Doc Weekly’s Tips for IDFA 2024
As the year comes to a close, the global documentary community converges on Amsterdam for IDFA, the International Documentary film Festival Amsterdam, the world’s largest and most important documentary film festival.
IDFA marks both the closing of a festival cycle, gathering a carefully curated selection the year’s best films from the festival circuit, particularly in the Best of fests selection, but also the start of fresh new season, with world and international premieres galore, from the documentary masters of our time and exciting first-time filmmakers alike.
Het Documentaire Paviljoen, IDFA’s new headwuartes
As always, IDFA’s program reflects many of the political and social crises rippling across the globe, without neglecting the telling of personal, intimate stories, or timeless, creative forays into the practice of documentary film as art.
This year, several Doc Weekly writers will be in attendance. Here are their top tips for the premiering films to catch during your visit.
The festival’s opening film, which had its world premiere on Friday, About a Hero by Piotr Winiewicz, is an “irreverent exercise in AI-enabled storytelling” that appears to remain shrouded in mystery and intrigue long after viewing. After hearing Werner Herzog say “A computer will not make a film as good as mine in 4500 years”, the director and his team set out to make a film written by an AI trained on Herzog’s own body of work - going as far as tasking the machine with mimicking his voice for the narration.
Trains (Pociągi) by Maciej J. Drygas looks to be a stunning work of sound and archival editing. A wordless, black and white collective portrait of people in 20th century Europe, capturing their hopes, desires, dramas, and tragedies as they relentlessly mind the gap, one decade to the next.
Eight years after making the award winning Still Tomorrow, in which Chinese poet Xiuhua Yu, who has cerebral palsy, became an overnight internet sensation, Jian Fan returns to make She Dances by the Sea to follow her as she grapples with love and heartbreak.
She Dances by the Sea by Jian Fan, Isabella Zang
In A Frown Gone Mad, Omar Mismar provides a rare and unique perspective of Lebanese society - from the reclining plastic operating chair of a beauty salon. As Botox, Revolax, Sculptra are applied, fears of a war that we now know was always going to happen are never far from conversation…
Loss Adjustment (Ajuste de pérdidas) by Miguel Calderón has very much piqued our interest. A bold, brash blend of documentary and fiction that weaves several layers of narrative to explore the worlds of loss adjustment in insurance claims and contemporary art, both populated by predators and scavengers; a reflection on the turbulence that exists in Mexican society.
This year’s Luminous competition is particularly exciting, with a number of films that we’re very excited to discover.
First, The Last Expedition (Ostatnia wyprawa) by Eliza Kubarska shines a light on Polish mountaineer Wanda Rutkiewicz, who went missing in the Himalays in 1992. She was already famous for being the first woman and Pole to climb Mount Everest. Now the story goes that Rutkiewicz is still alive, in a convent in Tibet.
Also in the Luminous selection are At All Kosts (Koutkekout) by Joseph Hillel and Edhi Alice (에디 앨리스) by Ilrhan Kim. The former provides a rare alternative perspective on Haiti, that of the young artists preparing for a theatre festival in Port-au-Prince despite the omnipresence of poverty and gang violence. The latter is an elegant, intimate and clever portrait of two South Korean women in transition.
At All Kosts (Koutkekout) by Joseph Hillel
The Frontlight competition is specifically dedicated to filmmakers confronting the urgent issues of our time. Amongst other topics, this year’s selection warns against the rise of the far right in Europe with two timely films. Dennis Harvey’s short film The Building and Burning of a Refugee Camp observes how the protest camp of a few asylum seekers in Dublin becomes a target for an anti-immigration influencer to whip up violence online until it manifests itself on the streets, in a way that will be sadly familiar to anyone who was in the UK this summer.
The second film, Undercover: Exposing the Far Right by Havana Marking follows undercover activists of Hope Not Hate in their fight against the far right, as they investigate the working methods and financing structures of several organisations. Also on the subjects of the Uk’s summer riots, the film was supposed to premiere at London Film Festival last month, until it was pulled by organisers at the last minute due to “fears about the welfare of audiences, staff and security”. A decision that does not do the filmmaker’s bravery justice and an excuse which we seems to make anyone but the management team responsible.
IDFA will also be our opportunity to catch The Shadow Scholars by Eloïse King, which did screen at the London Film Festival. Tens of thousands of young, well-educated Kenyans are hired online by undergraduates and doctoral students at Western universities to write their essays and theses. Oxford professor Patricia Kingori embarks on a search for these “shadow scholars.”
The Shadow Scholars by Eloïse King
And finally, in Shot the Voice of Freedom, Zainab Entezar directs a portrait of women in Afghanistan fighting against Taliban oppression, largely filmed clandestinely, who hope to attract the attention of the international community through their demonstrations.
Special Screenings
Of course there is far more to the IDFA program than the above, the competitions are just a snapshot of the wealth of films being shown across the city - and we haven’t even delved into all the competition sections here !
One special screening and talk that we’re very excited to be attending is Off Frame aka Revolution Until Victory introduced by Guest of honor Johan Grimonprez on Wednesday 20th November. Mohanad Yaqubi’s 2014 film is a mosaic of both long lost and more recently discovered archival footage of the Palestinian people’s struggle to create their own images, on their own terms, in the 60s and 70s, through the creation of the Palestine Film Unit.
That’s it’ for our IDFA 2024 tips ! Keep your eyes peeled on our site and social media for more IDFA content in the coming days and weeks, and maybe see you there !
