Festival program

Each year, IDFA presents a number of focus programs that take on urgent themes and pressing film-related subjects. IDFA 2022 featured Playling Reality, on theater as space and concept, and Around Masculinity, on the traditional representation of masculinity in film—exploring how cinema can create, maintain, and deconstruct our stereotypes of masculinity. The program Not Yet Yes, curated by Simon(e) van Saarloos attempted to counter a common documentary form in which a process of coming out is shown—from suffering in silence to being free; as if we already understand what freedom means.

The American filmmaker and activist Laura Poitras was Guest of Honor for IDFA 2022. The program not only presented a retrospective of a large part of Poitras’ work, including her latest Golden Lion-winning film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Poitras also curated a Top 10 program, which touched on her passion for documentary cinema.

DocLab is IDFA’s program for interactive and immersive non-fiction.With the theme Nervous Systems, IDFA’s new media section returned in 2022 for its its sixteenth edition to the heart of Amsterdam for 10 days of in-person digital and XR programming. Referring playfully to our nervous systems—both inside the body and in the reality that surrounds us—the program focuses on experiential storytelling through different senses, art forms, and technologies. With digital art installations, multisensory experiences, live events, motion capture performances, and the ever-expanding metaverse, as we collectively ask: How does it feel to be alive? How can we experience the world? These questions are posed against the backdrop of the nervous times we live in, in which the biggest challenges we face today are systemic in nature.

Next to a festival program for audiences and live performances in the ARTIS Planetarium, DocLab additionally presented activities for documentary and new media industry professionals—including a living lab with an international research & development program. The DocLab exhibition returned to de Brakke Grond.

IDFA’s great added value compared to regular cinema screenings, is that the festival provides context for films and projects—by means of conversations with filmmakers and audiences, and reflections by experts, events, and publications. The majority of these talks, discussions, and introductions took place in the screening rooms in 2022, and a few were recorded and made available online later during the festival. Filmmaker Talks and Film Talks are available for audiences and industry professionals, offering interviews and conversations with filmmakers, experts, and moderators. Industry Talks dive into the key trends and urgent discussions defining the industry, exclusively for industry guests.

The winners of IDFA’s 35th edition were announced at the Awards Ceremony, which took place at ITA (Internationaal Theater Amsterdam) on Thursday, November 17. Apolonia, Apolonia by Lea Glob won the IDFA Award for Best Film. Angie Vinchito won the IDFA Award for Best Film in the Envision Competition for Manifesto (Russia).

IDFA's audience program is made possible by the VriendenLoterij, Deloitte, VPRO, Fonds 21, de Volkskrant, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, WePresent by WeTransfer, Ammodo, NPO, Oxfam Novib, Saeco, Beeld & Geluid, De Groene Amsterdammer, Mama Cash, VICE, OneWorld, NTR, Creative Europe Media, Netherlands Film Fund, European Cultural Foundation, VSBfonds, vfonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and the Friends, Special Friends, and Special Friends+of IDFA.

IDFA’s Envision Competition is supported by Ammodo.

IDFA DocLab is supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of the Netherlands, CLICKNL, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Netherlands Film Fund, Onassis Foundation and the Special Friends+ of IDFA.

DocLab research collaboration partners are MIT Open Documentary Lab, Beeld & Geluid, ARTIS-Planetarium, Atlas V, Bombina Bombast, Diversion cinema, East City Films, Eye Filmmuseum, Kaspar AI, National Film Board of Canada, ONX Studio, Polymorf, POPKRAFT, Sandman Studio, The Immersive Storytelling Studio (National Theatre), and Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond.