IDFAcademy | IDFA 2025 by IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

WELCOME TO IDFA 2025

Talent development partners:

Donations by:

IDFA FILMMAKER SUPPORT STAFF

Meike Statema Head of Talent Development

Selin Murat Executive Director IDFA Bertha Fund

Mónica Baptiste Gouffray Coordinator Filmmaker Support

Eline Warnier Producer Talent Development

Mélanie de Vocht Manager IDFA Bertha Fund

Jos Motshagen Producer IDFA Bertha Fund

Mira Alkadri Assistant Producer IDFAcademy

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to IDFAcademy 2025!

We are proud to host you here in Amsterdam, as emerging directors and producers from all over the world selected for this year’s program. You all share an enthusiastic motivation to be involved in documentary work; to learn and to grow. We have worked hard to offer you an IDFAcademy program that mirrors your ambition. As part of this program, a wide range of experienced professionals will generously share their knowledge and experience with you. We are extremely grateful to have them here and know they can’t wait to meet and work with you, reflecting as they do the values of dialogue and exchange so critical to our mission!

Some of you have received support from the IDFA Bertha Fund, while others have taken part in IDFA Project Space, the year-round training program that supports the development of documentary projects. With these initiatives, IDFA’s Filmmaker Support department places the filmmaker front and center, aspiring to safeguard a space for the creative process of documentary filmmaking. The outcomes of all these efforts can be seen in the IDFA Project Space and IDFA Bertha Fund Harvest; a showcase of films championed by the Filmmaker Support department that are now entering the next phase in their journeys. Of these, six projects supported by IDFA Project Space are now finished films selected for IDFA 2025, and three projects are pitching at IDFA’s 2025 markets. Read more about these films and projects on page 98. We are immensely proud of all of these, and wish them all the best of luck.

We hope that this guide will help you navigate this year’s IDFAcademy, but rest assured that you can also rely on daily guidance from the IDFAcademy staff.

Enjoy your time in Amsterdam, have a great festival, and above all experience an inspiring IDFAcademy!

Meike Statema Head of Talent Development

IDFACADEMY PROGRAM 2025

The intensive four-day training program kicks off on the morning of Thursday, November 13 at our main location: De Balie. Throughout the program, you can expect a combination of inspirational talks, group sessions, round table discussions, case studies, and networking opportunities. Every morning, all participants are invited to attend IDFAcademy Talks. After lunch, there are two or three sessions to choose from, depending on your interests. Read more about the different types of sessions in this year’s program on the following pages, along with any instructions for how to participate.

On all four days, IDFAcademy staff will be available to answer your questions at the IDFAcademy Information Desk, located in the entrance of De Balie. This is also where you can register for the various Round tables and pick up tickets to our recommended screenings. From the IDFAcademy Information desk, you can walk up the stairs to the Bovenfoyer, a space where you can meet up with other participants and industry professionals, and the spot to enjoy your daily lunch/snack.

ROUND TABLES

IDFAcademy Round Tables take place in the afternoons. This is where all participants can ask questions, get advice, and exchange ideas in round table meetings with a variety of experts.

Important: Sign up for each day’s Round Tables, and learn which professionals will be in attendance, at the IDFAcademy Information Desk. These are first-come, first-served sessions; therefore, spaces may fill up quickly. To ensure each participant has time to participate in the discussion, we can host a maximum of eight people per table.

IDFACADEMY TALKS

A broad range of documentary professionals share their knowledge during these sessions, offering a well of inspiration for documentary filmmaking.

PARTICIPANTS MEET-UP

On Thursday afternoon, meet other participants in the presence of an industry

expert. Each participant will be assigned to a specific group. To find out which group you are allocated to, check the IDFAcademy participants list on page 64.

OTHER SPECIAL SESSIONS

• IDFAcademy Talk: Presenting your documentary: On Saturday morning, a special panel led by an industry expert guides you in improving your pitching skills. Three participants will prepare a pitch in advance, and one extra participant will be chosen to pitch spontaneously during the session.

• Smaller sessions: Besides the Talks and Round tables, a variety of other intimate sessions are on offer, such as IDFAcademy session: Me & the filmmaker; IDFAcademy Session: Debunking the myths; and IDFAcademy Session: Producing with impact.

• Meeting space & individual support: Parallel to the sessions, you can use the Bovenfoyer and the Cafe in De Balie as a space for arranging your own meetings and networking with other guests. Industry experts Gitte Hansen, Gugi Gumilang and Marion Schmidt will be available to provide general advice and individual meetings. You can contact them directly to arrange a meeting. You can find their contact information on the IDFA Guest List on the website, and you will see them around in De Balie. Friday November 14 from 13:00 #DocSafe is hosting dedicated slots for both industry and non-industry topics — whether you’re up for a conversation, seeking insights, or simply looking to

enjoy a coffee between things. Find out more about #DocSafe at docsafeinitiative.org, and sign up via this email: info@docsafe-initiative.org (or find them onsite).

FOOD & DRINKS

• Coffee & Croissants: Every morning of IDFAcademy, we greet you with hot coffee and fresh croissants in the Bovenfoyer.

• Lunch: Pick up your daily lunch snack in the Bovenfoyer as well.

• Drinks: On the first day of IDFAcademy, join us for festive opening drinks in the Bovenfoyer at 16:30. We finish the program on Sunday, November 16, with drinks in the Bovenfoyer. Throughout the weekend, you are welcome to attend the Guests Meet Guests drinks—an IDFA staple and a great opportunity for networking with other professionals. Check the various Guests Meet Guests locations on pagew

SCREENINGS

IDFAcademy-recommended film screenings can be attended for free. These include films created by or connected to one of our speakers. Tickets to these screenings can be collected from the IDFAcademy Information Desk every morning before the day of the screening, until 13:00. For the various screenings on offer, see the section in this program guide immediately following the schedule per day.

ACCESS TO DIFFERENT SESSIONS IDFACADEMY

TALKS

Can be accessed by all participants. In smaller rooms with limited capacity.

SESSIONS

Can be accessed by all participants. Smaller sessions in more intimate settings, so therefore fewer places are available. (First come, first served).

ROUND TABLE

Must be signed up for in advance. Sign up at the IDFAcademy desk on the day of the round table.

PARTICIPANTS’ MEET-UP

Each participant is assigned to a group: search for your name in the participants section to find your group, then look at the schedule to see where your group meeting takes place.

SCREENINGS

For the suggested screenings, you can pick up a ticket from the IDFAcademy desk, before 1 pm on the day before the screening only. If tickets run out, you can book them online with your pass.

IDFACADEMY

DRINKS

Show your pass and get a drink!

You were asked before arriving to signal your interest in the Guest of Honor Talk and the IDFAcademy Session: Me & The Filmmaker. Priority is given to those who signed up. For the Guest of Honor Talk, pick up the tickets from the IDFAcademy desk.

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Thursday November 13

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy Opening Talk: Firouzeh Khosrovani

MODERATOR: Isabel Arrate Fernandez

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Grote Zaal

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 16:30

16:30 - 18:00

20:30 - 22:19

Lunch

IDFAcademy: Participants meet-up WITH:

Rodolfo Castillo-Morales

Renko Douze

Gitte Hansen

Gugi Gumilang

Marion Schmidt

IDFAcademy: Opening Drinks

Screening: GEN_ (Gianluca Matarrese)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Groups:

1: ITA - Pleinfoyer

2: De Balie - Filmzaal

3: De Balie - Grote Zaal

4: De Balie - Pleinzaal

5: De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Tuschinski 1

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Friday November 14

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy Talk: Characters close up WITH: María Silvia Esteve and Gianluca Matarrese

MODERATOR: Dana Linssen

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 14:30

Lunch

IDFAcademy Talk: Composing music for documentary

WITH: Nordin Lasfar and Vincent van Warmerdam

MODERATOR: Jasper Hokken

IDFAcademy Talk: How to collaborate in a (co-)production

WITH: Eugene Rachkovsky, Nyasha

Kadandara and Palmyre Badinier

MODERATOR: Selin Murat

15:30 - 17:30

18:30 - 20:00

21:00 - 22:38

20:30 - 22:43

IDFAcademy Session: Debunking the myths

WITH: Mikael Opstrup

Selin Murat

Palmyre Badinier

Christian Popp

IDFAcademy Session: Me & the filmmaker WITH: Rebecca Day

Guests Meet Guests

Screening: Do you love me (Lana Daher)

Screening: Militantropos (producer Eugene Rachkovsky)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Pleinzaal

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Filmzaal

Kanarieclub

Kriterion 1

Rialto De Pijp: Bovenzaal

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Saturday November 15

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy Talk: Presenting your documentary

MODERATOR: Mikael Opstrup

PANEL: Erika Dilday, Jane Ray and Maëlle Guénégues

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Grote Zaal

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 15:00

Lunch

IDFAcademy Talk: Cutting memories – intimacy, history and the archive WITH: Lana Daher

MODERATOR: Qutaiba Barhamji

IDFAcademy Session: Producing with impact WITH: Khadidja Benouataf

IDFAcademy Round tables: Finance & funding WITH: Jane Mote, Jenni Wolfson and Rasmus Steen

MODERATOR: Selin Murat

15:30 - 17:30

18:30 - 20:00

18:45 - 20:32

18:30 - 20:03

IDFAcademy Session: Me & the filmmaker WITH: Rebecca Day

IDFAcademy: Round tables

Guests Meet Guests

Screening: Mailin (María Silvia Esteve)

Screening: Past Future Continuous (Firouzeh Khosrovani)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Pleinzaal

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Filmzaal

De Balie - Grote Zaal & Salon

Kanarieclub

Tuschinski 2

Eye 1

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Sunday November 16

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy: Participants meet-up #2 WITH: Palmyre Badinier

Victor Ede

Christian Popp

Gugi Gumilang

Marion Schmidt

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 14:30

Lunch

IDFAcademy Talk: Sales strategies, the inside information

WITH: Liselot Verbrugge and Anna Berthollet

IDFAcademy Talk: Releasing your story WITH: Petra Costa

MODERATOR: Gitte Hansen

15:30 - 17:00

17:00 - 18:00

18:00 - 20:00

13:15 - 14:34

21:15 - 22:58

21:30 - 23:08

Guest of Honor Talk: Susana de Sousa Dias

MODERATOR: Isabel Arrate Fernandez

IDFAcademy: Round tables

IDFAcademy Closing Drinks

Guests Meet Guests - hosted by Polish Docs

Screening: Fordlândia Panacea (Susana de Sousa Dias)

Screening: I Want Her Dead (Gianluca Matarrese)

Screening: Matabeleland (Nyasha Kadandara)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Groups:

1: ITA - Pleinfoyer

2: De Balie - Filmzaal

3: ITA - Marnix Bordes

4: De Balie - Pleinzaal

5: De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Pleinzaal

Tuschinski 1

De Balie - Pleinzaal, Filmzaal & Entresol

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Kanarieclub

Tuschinski 1

Pathe City 2

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 13

Day 1

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 16:30

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy Opening Talk: Firouzeh Khosrovani

MODERATOR: Isabel Arrate Fernandez

Lunch

IDFAcademy: Participants meet-up

WITH:

Rodolfo Castillo-Morales

Renko Douze

Gitte Hansen

Gugi Gumilang

Marion Schmidt

16:30 - 18:00

20:30 - 22:19

IDFAcademy: Opening Drinks

Screening: GEN_ (Gianluca Matarrese)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Groups:

1: ITA - Pleinfoyer

2: De Balie - Filmzaal

3: De Balie - Grote Zaal

4: De Balie - Pleinzaal

5: De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Tuschinski 1

IDFACADEMY OPENING TALK: FIROUZEH KHOSROVANI

MODERATOR: Isabel Arrate Fernandez

10:00–12:00 | De Balie - Grote Zaal

IDFAcademy 2025 kicks off with an inspirational talk by accomplished filmmaker Firouzeh Khosrovani. She is at IDFA with her most recent film Past Future Continuous (co-directed with Morteza Ahmadvand) in the Envision Competition. Firouzeh’s previous film Radiography of a Family (2020) won the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary and Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award for Best Creative Use of Archive. In her filmmaking, Firouzeh has engaged with the political and physical limitations on making films about family, exile and life in Iran through exceptional experimentation with the cinematic form. In both the abovementioned films, she makes distinctive artistic choices to explore the limits of the camerawork, use of archival material, and relationships with characters. She presents a signature poetic filmmaking approach that pushes the boundaries of the documentary.

IDFA’s Artistic Director Isabel Arrate Fernandez will open the IDFAcademy with a conversation with Firouzeh on her oeuvre, her instinct to push the form, her cinematic language, and her persistence in using the constraints of her country to create engaging, emotional and exceptional narrations of family and politics.

Firouzeh Khosrovani

Born in Tehran, Iran, Firouzeh Khosrovani studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. She began her filmmaking career with the documentary Life Train (2004). Her 2007 documentary Rough Cut, exploring mutilated mannequins in Tehran’s shop windows, won 13 international festival awards. Her video art Cutting Off (2008) was exhibited at the Triennale di Milano. She directed 1001 Irans (2010) and collaborated on Espelho Meu (2011) and Archivio a Oriente (2012). In 2014, she contributed to Profession: Documentarist and released Fest of Duty, winning the Oxfam Justice Award at IDFA. Her 2020 documentary Radiograph of a Family, portraying her secular father and devout Muslim mother, won “Creative Use of Archive” and “Best Film” at IDFA 2020,

plus 32 other awards. In 2022, she joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ documentary branch. In 2025, she co-directed Past Future Continuous, premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Isabel Arrate Fernandez

Isabel Arrate Fernandez is the Artistic Director of IDFA. She holds an MA in Film Studies from the University of Amsterdam and began her career in festival production, programming, and film financing. She joined IDFA in 2002 and played a key role in amplifying diverse global voices in documentary film. As Executive Director of the IDFA Bertha Fund until 2024, she helped it grow into a leading international platform supporting over 700 documentary projects and organizations across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin THURSDAY

America, while mentoring filmmakers throughout their creative process. Beyond IDFA, she has worked with Berlinale Docstation, Chiledoc, and Docs by the Sea, and continues to mentor and consult at international workshops and pitching forums. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

IDFACADEMY PARTICIPANTS MEET-UP

WITH: Gugi Gumilang, Gitte Hansen, Marion Schmidt, Renko Douze and Rodolfo Castillo-Morales

13:00 – 16:30 | ITA: Pleinfoyer and De Balie: Filmzaal, Pleinzaal, Grote Zaal & Salon

During the IDFAcademy kick-off, dedicated IDFAcademy tutors Gugi Gumilang, Gitte Hansen, Marion Schmidt, Renko Douze and Rodolfo Castillo-Morales help you present and connect with the other participants—the first steps in networking!

Check in the IDFAcademy Guide to see which group you belong to and find out below who your tutor is and where the location for your group is.

Group 1: ITA - Pleinfoyer Rodolfo Castillo-Morales

Group 2: De Balie - Filmzaal Renko Douze

Group 3: De Balie - Grote Zaal Gitte Hansen

Group 4: De Balie - Pleinzaal Gugi Gumilang

Group 5: De Balie - Salon Marion Schmidt

Gugi Gumilang

Gugi Gumilang is the International Features Programmer for Hot Docs, that was founded in 1993 by the Documentary Organization of Canada (formerly the Canadian Independent Film Caucus), a national association of independent documentary filmmakers. In 1996, Hot Docs became a separately incorporated organization with a mandate to showcase and support the work of Canadian and international documentary filmmakers and to promote excellence in documentary production. Each year, Hot Docs —North America’s largest doc festival, conference and market—presents cutting edge films from around the world. Year-round, Hot

Docs supports the Canadian and international industry with professional development programs and a multi-million-dollar production fund portfolio, and fosters education through documentaries with its popular free program Docs For Schools.

Gitte Hansen

Gitte Hansen is an independent film consultant in the international documentary field with a focus on project development, production, financing and distribution of films with international potential. Gitte is currently committed mentor for the co-production training-scheme Close-Up and Finnish AVEK’s Talent Development Lab Kehittämö. In addition, she

serves at various workshops such as IDFA Project Space and Documentary Campus, at institutes, schools and organizations as mentor, tutor, or consultant, and at festivals and pitching events as moderator such as CPH:DOX and Nordisk Panorama. She furthermore works with individual production companies with a background as executive producer of more than 20 international documentaries and series for First Hand Films, where she was deputy director and headed sales and acquisitions for many years. Gitte holds a Master of Film & Rhetoric from the University of Copenhagen.

Marion Schmidt

Marion is a consultant, manager and facilitator in the documentary and NGO sector. She believes in the need for structural change and in her practice strives to create spaces where critical interaction is possible. She is currently co-director of the Documentary Association of Europe, advisor to the DW Akademie Film Department and regularly works with transnational organisations and initiatives in different regions of the world. She is on the steering committee of ARTEF, board member of NAAS Network e.V, co-founder of DOX BOX e.V.. and member of the European Film Academy. Marion has (co)-authored and published a guide to setting up an association in Germany and a publication for the Institut for Foreign Policy on strategies for more equitable support for international relocation in North-South contexts. In the past, Marion has managed public multidisciplinary arts events and conferences and worked for non-profit organisations in the UK, Egypt and Germany.

Renko Douze

Renko Douze is a director, producer, writer, and editor. Een van de jongens (Dutch for ‘one of the guys’), is the production company of producers Hasse van Nunen and Renko Douze. Together with filmmakers with a strong vision, they produce creative documentaries on stories that matter. Or that should matter. In the past decade they have produced more than 25 films, that were screened and broadcast all over the world, and got awarded at Berlinale, IDFA, Full Frame a.o. In addition to his work for Een van de jongens, Renko regularly works as a guest lecturer, tutor and mentor at various programs, including IDFA, the Netherlands Film Academy and the University of Amsterdam.

Rodolfo CastilloMorales

Rodolfo Castillo-Morales is a Mexican programmer and filmmaker, has participated in several fiction and short films as well as in feature documentary films as writer, director, cinematographer and editor, for commissioned television series documentaries for broadcasters in Mexico, Spain, USA and Japan, as well as participated on creative features films. He was the programmer at DocsMX as well as the general coordinator for DocsLab until 2018. Currently he’s the Documentary Programming Director of Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG), the largest and most important film festival in Latin-America, as well as general coordinator of DocuLab: Documentary Laboratory of FICG. He is currently in production of his fourth film.

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

Day 2

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy Talk: Characters close up WITH: María Silvia Esteve and Gianluca Matarrese

MODERATOR: Dana Linssen

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 14:30

Lunch

IDFAcademy Talk: Composing music for documentary

WITH: Nordin Lasfar and Vincent van Warmerdam

MODERATOR: Jasper Hokken

IDFAcademy Talk: How to collaborate in a (co-)production

WITH: Eugene Rachkovsky, Nyasha

Kadandara and Palmyre Badinier

MODERATOR: Selin Murat

15:30 - 17:30

18:30 - 20:00

21:00 - 22:38

20:30 - 22:43

IDFAcademy Session: Debunking the myths

WITH: Mikael Opstrup

Selin Murat

Palmyre Badinier

Christian Popp

IDFAcademy Session: Me & the filmmaker WITH: Rebecca Day

Guests Meet Guests

Screening: Do you love me (Lana Daher)

Screening: Militantropos (producer Eugene Rachkovsky)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Pleinzaal

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Filmzaal

Kanarieclub

Kriterion 1

Rialto De Pijp: Bovenzaal

IDFACADEMY TALK: CHARACTERS CLOSE UP

WITH: María Silvia Esteve and Gianluca Matarrese

MODERATOR: Dana Linssen

10:00–12:00 | De Balie - Grote Zaal

Filmmakers Gianluca Matarrese and María Silvia Esteve come together to talk about the complexities in the relationship between filmmaker and character, and the enriching process of collaborations between these. Gianluca comes to IDFA with two films: GEN_ (2025) in Signed and I Want Her Dead (2025) in the International Competition. Both works reveal how a filmmaker can build relationships of trust that open up the most intimate spaces within their characters, even when working with their own family. María Silvia premieres her film Mailin (2025) in the International Competition, inviting us into the depths of her character’s hugely painful experience and resilient spirit. Though their cinematic tools are very different, both filmmakers offer audiences a chance to enter the very private spaces of their characters and accompany them through some of their greatest struggles. How do we understand authorship when asking so much of someone?

The conversation between Gianluca, María Silvia, and the moderator, film critic Dana Linssen, will delve into questions of trust, distance, and creative control when working with a variety of characters.

María Silvia Esteve

María Silvia Esteve is an Argentine director and producer. Her first documentary, Silvia, premiered at IDFA in 2018, marking her debut on the international stage. In 2021, her film Criatura won the Pardino d’Oro at the Locarno Film Festival and was selected by over 100 festivals worldwide, including Sitges, Fantasia, MIFF, and Gouna. In 2022, her short film The Spiral was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also selected by MoMA for New Directors/New Films, as well as by the Hong Kong International Film Festival and IDFA, among others. Her upcoming film, Mailin, will have its world premiere in the International Competition at IDFA 2025. As a work in progress, it received the main

postproduction awards at Visions du Réel, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, and the Guadalajara Film Festival. In 2024 and 2025, her immersive video installation Cortex was exhibited at the MEP Museum (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) in Paris. Cortex was also selected for the Immersive Market at Cannes and for the Fondo Enlace / Orillas Nuevas program, organized by the Institut français d’Argentine in collaboration with Fundación Williams and Fundación Medifé. A 2025 Berlinale Talent, Silvia is currently developing Fauces, a project selected by TorinoFilmLab, the Cannes CNC Co-Production Workshop L’Atelier, and la Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and winner of the Focus COPRO’ at Cannes.

Gianluca Matarrese

Gianluca Matarrese is an Italian filmmaker based in Paris. Over the past five years, he has directed ten films showcased at major international festivals including Sundance, Venice, IDFA, Thessaloniki, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, DMZ, Torino Film Festival, Visions du Réel, Cinéma du Réel, Karlovy Vary, Viennale, etc. His work explores the fragile line between reality and fiction, where intimacy becomes political and the body a site of truth, desire and resistance. Blending documentary and theater, his films transform real encounters into emotional and moral dramaturgies that reveal the poetry of human relationships. Matarrese’s cinema investigates family, identity, power and vulnerability as collective experiences. His films have received numerous awards, including Best Italian Documentary at the Torino Film Festival and the Queer Lion in Venice. Produced with France TV, Arte, RTS, RSI and RAI Cinema, his works include Everything Must Go, The Last Chapter, A Steady Job, Fashion Babylon, Les Beaux Parleurs, Pinned into a Dress, The Zola Experience, GEN_ and I Want Her Dead.

Dana Linssen

Dana Linssen is a longterm film critic for the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad and the former editor-in-chief of the independent film magazine de Filmkrant. She is the founder of The Slow Criticism Project, a counterbalance against the commodification of film criticism. With Jan Pieter Ekker, she curated five editions of the Critics’ Choice at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the selection

of the Director’s Forum at The Netherlands Film Festival. She is a mentor and a member of the selection committee of the Berlinale Talents and a mentor for Sarajevo Talents. Since 2020, she has been involved with FilmForward as curator of the Waldorf Residency, and she teaches film at the ArtEZ School of Drama and the HKU.

IDFACADEMY TALK: COMPOSING MUSIC FOR DOCUMENTARY

WITH: Vincent van Warmerdam and Nordin Lasfar

MODERATOR: Jasper Hokken

13:00–14:30 | De Balie - Salon

Director Nordin Lasfar and acclaimed composer Vincent van Warmerdam discuss their extensive collaboration. They will elaborate on finding a common language between director and composer to create the music best suited to the film’s vision, and how this lends greater meaning and value to Mohammed & Paul – Once Upon a Time in Tangier, selected for the Luminous section and nominated for Best Dutch Film. This talk is in collaboration with Buma Music in Motion, the creative industries platform where music and media converge.

Nordin Lasfar

Nordin Lasfar is a documentary filmmaker, born in Morocco and raised in Amsterdam. In his films, he explores the beauty within raw reality — stories that often turn out to be more extraordinary than fiction. His work is told from a deeply personal and social perspective. His debut film Panna! — about two young street football players chasing their dream of becoming professionals — was selected for IDFA and nominated for Best Debut at the Netherlands Film Festival. With his new feature-length documentary Mohammed & Paul – Once Upon a Time in Tangier, he returns to IDFA, the place where his journey as a filmmaker began.

Vincent van Warmerdam

Vincent van Warmerdam achieved early success with the rock theatre group Hauser Orkater. He made his film debut with Abel, the feature film directed by his brother Alex. For the follow-up, The Northerners, he was awarded European Film Composer of

the Year. He composed for Orkater, Het Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Het Concertgebouw Orkest, among others. He collaborated with Jiskefet and composed the club anthem for Ajax. He wrote music for the documentary series Schuldig and Klassen (Gould & Sylbing), Rojo (Benjamin Naishtat, Argentina), and for director Jos de Putter: The Making of a New Empire, Dans Grozny Dans, See No Evil, Brooklyn Stories, and How Many Roads. For the score of The Mole Agent (Maite Alberdi, Chile), he won the Eye Award (USA). He has written two novels, De Plectrumfabriek and Boxgeur, and this year made his debut as a singer with the album There is Time.

Credit photo: Harm van den Berg / Studio Plancius.

Jasper Hokken

Jasper Hokken is a programmer at IDFA. Together with a team of international program advisors, he is responsible for IDFA’s Short Documentary Competition, as well as the short film selections for Best of Fests, Signed, Frontlight, and Luminous. Until last year, he curated IDFA on Stage, a program presenting unique

live events that explore the intersection between documentary cinema, new media, and performing arts (theatre, dance and/or live music). From 2014 to 2017, Hokken programmed IDFA’s Music Documentary section and collaborated with Amsterdam’s concert venue

Melkweg to organize post-screening music performances. Before joining IDFA in 2011, he studied Media & Culture Studies at the University of Amsterdam, where he later earned a master’s degree in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image (2012).

IDFACADEMY TALK: HOW TO COLLABORATE IN A (CO-)PRODUCTION

WITH: Palmyre Badinier, Eugene Rachkovsky and Nyasha Kadandara

MODERATOR: Selin Murat

13:00–14:30 | De Balie - Grote Zaal

Entering into a co-production is an important decision that opens doors to new partnerships and funding opportunities. It also raises many questions with regards to shared responsibilities, contractual obligations, budget splits and creative control, and forces partners to deal with and grapple with different socio-economic realities, and available funding. While international producing decisions take place, directors grapple with keeping their artistic point of view.

Producer Palmyre Badinier will share her views and experiences in an introduction to international co-production.

Followed by a conversation on the journey into the making of Militantropos (Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozgovyi, Ukraine, Austria, France) with producer Eugene Rachkovsky and Matabeleland with director Nyasha Kadandara.

Palmyre Badinier

titles, The Beauty of the Donkey, a hybrid documentary premiered in Zurich and Chicago this year, and The Shameless by Konstantin Bojanov, awarded at Cannes Official Selection Uncertain regard last year. In parallel, she teaches production and creative collaboration at Art School HEAD-Geneva, she drives a Documentary Residency for La Salle de Sport and provides regular mentorship and consultancies for several institutions like Eurodoc and IDFAcademy. She is a member of the European network EAVE, the European Film Academy, and the Swiss Film Academy.

Eugene Rachkovsky

Eugene Rachkovsky is a film producer based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a member of the TABOR Collective and acts as CEO of the TABOR production company. Eugene has produced several acclaimed short fiction films, including Solitude by Yelizaveta Smith and Black Dog by Nikita Zarkh. His documentary credits include Fragments of Ice by Mariia Stoianova, Ukraine: Nightlife in Resistance by Maksym Nakonechnyi, and Kyiv Soloists by Trond Kvig Andreassen. He co-produced the feature film Oxana by Charlène Favier and is currently developing the debut features In Vacuo by Yelizaveta Smith and Heritage by Alina Gorlova. Eugene is also involved in several documentary projects, such as the triptych The Days I Would Like to Forget by TABOR Collective and Listening to the World by Yelizaveta Smith. His most recent documentaries include Militantropos, which premiered at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, and Silent Flood, set to premiere at IDFA. He is a member of the Ukrainian Film Academy and an alum of EURODOC.

Nyasha Kadandara

Nyasha is an awardwinning pan-African director and cinematographer who tells stories that traverse the continent and reflect alternative voices. Her earlier works, such as Through the Fire, Queens & Knights and Le Lac have been showcased at numerous festivals, including Hotdocs, Sheffield DocFest, SXSW, and DOC NYC. She is a Brown Girls Doc Mafia Fellow, a Sundance Documentary Fund Grantee, and a TIFF Filmmakers

Lab alumna. At present, with her love for all things sports, Nyasha has been following the Copper Queens, who recently debuted at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Closer to her roots, she is on the festival circuit with her debut feature documentary Matabeleland, which recently premiered at CPH: DOX in March 2025.

Selin Murat

Turkish-French Selin Murat co-founded Parabola Films in Canada in 2010, creatively producing acclaimed documentaries for over a decade. She transitioned to film and industry programming, as Head of Industry at RIDM then as Markets Manager at IDFA, consulting with filmmakers for international film initiatives throughout. Since January 2025, she is the executive director of the IDFA Bertha Fund.

IDFACADEMY SESSION: DEBUNKING THE MYTHS

WITH: Mikael Opstrup, Selin Murat, Palmyre Badinier and Christian Popp

15:30 – 17:30 | De Balie – Grote Zaal, Pleinzaal, Salon

Continuing the topic of the session IDFAcademy Talk: How to collaborate in a (co-) production, participants join an interactive set-up to exchange their own experiences. You will need to choose between the following:

• DEBUNKING THE MYTHS: THE DIRECTOR – PRODUCER RELATIONSHIP

Moderated by Mikael Opstrup and Selin Murat in De Balie – Grote Zaal

Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask. DIRECTORS only. As a director, you are often told not to produce your own film, but to look for a producer. What should you expect from a producer? What not to expect? What about your rights and share? What are good examples of author contracts? Ask all the questions you never dared to.

• DEBUNKING THE MYTHS: CO-PRODUCTION RELATIONS

Moderated by Palmyre Badinier in De Balie - Pleinzaal and Christian Popp in De Balie - Salon

Co-producing is often compared to marriage, meaning trust lies at the basis of any relationship. How to balance the need for funding with the coproduction deal a potential partner is offering? How to do justice to the differences in experiences and economic realities? What basic articles should a memo-deal include to build an equitable partnership? Share your experiences and ask anything.

Mikael Opstrup

documentaries for a couple of decades, latest as co-owner of Final Cut Productions in Copenhagen, Denmark (2002-09). He is also a Production Adviser at The Danish Film Institute (1998-2002). Mikael attended script writing at the Danish Film School (1988) and has worked for more than 50 documentary events all over the world. Mikael is the author of THE UNCERTAINTY – A book about developing character driven documentary, published in 2021.

Selin Murat

Palmyre Badinier

Palmyre Badinier started producing films while based in Palestine and France, supporting the emergence of filmmakers like Erige Sehiri, and developing a passion for hybrid forms and approaches. In 2017, she was awarded as producer Berlinale Best Documentary Award for Ghost Hunting by Raed Andoni. She settled in Geneva in 2018 developing and (co-)producing international films and contents for several Swiss production companies. Among her most recent titles, The Beauty of the Donkey, a hybrid documentary premiered in Zurich and Chicago this year, and The Shameless by Konstantin Bojanov, awarded at Cannes Official Selection Uncertain regard last year. In parallel, she teaches production and creative collaboration at Art School HEAD-Geneva, she drives a Documentary Residency for La Salle de Sport and provides regular mentorship and consultancies for several institutions like Eurodoc and IDFAcademy. She is a member of the European network EAVE, the European Film Academy, and the Swiss Film Academy.

Christian Popp

Christian Popp was born in Romania in 1971. After a Master Degree in History and Arts in France and Germany he has been between 1998 and 2005 a commissioning editor for ARTE. From 2005 to 2022 he worked as producer in Germany and France for interscience film, Docdays Productions, YUZU Productions and TAG Film. He has produced more than 40 documentaries. Recently Christian joined the French company YAMI 2. The films Christian produced have screened at Festival de Cannes, IDFA, Sundance, Berlinale Venise and more. He was for more than 20 years consulting and mentoring at various documentary events (IDFAcademy, EAVE, Documentary Campus, Ex Oriente a.o.). Beside his job as producer and expert, he was Head of Industry at FIPADOC for the 2020 and 2021 editions and was jury member of many festivals (IDFA, Duisburger Filmwoche, TIFF Romania, Astra Film Festival a.o.).

IDFACADEMY SESSION: ME & THE FILMMAKER

WITH: Rebecca Day

15:30 – 17:30 | De Balie - Filmzaal

What impact does your presence as a filmmaker have on your working relationships and your film? Whatever genre you’re working in, whether it’s personal, character-led, or socio-political, your potency as a filmmaker makes a difference. This session will ask you to consider your use of self in the filmmaking process and the ripple effect this can have creatively and emotionally on you and your protagonists through all stages of production.

Producer and psychotherapist Rebecca Day opens a space to discuss and exchange how the filmmaker role affects you and the protagonists, creatively and emotionally, through all stages of production.

Rebecca Day

Rebecca Day is a qualified psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and freelance documentary producer. She founded Film In Mind, a therapy service for filmmakers, in 2018 to address mental health in the film industry. She combines her therapeutic skills with over a decade of documentary production experience to offer consultancies, workshops and therapeutic support to filmmakers working in difficult situations and with vulnerable people. She is also a co-founder of DocuMentality, an international initiative designed to elevate the conversation around mental health in the documentary community. She has been a guest speaker and mentor on panels and at workshops with organisations such as IDFA, Berlinale, International Documentary Association, Video Consortium, WIFTV and Sheffield DocFest.

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15

Day 3

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 15:00

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy Talk: Presenting your documentary

MODERATOR: Mikael Opstrup

PANEL: Erika Dilday, Jane Ray and Maëlle Guénégues

Lunch

IDFAcademy Talk: Cutting memories – intimacy, history and the archive WITH: Lana Daher

MODERATOR: Qutaiba Barhamji

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Salon

13:00 - 15:00

15:30 - 17:30

18:30 - 20:00

18:45 - 20:32

18:30 - 20:03

IDFAcademy Session: Producing with impact WITH: Khadidja Benouataf

IDFAcademy Round tables: Finance & funding WITH: Jane Mote, Jenni Wolfson and Rasmus Steen

MODERATOR: Selin Murat

IDFAcademy Session: Me & the filmmaker WITH: Rebecca Day

IDFAcademy: Round tables

Guests Meet Guests

Screening: Mailin (María Silvia Esteve)

Screening: Past Future Continuous (Firouzeh Khosrovani)

De Balie - Pleinzaal

De Balie - Grote Zaal

De Balie - Filmzaal

De Balie - Grote Zaal & Salon

Kanarieclub

Tuschinski 2

Eye 1

IDFACADEMY TALK: PRESENTING YOUR DOCUMENTARY

MODERATOR: Mikael Opstrup

PANEL: Erika Dilday, Jane Ray and Maëlle Guénégues.

10:00 – 12:00 | De Balie – Grote Zaal

Mikael Opstrup will elaborate on making a successful pitch trailer by showing examples and offering concrete advice. Four participants will get the opportunity to pitch their projects and receive feedback from a panel including commissioning editors Erika Dilday (POV), Jane Ray (Whickers Foundation) and Maëlle Guénégues (CAT&docs).

Mikael Opstrup

Mikael Opstrup is a specialist in international project development and financing, trailer consultancy, co-productions, workshop planning & tutoring. As Head of Studies at European Documentary Network (2011-19) he among other things created and edited EDNs Co-production Guide and worked as expert, tutor or moderator for IDFA, Hot Docs, Nordisk Panorama, Institute of Documentary Film, Baltic Sea Docs, Docs Barcelona, In Docs, Dox Box a.o. Developed and headed a number of international workshops. Mikael produced international documentaries for a couple of decades, latest as co-owner of Final Cut Productions in Copenhagen, Denmark (2002-09). He is also a Production Adviser at The Danish Film Institute (1998-2002). Mikael attended script writing at the Danish Film School (1988) and has worked for more than 50 documentary events all over the world. Mikael is the author of THE UNCERTAINTY – A book about developing character driven documentary, published in 2021.

Erika Dilday

Erika Dilday, producer, journalist and media executive, is the Executive Director of American Documentary Inc. and the Executive Producer of its award-winning documentary series POV on PBS and America ReFramed on WORLD. Previously, she was the CEO of Futuro Media Group, a multimedia organization that gives a critical voice to the diversity of the American experience through award-winning journalistic content for and about BIPOC. Prior to Futuro Media, she was the Executive Director of Maysles Documentary Center where she oversaw community cinema, filmmaking programs and produced the acclaimed documentary, In Transit. Erika also held strategic planning and financial management roles at The New York Times, National Geographic Television and CBS. She is a graduate of Harvard College, the Columbia School of Journalism and Columbia Business School. In 2020 she was a Knight Nieman fellow at Harvard University where she authored a piece for the Nieman Reports on authentic journalism in communities of color. Erika is a 2016 recipient of the Columbia Journalism School Alumni Award and a 2017 National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Fellow.

She is currently co-directing a series on the Reconstruction period in the United Stares with Ken Burns.

Jane Ray

Jane Ray is the head of The Whickers. She is a multi-award-winning documentary maker, and now she combines The Whickers with her own consulting company, Cat Flap Media. The Whickers was launched in 2015 to support emerging talent in international documentary. Through the generous legacy of its namesake, pioneering broadcaster Alan Whicker, it offers mentoring and training, as well as annual production funds of over £100,000 for documentary proposals in TV/Film and Audio/Radio. The Whickers’ flagship award, the Film & TV Funding Award, is open to directors working on their first feature length doc (50+ minutes).

Maëlle Guénégues

After working at different festivals in France (Les Rencontres du Cinéma, Sunny Side of the Doc, FIPA a.o.), Maëlle Guénégues moved into international distribution, first with Point du Jour International and Doc&Co before joining Catherine Le Clef to launch CAT&Docs in 2009. She also offers her expertise as an industry advisor and panelist and has been part of several juries and workshops. CAT&Docs represents a catalogue of handpicked creative documentaries with an international appeal. Recent titles include: A Fox under the Pink Moon, Singing Wings, Facing War, My Stolen Planet, Apolonia, Apolonia, Children of the Mist, The Earth is Blue as an Orange a.o.

IDFACADEMY TALK: CUTTING MEMORIES – INTIMACY, HISTORY AND THE ARCHIVE

WITH: Lana Daher

MODERATOR: Qutaiba Barhamji

13:00–15:00 | De Balie – Salon

How does the archive become a space for subjective stories, rather than a singular version of history? Lana Daher’s film Do You Love Me constructs a unique, multisensorial testimony of Lebanon and its capital. Her experimentation with archives transforms the act of looking into the past from a linear process into a constellation of individual stories, creating space not only for the pain that often inhabits the archives, but also the joy and vibrance that resides within them.

In conversation with editor Qutaiba Barhamji (The Voice of Hind Rajab, Four Daughters), Lana will explore the creative process through which images, sound and music generate diverse reflections on the past. In their dialogue, the archive emerges not merely as a repository of images, but also a space of intimacy, interpretation, and transformation. How can the creative relationship in the editing room enhance the artistic approach to archives, building a complete sensory trip from these? How is this relationship sustained outside the room, when touched by moments of uncertainty and war? And how can this process turn into a vibrant storytelling act of tenderness, and, at times, resistance?

Lana Daher

Lana Daher is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Beirut. With a background in fine arts and graphic design (BFA, American University of Beirut) as well as filmmaking (MA, Goldsmiths, University of London), she has long been active in Beirut’s vibrant art and music scenes, working across sound, image, and archival practices. Her work is grounded in deep research and intuitive storytelling, exploring the space between documentary and fiction by bringing different time periods and emotional landscapes into dialogue. Do You Love Me is her debut feature. Alongside the film, she created a website, a curated index of the resources and materials behind the

project, aimed at reconnecting Lebanese film heritage with both local and wider audiences.

