International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam


The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Description

IDFA is an independent, international meeting place for audiences and professionals to see a diverse program of high-quality documentaries. IDFA selects creative and accessible documentaries, which offer new insights into society. By 2009, IDFA had achieved the reputation of the most important doc fest. Every year in November, the festival takes place over the period of 11 days, in more than 40 venues around the city, welcoming an audience of 295.000, and a record number of documentary film professionals, as over 3500 gather for the festival, from more than 100 countries every year.
The festival was initially held at the Leidseplein area in the centre of Amsterdam. It has since spread to a number of other locations, including the Tuschinski Theatre and EYE Filmmuseum. Apart from its international film program, the variety of genres, and the many European and world premieres featured each year, the festival also hosts debates, forums, and workshops. Since 2007, the festival's New Media program IDFA DocLab showcases the best interactive non-fiction storytelling and explores how the digital revolution is reshaping documentary art. By that year, IDFA had grown to an audience of 145,000.
In addition to the festival, IDFA has developed several professional activities, contributing to the development of filmmakers and their films at all stages. At the co-financing and co-production market IDFA Forum filmmakers and producers pitch their plans to financiers; at Docs for Sale new documentaries are on offer to programmers and distributors; the IDFA Bertha Fund supports filmmakers and documentary projects in developing countries, and the IDFAcademy offers international training programs for up-and-coming doc talents.

History

IDFA was founded as a successor to the Festikon, a festival of educational cinema founded by the Dutch Film Institute in 1961 and closed in 1987 due to the lack of interest of the audience. Menno van der Molen, Festikon's director, envisioned the new festival, entirely dedicated to documentaries. Van der Molen invited Ally Derks, who had joined Festikon's team as an intern in 1985, to prompt the idea and create IDFA. Derks headed IDFA from 1988 until 2017, when she stepped down. First colleagues that were invited to join the team were Derks' fellow Theatre and Film Studies graduates Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen and Willemien van Aalst. As the festival's undoubted leader, Derks was nicknamed ‘Madam IDFA’ and ‘the High Priestess of Documentaries’, her vision was the one that shaped the event's program and profile for almost 30 years. In 2001, she installed 7 official ‘pre-selectors’, the Dutch film professionals, who evaluated the submissions and chose 500 that would qualify for further evaluation by Derks.
IDFA has always been politically charged and prioritised the socio-cultural impact of documentary cinema. As explained by the team, it was opened to “to be a platform for voices that are usually not listened to”.
In 2013, IDFA inaugurated the Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia program.
In 2016, Derks announced stepping down. In almost three decades under her rule, IDFA grew into the largest and most prestigious doc festival in the world. After Derks' resignation, Barbara Visser oversaw the 2017 edition as interim director. In January 2018, Syrian film producer Orwa Nyrabia was appointed new artistic director of IDFA.
Under Nyrabia,, IDFA's programming and international presence changed substantially. Building on the work of Derks and the IDFA-affiliated IDFA Bertha Fund, he restructured the programs to become more international and inclusive, in terms of gender, cultural and geographical backgrounds, and in terms of artistic sensibility, IDFA represented a wider spectrum of documentary film and art forms and genres. In 2019 he introduced the non-competitive premier sections Luminous and Frontlight, and in 2021 the major Envision Competition, about which he said " “Films that seem to be a little too classical, although very well made, now have a natural home in the international competition while films that really go an extra mile when experimenting with form, do not seem to be too much when we have the new Envision Competition. We can accommodate a wider range of filmmaking approaches this way.” He also introduced the section "IDFA On Stage" where live documentary cinema and performances with documentary elements were presented. Furthermore, Pathways were introduced in 2019 as a way of helping audiences navigate the festival's program thematically, and in the Industry part of the festival, a new structure was shaped between 2019 and 2022, with major change including the introduction of the Producers' Connection, a platform where producers from around the world present their projects to each other seeking collaboration rather than pitching only to funders. In 2023, IDFA moved to its new premises in Vondelpark, at the historical Vondelpark Pavilion building, which IDFA renamed Het Documentaire Paviljoen, with a new cinema hall, and multiple public-facing spaces. In November 2024, Nyrabia announced that he will be stepping down at the end of his contract by Summer of 2025. In a statement announcing his upcoming departure, IDFA said "Since taking the job in January 2018, Nyrabia and the team of IDFA revamped the festival’s film and industry programs and launched new platforms and initiatives that have become mainstays of the festival, such as the Envision Competition, IDFA On Stage, and the Producers Connection. Also, during this period, the organization achieved gender parity in its various offers. IDFA’s focus on expanding global representation in the sector was a key aspect throughout his tenure, now embedded into all processes, making it a one-of-a-kind gathering where the film community with all its diversity meet up and feel at home. During the past seven years, IDFA successfully navigated a pandemic, adapted and evolved with the shifting social and political realities, and the ever-changing documentary landscape". While the chair of the supervisory board, Lawyer Marry Fortman, said " influence in the artistic field lifted IDFA and has driven the festival as well as the organization to places we never knew they existed."
At the opening ceremony in held on 8 November 2023 in the shadow of the Gaza war, three activists burst onto the stage and waved a sign saying "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", to show solidarity with the people of Gaza. The audience, which included the festival director Orwa Nyrabia, applauded the activists. On 10 November members of Israel's film community condemned the use of the slogan and Nyrabia's applause, some demanding Nyrabia be fired, and others demanding that the Dutch government stops supporting the festival. Various petitions were launched online to lobby for that. After IDFA official apologized, a group of Palestinian filmmakers and others standing in solidarity withdrew from the festival and started a petition in protest. Following this challenge, Orwa Nyrabia announced that IDFA will organize an international symposium on the responsibilities of film organizations and festivals in times of global change.

