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Leading documentary festival IDFA has added more than 100 films to its 39th edition, which runs from Nov. 12 to 22 in Amsterdam.
Among the newly announced titles are those for the short documentary competition, and the sections
titled Signed, Best of Fests and Paradocs.
The new media program, DocLab, has also unveiled the first projects from its 20th anniversary program, including the winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant.
IDFA Competition for Short Documentary
The IDFA Competition for Short Documentary has 15 films that “use creativity and imagination to push the boundaries of short documentary,” the festival says.
The tragicomic portrait of humanity and its fallibility, “The Bus of Broken Hearts,” by Björn Carlberg and Johan Palmgren, follows the world’s biggest cross-country ski race, where thousands of disheartened participants fail to make it to the finish line.
Several titles turn their attention to the act of looking itself. Revealing a glimmer of hope in the aftermath of an earthquake in Southern Turkey, Perihan Incegöz’s “Our Village From the Moon” captures Kurdish children as they turn the ruins into a playground and “dream of the moon.”
“Picnic – In Light Invisible to the Human Eye,” by Jan Ijäs, follows Israelis who travel to the border of Gaza to see the devastation of the region first-hand.
IDFA DocLab 20th anniversary
For two decades, IDFA’s new media program DocLab has explored how emerging technologies and new forms of interaction can expand what documentary can be and how audiences experience it.
For its 20th anniversary, IDFA DocLab unveils the first projects, including the two winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant and new works developed through a two-year research program, Shared Realities.
The Netherlands Film Fund and IDFA DocLab have selected two participatory works that turn systems that shape everyday life into audience experiences for the 2026 Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant: “The Love Files,” by Sanne De Wilde and Samir Veen, that invites audiences “to step inside and critically review a ‘love file’ application for a residence permit,” and “All the Downtime,” by Ant Hampton, “immersing audiences in an algorithm-led distribution center, just as a power outage disrupts the order and gives way for creative disorder.” Each receives €10,000 to finalize and present the work at IDFA DocLab.
The 20th anniversary program additionally features new works developed through Shared Realities, including Tamara Shogaolu’s “The Invisible Woman,” a VR opera that recovers the story of Francisca de Angola, a 17th-century Black woman in Amsterdam, and Polymorf’s “Microbiome Restaurant,” with two sensory experiences exploring the human body as an ecosystem.
Other projects include “Orgasmagoria,” by Dries Verhoeven, screened at sex theater Casa Rosso; and “Archive Arcade,” which restores landmark immersive works, including “Thanatorama” by Ana Maria de Jésus, the first project ever selected for IDFA DocLab. The complete IDFA DocLab program will be announced on Oct. 13.
Signed
Signed showcases the “latest cinematic adventures of some of the most original filmmakers of our time.” The selection of films celebrates those with “a unique artistic signature, beyond the canon,” IDFA says.
The selection “reflects on lives lost, those left behind, and what remains after upheaval.”
Michal Marczak’s “Closure” follows a father in search of his missing son along the Vistula River near Warsaw, in “a meditation on grief suspended between hope and fear.”
Turning to the systems that shape everyday lives, Ava DuVernay’s “14th” traces the legacy of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment from Reconstruction to the present. Guillaume Massart’s “Detention” enters a French prison officers’ training school, following recruits as they grapple with the gap between classroom ethics and the unpredictable realities of life behind bars.
Several established filmmakers return to IDFA with short films born from the urgency of the present, responding directly to the times we live in. In “They’re Here,” IDFA’s 2022 Guest of Honor Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller offer a chilling account of the show of force by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis. In “Wild Asparagus,” Avi Mograbi returns to his archives of a visit to Palestinian village Saffuriya with his friend Ali Al-Azhari, giving new meaning to decades-old footage.
Best of Fests
The Best of Fests section presents “the year’s most eye-catching and celebrated films from various festivals from around the world.” The selection of 59 titles “spans diverse styles and genres, engaging with some of the world’s most pressing topics.”