Qutaiba Barhamji

Born in Damascus, Qutaiba Barhamji is a director and film editor. He has edited more than sixty films in twenty-two languages, including The Voice of Hinda Rajab (Silver Lion, Venice 2025) and Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa, Official Competition Cannes, Oscars 2023) by Kaouther Ben Hania, Do You Love Me (Venice 2025) by Lana Daher, as well as Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Anna Hints (Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, Best Direction at Sundance 2023). He also edited How to

Save a Dead Friend (Cannes 2022), Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege (Cannes 2021), and Still Recording (Grand Prize, Critics’ Week, Venice 2018). As a director, he is

the author of Gevar’s Land (2020, SCAM Star 2022, Cinéma du Réel, IDFA) and the short film Wardé (Arte, 2016).

IDFACADEMY SESSION: PRODUCING WITH IMPACT

WITH: Khadidja Benouataf

13:00 – 15:00 | De Balie - Pleinzaal

With ‘impact producing’, we aim to ignite genuine social or environmental change with a film. What does a successful impact campaign look like? And how do we craft these influential campaigns? How do you set suitable goals, and what are creative impact actions? Impact producer Khadidja Benouataf will guide you through the drawing up of an impact strategy to inspire you to think about impact production for your own film.

Khadidja Benouataf

Coming from a background of journalism, Khadidja is president of Impact Social Club, the Think Tank of impact in France, impact strategist at BIM - Best Impact Movies and advisory committee member of Doc Society’s Global Impact Producer’s Alliance. She trains film industry professionals and students internationally (Dixit - Le film français, Focal, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, École W-Paris-Panthéon-Assas/CFJ), acts as a panelist and runs impact labs in international film festivals (Berlinale, Fipadoc, FIFDH, Dok Leipzig, Moviets That Matter, SUnny Side of the Doc...). She joined the pool of mentors of different programs (Pourcent culturel Migros, StoryBoard Collective, Aflamuna). She has designed the impact campaigns of award-winning documentaries: The Zimov Hypothesis by Denis Sneguirev, Le Dernier

Refuge The Last Shelter by Ousmane Samassekou and the French campaign of Shadow Game by Eefje Blankevoort & Els Van Driel.

IDFACADEMY ROUND TABLES: FINANCE & FUNDING

13:00 – 15:00 | De Balie – Grote Zaal

These round tables offer the opportunity for international filmmakers to meet representatives of different funds and elaborate on their support programs and selection process, as well as going into the do’s and don’ts of writing funding applications.

Ahead of these round tables Jane Mote (The Whickers), Rasmus Steen (IMS) and Jenni Wolfson (Chicken & Egg) will give more information on what kind of projects they are looking for and how they work with supported filmmakers in a presentation moderated by Selin Murat.

Rasmus Steen

Rasmus Steen is Head of Documentary at International Media Support, an international non-profit media development organisation working to support and enable media and documentary film institutions in countries affected by political repression to reduce conflict, strengthen democracy and facilitate dialogue. IMS supports documentary films from the Arab world and Eastern Europe that are focusing on topics of public interest and covers these topics in a professional and ethical way.

Jane Mote Journalist, storyteller and TV executive Jane Mote is a champion for the power and accessibility of documentary. She is Consultant Editor for documentary funding foundation The Whickers nurturing and supporting audio and film documentary-makers who share a curiosity for the world. She is a story lab mentor for MyDocs, Docs By the Sea, Dhaka Doc, and TokyoDoc and supports other filmmakers informally and as a consulting

producer. Jane was formerly UK MD of Al Gore’s documentary channel Current commissioning and executive producing feature and TV-length documentaries. She has worked in management at UKTV, Discovery, Turner Broadcasting, BBC Worldwide, STV, ESi media and the Africa channel. She started her career as a newspaper journalist before working 16 years in the BBC creating and running BBC London across News and Current Affairs. She is director of beechtobeach based in West Sussex, England, recently co-directing the documentary My Bones Are Woven. She is also a tutor for the BFI specialising in smartphone filmmaking.

Jenni Wolfson

Jenni Wolfson is CEO of Chicken & Egg Films. This organisation shapes a more equitable and just world with the catalytic power of documentary films by providing funding, mentorship and industry access to a global community of women and gender-expansive filmmakers. We are looking for films directed by women/ gender expansive directors. Feature films that are in early/mid production by a first or second time feature director. Feature

films in development made by a second time feature director. We consider a variety of genres from global filmmakers.

Selin Murat

Turkish-French Selin Murat co-founded Parabola Films in Canada in 2010, creatively producing acclaimed documentaries

for over a decade. She transitioned to film and industry programming, as Head of Industry at RIDM then as Markets Manager at IDFA, consulting with filmmakers for international film initiatives throughout. Since January 2025, she is the executive director of the IDFA Bertha Fund.

IDFACADEMY SESSION: ME & THE FILMMAKER

WITH: Rebecca Day 15:30 – 17:30 | De Balie - Filmzaal

Producer and psychotherapist Rebecca Day opens a space to discuss and exchange how the filmmaker role affects you and the protagonists, creatively and emotionally, through all stages of production. What impact does your presence as a filmmaker have on your working relationships and your film? Whatever genre you’re working in, whether it’s personal, character-led, or socio-political, your potency as a filmmaker makes a difference. This session will ask you to consider your use of self in the filmmaking process and the ripple effect this can have creatively and emotionally on you and your protagonists through all stages of production.

Rebecca Day

designed to elevate the conversation around mental health in the documentary community. She has been a guest speaker and mentor on panels and at workshops with organisations such as IDFA, Berlinale, International Documentary Association, Video Consortium, WIFTV and Sheffield DocFest.

IDFACADEMY: ROUND TABLES

15:30 – 17:30 | De Balie – Grote Zaal & Salon

Round table meetings with renowned professionals from the industry. For each of these sessions, approximately eight professionals per session will be available to meet-up in a round table setting. At each table, 8 to 10 participants will be able to sit and ask questions about the professional’s specific expertise and discuss with this industry professional for 2 rounds of approximately 45 minutes.

To sign up for the round tables, go to the IDFAcademy desk on the day of the session and put down your name for the table you want to attend and the time slot. Please note the limited spots per table. This ensures that the meeting can be most beneficial for those attending.

Tracie Holder is a filmmaker, consultant, producer and film funding specialist. She leads grant-writing and funding workshops as well as pitch training at industry events internationally. Holder is widely regarded as a “go-to” person for filmmakers seeking U.S. funding having raised more than $3 million in grants for her own projects. She was a longtime consultant to Women Make Movies, Development/Funding Strategist for Abby Disney’s Fork Films and former board member of New York Women in Film. Holder teaches all aspects of documentary producing at the New York Film Academy and runs her own consulting business, Means of Production. Means of Production Films works with documentary filmmakers internationally to provide strategic advice regarding U.S. grant funding (including for non-American films/filmmakers), how best to successfully navigate the documentary film industry, as well as consulting services related to all aspects of producing/co-productions.

Emma Mørup

Emma Mørup has worked at CPH:DOX since 2016, running the festival’s longstanding international co-production and financing platform CPH:FORUM. Each year, CPH:FORUM presents a selection of documentary projects in development and production by both established and emerging directors and producers from all over the world who take the stage to pitch their films and attend tailored one-to-one meetings with financiers and distributors and potential co-production partners. She has a combined background in film and academia and holds an MSc in geography and geoinformatics, is educated from the European Film College in Denmark with a specialisation in producing and documentary, a 2021 fellow of UnionDocs Documentary Lab in New York, and working independently with film projects in the intersections between science and documentary.

Tracie Holder

Melanie de Vocht and Jos Mosthagen (IBF)

The IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) is dedicated to strengthening independent, author-driven documentary filmmaking in regions and communities where access to funding and distribution for independent creative documentary film is structurally challenging—across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. The Fund supports filmmakers working in contexts without robust public–private funding structures or where censorship restricts creative independence. Beyond funding, IBF offers continual support by connecting granted filmmakers with the independent international documentary film landscape. This can include tailored consultancies, talent development opportunities, and access to IDFA’s markets and training programs. Our aim is to foster long-term, reciprocal collaborations that facilitate filmmakers in realizing their creative ambitions on their own terms.

