IDFA 2021 campaign launch: the Rorschach machine

It's not what you look at. It's what you see. The IDFA 2021 festival campaign, now officially launched, is inspired by the iconic Rorschach test. In short, it reflects the multitude of impressions and feelings that watching films at IDFA can evoke.

The campaign was developed by We Are Pi and inspired by the Rorschach test: the renowned ink blot created in the 1920s for psychological assessment, which reached peak popularity in the 1960s.

For the campaign, we let go of the (discredited) assessment element and used Rorschachs to create an artistic concept that evokes a plethora of perspectives. Everyone sees something different in the same image, and the filmmakers at IDFA are no different, collectively bringing beautiful, diverse, and global perspectives to the screen.

Likewise, producing the campaign was no easy feat. Circus Family, an audiovisual design studio based in Amsterdam, developed a machine (nicknamed Rory the Rorschach) that scans documentary footage. Based on the color and temperature of the footage, it decides which color dye to drop into a water tank. Several films from the IDFA program were scanned, and the result is the colorful world you see in the campaign visuals.

To strengthen the tie between the campaign and the films, sounds from Amsterdam Global Village and Taming the Garden were used in the campaign video. The 30-second trailer, officially launched at our press conference earlier today, can now be seen in cinemas and on the streets of Amsterdam.