Several films “engage directly with the state of crisis in the world, tracing how the histories of countries continue to shape the present,” IDFA says.
In a “poignant chronicle of decades of resistance to the regime in Iran,” Pegah Ahangarani’s “Rehearsals for a Revolution” finds a glimmer of hope in those who continue to resist. Amid daily bombardments in Gaza, Ahmed Hassouna’s “Citizen Osama” follows journalist and father Osama as he balances the demands of reporting with the responsibilities and fears of caring for his newborn son. Lukas Marxt’s “>1.5°C: Pyropolitics and the New World” observes the devastating wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County in January 2025, confronting the consequences of increasingly extreme weather.
Other films begin from deeply personal perspectives. In “The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer,” Alessandra Sanguinetti follows cousins Belinda and Guillermina in rural Argentina over 25 years, creating a tender portrait on friendship and the passing of time. IDFA Bertha Fund-supported titles in the selection include “Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava” by Nong Nhat Quang, “Concrete Land” by Asmahan Bkerat, and “Truck Driver” by Francisco Marise.
Paradocs
Paradocs showcases “the year’s non-fiction film art, in which visual artists and filmmakers present their explorations into non-fiction filmmaking,” IDFA says.
The selection of 16 titles “explores the world through bold formal experimentation, genre-bending, and unexpected perspectives.”
A “hedonistic escape to a melting glacier is interrupted by apocalyptic climate change and existential anxiety” in Susanne Regina Meures’ “Eternity”— adapting Florentina Holzinger’s performance art to the screen. In “The Case Against Space,” Graeme Arnfield offers a reconstruction of the first “strike” in space, “reframing the astronaut hero through a critical lens on capitalism and surveillance.” Johann Lurf’s “Forever…Forever” presents an “overwhelming vision of the cosmos in motion, with an ever-accelerating timelapse of the sun’s path filmed over 22 months”—to be shown on 70mm in Eye Filmmuseum.
The selection also includes works by several collectives. “Ãsheghetam,” by Filmsaaz, blends computer animation, fiction and documentary in a “kaleidoscopic portrait of queer love in Tehran.” In “Together,” ecofeminist art collective Neozoon uses archival and social media footage to explore the tension between communal life and the desire for private property.
Selected films: The IDFA Competition for Short Documentary
“All That Appears Solid Is Built on Blood,” dir. Izdihar Afyouni, Gelare Khoshgozaran (Palestine/United Kingdom/United States), 11’ – International Premiere
“All the Hands I’ve Let Go,” Laura Chará (Colombia/France), 23’ – International Premiere
“Another Sky, Evi Cats” (Belgium), 15’ – World Premiere
“The Bus of Broken Hearts,” Björn Carlberg, Johan Palmgren (Sweden/Finland), 34’ – International Premiere
“Canina,” Néstor López (Spain), 17’ – World Premiere
“Certainties,” Calum Walter (United States), 14’ – International Premiere
“Eye Sun,” Maricé Castañeda (Peru), 19’ – World Premiere
“From a Vertebral Collapse Mountains Arose,” Giovanni Benini (Italy/Belgium), 11’ – World Premiere
“Man of Seed,” María Abenia (Spain), 33’ – World Premiere
“One Early Morning, the Alligator Swallowed Me,” Nicolás Palacio (Colombia), 16’ – World Premiere
“Our Village From the Moon,” Perihan Incegöz (Switzerland/Turkey), 14’ – World Premiere
“Picnic – In Light Invisible to the Human Eye,” Jan Ijäs (Finland), 26’ – International Premiere
“Six Weeks, 3 Days, and All the Years Before,” Ankita Gusain (India), 15’ – World Premiere
“Spectators,” Stanislavs Tokalovs, Betija Zvejniece (Latvia), 18’ – World Premiere
“The Unabsorbed Past, Yietnu” (Yi Zhang, Nu Ha) (France/China), 26’ – World Premiere