Rajae el Morabet Belhaj

Rajae el Morabet Belhaj works as a MEDIA Advisor at DutchCulture | Creative Europe Desk NL, the Dutch contact point for the European funding program. She supports professionals in the audiovisual sector by providing information and guidance on the funding opportunities available through the Creative Europe MEDIA programme, an EU initiative that supports the development, production, distribution, and promotion of European

films, series, games, and other audiovisual works. At IDFAcademy, she will be available to advise participants on the different funding schemes, explain the program in detail, and discuss eligibility criteria, helping them determine which opportunities suit their projects and how to best navigate the application process.

Nora Philippe

Nora Philippe (she/ her) serves as Director of EURODOC, leading training program and global network for documentary producers. For 2 decades, she has worked across the audiovisual and visual arts ecosystem in France and in the United States, with a strong commitment to international cooperation, inclusion and equity work. As an award-winning filmmaker, curator, and writer, she explores questions of feminism and gender, and sensitive issues around colonial heritage and African-American arts, through film, exhibition and research. Her recent films include Girls for Tomorrow (ARTE/ RTBF, Thessaloniki 2025), Restitution? Africa’s Fight for its Art (ARTE, CPH:DOX 2022), and Like Dolls, I’ll Rise (Visions du Réel 2018). A fellow of the Institute for Arts and Imagination, she has curated film series and exhibitions for leading institutions (Columbia University, Maison rouge, Cité internationale des arts), and collaborated to several books on documentary filmmaking, archives, and restitutions of artefacts. Nora Philippe has served as jury member and expert for major festivals and film funds including IDFA, RIDM, CPH:DOX, FIFDH, CNC, Eurimages, and Chicken & Egg Pictures.

Fiona Lawson-Baker

Fiona Lawson-Baker is the executive producer of Witness, the flagship global documentary strand on Al Jazeera English (AJE). Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour English language global news channel that places people at the heart of the story. Through its fearless journalism, award-winning documentaries and local perspectives, it tells authentic stories rooted in the belief that everyone has a story worth hearing. AJE reaches over 352 million households in more than 150 countries worldwide. Witness is Al Jazeera English’s flagship documentary strand that features character led documentaries that provide the personal stories behind news headlines. Witness broadcasts two documentaries every week - 1 x 25 mins and 1 x 47’30. Al Jazeera English’s documentary department also acquires standalone documentaries and acquires and commissions documentary series. Al Jazeera English’s investigations department also acquires and commissions reportage for award-winning strands People and Power, 101 East and Fault Lines. This year’s IDFA Frontlight program features the film Gaza’s Twins, Come Back to Me, for which Fiona is the executive producer.

Tereza Vacková

Tereza graduated in Arts Management at Prague University and Marketing at Ghent University and Art History at Utrecht University. She focuses on PR, social media and media relations in the cultural sector, mainly for NGOs. In 2019 she joined dok.incubator, a tailor-made

workshop focused on the creative development of films in post-production. Every year dok.incubator selects 8 International + 8 Central European film teams and helps them focus on storytelling, sharpening marketing and distribution strategy. In 14 years dok.incubator films achieved two Academy Award nominations and 14 were selected for Sundance.

Patrizia Mancini

Italian based in Paris with a master’s in history and Critic of Cinema and a background in theatre and dubbing, Patrizia has been in the documentary industry since 2012. She worked with companies such as Wide House, Slingshot Films and Deckert Distribution GmbH for international sales & acquisitions as well with the renewed International Co-production market Sunny Side of the Doc as Head of Talents & International Development. In 2024 she joined the team of UK leading documentary festival Sheffield DocFest as Head of Industry, and she is now freelancing as Industry Senior Consultant for DocFest and Industry Matchmaker for Jihlava IDFF.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16

9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 12:00

Day 4

Coffee & Croissants

IDFAcademy: Participants meet-up #2

WITH: Palmyre Badinier

Victor Ede

Christian Popp

Gugi Gumilang

Marion Schmidt

12:00 - 13:00

13:00 - 14:30

Lunch

IDFAcademy Talk: Sales strategies, the inside information

WITH: Liselot Verbrugge and Anna Berthollet

IDFAcademy Talk: Releasing your story WITH: Petra Costa

MODERATOR: Gitte Hansen

15:30 - 17:00

17:00 - 18:00

18:00 - 20:00

13:15 - 14:34

21:15 - 22:58

21:30 - 23:08

Guest of Honor Talk: Susana de Sousa Dias

MODERATOR: Isabel Arrate Fernandez

IDFAcademy: Round tables

IDFAcademy Closing Drinks

Guests Meet Guests - hosted by Polish Docs

Screening: Fordlândia Panacea (Susana de Sousa Dias)

Screening: I Want Her Dead (Gianluca Matarrese)

Screening: Matabeleland (Nyasha Kadandara)

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Groups:

1: ITA - Pleinfoyer

2: De Balie - Filmzaal

3: ITA - Marnix Bordes

4: De Balie - Pleinzaal

5: De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

De Balie - Salon

De Balie - Pleinzaal

Tuschinski 1

De Balie - Pleinzaal, Filmzaal & Entresol

De Balie - Bovenfoyer

Kanarieclub

Tuschinski 1

Pathe City 2

IDFACADEMY PARTICIPANTS MEET-UP #2

WITH: Gugi Gumilang, Palmyre Badinier, Marion Schmidt, Victor Ede & Christian Popp

10:00 – 12:00 | ITA - Pleinfoyer, Marnix Bordes, and De Balie - Filmzaal, Pleinzaal & Salon

On Sunday morning, participants meet again in the groups assigned on Thursday. In this second meeting, there is an opportunity to check in after three full days of exchange and to discuss the topics that have emerged. NOTE that the rooms and tutors might have change due to availability, but your group stays the same.

• Group 1 – ITA: Pleinfoyer - Palmyre Badinier

• Group 2 – De Balie: Filmzaal - Victor Ede

• Group 3 – ITA: Marnix Bordes - Christian Popp

• Group 4 – De Balie: Pleinzaal - Gugi Gumilang

• Group 5 – De Balie: Salon - Marion Schmidt

Marion Schmidt

Gugi Gumilang

Palmyre Badinier

Christian Popp

Christian produced have screened at Festival de Cannes, IDFA, Sundance, Berlinale Venise and more. He was for more than 20 years consulting and mentoring at various documentary events (IDFAcademy, EAVE, Documentary Campus, Ex Oriente a.o.). Beside his job as producer and expert, he was Head of Industry at FIPADOC for the 2020 and 2021 editions and was jury member of many festivals (IDFA, Duisburger Filmwoche, TIFF Romania, Astra Film Festival a.o.).

Victor Ede

Victor Ede started producing in 2014 within Cinephage productions. He has produced 19 films, mostly international coproductions with a current slate of a dozen of international projects. His films are often coproduced with French and European broadcasters or for the big screen. Victor Ede is currently deputy member of CNC FAIA-ADR commission, member of DAE, co-president of the Producers union of the SUD-PACA region (LPA). He has cofounded Cinephage (production), Tangente (theatrical distribution), Image Fantôme (postproduction) and in 2024 Open Kitchen Films (international distribution). He’s participating to several workshop and commissions as a tutor, selector or expert.

IDFACADEMY TALK: SALES STRATEGIES, THE INSIDE INFORMATION

WITH: Liselot Verbrugge and Anna Berthollet

13:00 – 14:30 | De Balie - Salon

Liselot Verbrugge (Film Harbour) and Anna Berthollet (Lightdox) will provide insight into their sales and distribution expertise. Discover their approaches and secrets for getting a film out into the world. What is the best strategy, and how do you decide which steps best suit which film? How does the current global situation influence these strategies? Learn at what stage of the process a sales agent or distributor joins the team, and what you can expect from their collaboration. But also, how to put a film out there without a sales agent, and do it yourself?