Prizes

In the first few years the festival had only the Joris Ivens competition. By 2007, it had four competition programs and the Audience Award, but the Joris Ivens Award remained the main prize. Films in competition films must be world, international, or European premieres. The Joris Ivens Award was renamed the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary after the 2008 edition, it was presented annually until 2020.
In 2021, IDFA announced a new program structure and introduced new central sections: Envision and International Competitions for over 40 and 60 min, respectively, flanked by several cross-section awards. As before, only premieres are allowed to compete in the main competition.
The best new documentaries of the year compete in IDFA's main competition programs:
  • The IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary for best documentary longer than 70 minutes + Special Jury Award
  • The IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary for best documentary between 40 and 70 minutes + Special Jury Award
  • The IDFA Award for Best Short Documentary for best documentary under 40 minutes + Special Jury Award
  • The IDFA Award for Best First Appearance for best debut film + Special Jury Award
  • The IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary for best student documentary from film academies around the world + Special Jury Award
  • The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary for best Dutch documentary + the Special Jury Award
  • The Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance.
Alongside the competition programs, five awards are awarded during IDFA:
  • VPRO IDFA Audience Award for best film as voted by the audience ;
  • Amsterdam Human Rights Award for the documentary that best depicts the theme of human rights ;
  • Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds Documentary Scholarship, a €50,000 grant for a documentary talent, allowing the recipient to make a documentary about a subject of their choice;
  • Filmfonds DocLab Interactive Grant, a cash prize for the development of interactive projects within the Netherlands;
  • Karen de Bok Talent Award for the winner of the IDFAcademy & NPO-fonds workshop. It is the successor of the Media Fund Award Documentary. The NPO Fund awards the winner €25,000 to further develop the project in collaboration with a producer and a broadcast.

    Program sections

In addition to the competitions, IDFA presents several non-competitive film programs:

Regular programs

  • Masters
In this program section, the festival presents the latest documentaries by renowned documentary auteurs.
  • Best of Fests
In Best of Fests, the festival presents films that have made an impact on the international festival circuit this year.
  • Panorama
In this section, the festival presents films from all over the world, which are thought-provoking in their form and choice of theme.
  • Paradocs
The films in this section showcase what is going on beyond the frame of traditional documentary filmmaking, on the borders between film and art, truth and fiction, and narrative and design.
  • Music Documentary
Screenings of many films from this program are accompanied by live performances connected to the films.