling party.

La Bonga

La Bonga

Sebastian Pinzon Silva, Canela Reyes

More than 20 years after they were driven from their homes in Colombia, former villagers make a journey through the jungle in search of traces of the past. In the ruins, they find memories, grief, hope, and solidarity.

C

Central Park

Central Park

Frederick Wiseman

One day in Central Park in New York. We see lonely joggers, fanatical gardeners, concerts by Midnight Oil and Pavarotti, desperate peace fighters, and the Quilt, the gigantic spread with countless names of AIDS victims on it.

E

Everybody to Kenmure Street

Everybody to Kenmure Street

Felipe Bustos Sierra

A captivating account of the power of civil resistance. In May 2021, hundreds of residents of an ordinary neighborhood in Glasgow rise up in protest when immigration officers threaten to remove two of their neighbors.

I

In the Company of Men

In the Company of Men

William Greaves

This fascinating piece of cinema verité from 1969, which remains entirely relevant today, captures a training session in which white supervisors and unemployed Black men attempt to better understand each other through role-play and reenacted situations.

K

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance

Alanis Obomsawin

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.

N

A Night of Knowing Nothing

A Night of Knowing Nothing

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.

S

Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon

Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon

When a young Latin American man is arrested as part of Trump’s hardline anti-immigration policies, local residents take to the streets in protest. The situation escalates into chaos, turning a quiet Chicago neighborhood into a battleground.

W

Work in Progress

Work in Progress

José Luis Guerín

A layered, philosophical, often associative discourse on the impact of urban renewal on the residents of the working-class El Chine neighborhood in Barcelona. Three old men reminisce with gentle melancholy about days gone by.