Liselot Verbrugge

Liselot Verbrugge has a degree in film production from the Dutch Film Academy. She has more than 15 years experience in the audiovisual sector, first working for a few years in production before moving to film festivals. Amongst other postings, she was a festival and market producer at the IDFA Forum and Cinekid for professionals, two of Amsterdam’s most preeminent cultural events. In 2013 she began working in documentary sales, first for the sales arm of NPO sales and then for Autlook Filmsales. She ran sales and acquisitions for Deckert Distribution since 2019 and is currently the CEO. Parallel to this she offers bespoke consulting and tutoring services for a variety of organizations. Liselot is based in Amsterdam.

Anna Berthollet

Anna is an international sales and distribution expert specialized in creative documentaries. After earning a Master’s degree in Media and Marketing Sciences from the University of Geneva and an early career as a project leader

in the banking sector, she shifted to the documentary field in 2013, graduating from the École Documentaire de Lussas and attending several leading European workshops for producers and filmmakers. Since 2015, she has been dedicated to international distribution and today oversees all activities at Lightdox, with a particular focus on Acquisitions, Theatrical and Impact Distribution. Alongside her work with filmmakers, Anna is regularly active as a mentor and jury member at international industry platforms and festivals, supporting emerging talent and innovative voices in documentary cinema.

IDFACADEMY TALK: RELEASING YOUR STORY

WITH: Petra Costa

MODERATOR: Gitte Hansen

13:00–14:30 | De Balie – Pleinzaal

Director Petra Costa dives into their preparation and strategy for the release of award-winning films such as Olmo and the Seagull, Apocalypse in the Tropics, and The Edge of Democracy.

Thinking about the release of a film should start before the film is completed. From finding the right partners and allies, to designing the matching visuals, to preparing how you will talk about your film. Not only is there an audience with expectations and reactions, but industry players also need and want something from your story. There might also be considerations to take into account concerning characters or politics. A strategy that stays true to the film and its filmmakers is therefore essential. When do you involve distribution partners? What do you actually ‘release’, and how do you work with sensitivities? Director Petra Costa dives into the various stages and moments involved in releasing her work.

Petra Costa

Petra Costa has been telling stories in the crossroads between the personal and the political and trying to understand the unequal society we live in, focused in her home country of Brazil. Her latest documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2024 and won best documentary at the Havana and Montclair film festivals. Previously she directed The Edge of Democracy, which was nominated for an Academy Award and was listed by the New York Times as one of the best 10 films of 2019. It won the Peabody Award, Spirit Awards and best director at DOC NYC.

Gitte Hansen

Gitte Hansen is an independent film consultant in the international documentary field with a focus on project

development, production, financing and distribution of films with international potential. Gitte is currently committed mentor for the co-production training-scheme Close-Up and Finnish AVEK’s Talent Development Lab Kehittämö. In addition, she serves at various workshops such as IDFA Project Space and Documentary Campus, at institutes, schools and organizations as mentor, tutor, or consultant, and at festivals and pitching events as moderator such as CPH:DOX and Nordisk Panorama. She furthermore works with individual production companies with a background as executive producer of more than 20 international documentaries and series for First Hand Films, where she was deputy director and headed sales and acquisitions for many years. Gitte holds a Master of Film & Rhetoric from the University of Copenhagen.

GUEST OF HONOR TALK: SUSANA DE SOUSA DIAS

WITH: Susana de Sousa Dias

MODERATOR: Isabel Arrate Fernandez

15:30 – 17:00 | Tuschinski 1

Guest of Honor Susana de Sousa Dias sits down with IDFA’s Artistic Director for an indepth conversation on her practice and legacy. Known for her singular reworking of archival images and sound, acclaimed filmmaker, curator, and scholar de Sousa Dias has developed a body of work that interrogates dictatorship, colonial legacies and the fragile terrain of memory. Her films—rigorously formal yet deeply affective—transform official archives into counter-histories, where silence, absence, and testimony emerge through powerful acts of subversion. In retracing the intersections of cinema, memory, and political imagination, de Sousa Dias affirms the power of film to reopen historical wounds while also creating space for new forms of resistance, remembrance, and emancipation.

This dialogue accompanies a retrospective of her filmography as well as a Top 10 program curated for the festival, offering audiences insight into the historical, aesthetic, and ethical questions at the core of her work. This conversation is moderated by IDFA’s Artistic Director, Isabel Arrate Fernandez

Susana de Sousa

Dias

IDFA will highlight de Sousa Dias’s singular approach to archival images and cinematic form, showing a selection of her works—known for interrogating dictatorship, colonial legacies, and the fragile terrain of memory. Her signature style emerged with Still Life (2005), an archival meditation on the Portuguese fascist regime Estado Novo, Europe’s longest running dictatorship. International recognition followed with 48 (2009), which juxtaposes the regime’s photographs of political prisoners with testimonies decades later, revealing the violence embedded in every image. Her latest works turn to the neo-colonial archives of Brazil, including the world premiere of Fordlândia Panacea (2025), an excavation of the former company-town

founded by Henry Ford in the Amazon rainforest in 1928. With the Retrospective, IDFA presents a comprehensive look at de Sousa Dias’s uncompromising approach to creating dissident counter-archives and her distinctive visual style.

IDFACADEMY: ROUND TABLES

15:30 – 17:00 | De Balie – Filmzaal, Entresol & Pleinzaal

Sabine Fayoux Cantillo

Sabine Fayoux Cantillo is Head of Industry at Visions du Réel, a leading non-fiction film festival (17–26 April, 2026), which features competitive and curated sections. Recent guests have included Claire Denis, Werner Herzog, Lucrecia Martel, and Jia Zhang-Ke. Its Industry program, attracting over 1400 professionals, focuses on supporting international projects looking for mentorship, funding, co-production, and distribution opportunities.

Elizabeth Klinck

Elizabeth Klinck is an archive producer and music clearance specialist on international documentaries and fiction films that have garnered Emmy, BAFTA, CSA, Peabody, and Oscar awards. She also leads workshops and produces industry sessions at international markets and film festivals. Elizabeth Klinck is known for her work on Into The Inferno, Surgeon’s Cut, Cheating Hitler,

Anthropocene, Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words, How To Change The World, and Stories We Tell.

Rima Mismar

With over 25 years of experience in arts and culture, Rima Mismar is a leading voice on the intersections of art, culture, and society. Her career spans independent and institutional spaces, profit and not-for-profit sectors, offering a critical perspective on intercultural dynamics and the evolving realities of the Arabic-speaking region and the Global South. As Executive Director of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Rima champions independent Arab artists and cultural institutions, promoting cross-border networks, collaboration and diverse voices, shaping a vibrant ecosystem for Arab arts and culture, safeguarding regional narratives and engaging global audiences. AFAC is the leading independent organization supporting artists, cultural practitioners, collectives, and institutions across the Arab region and its diaspora since 2007. AFAC’s mission is to empower arts and

culture in the Arab region, safeguarding diverse narratives and enabling creative freedom. Through unrestricted support for independent voices, AFAC highlights the richness of an ever-evolving cultural sector, nurtures alternative perspectives, experimental practices, and approaches that make arts and culture a vibrant, community-shaping force.

Kate Townsend

Kate Townsend oversees documentary films in London for the global streaming platform Netflix. Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services with 278 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games. Kate has commissioned titles such as Fyre, The Devil Next Door, Tell Me Who I Am, Don’t F**k With Cats, Tiger King and Dick Johnson Is Dead and more recently Pamela, A Love Story, Wham!, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, Will & Harper and Martha. Prior to Netflix, Kate was Commissioning Editor of the BBC’s Storyville.

Jess Reilly

Jess Reilly is Head of Sales & Acquisitions at Together Films. This is an innovative Sales and Marketing company based in London serving the international film community. As leaders in the social impact entertainment space, we believe films can change lives and broaden perspectives. We amplify documentary and narrative films by finding the best audiences to spark conversation and inspire action.

Debra Zimmerman

Debra Zimmerman is the Executive Director of Women Make Movies, a NY non-profit social enterprise that has been supporting women filmmakers with distribution and production assistance of their independent films since 1972. For the last 20 years, filmmakers from WMM’s programs have won or been nominated for Academy Awards and more than 1100 films have raised more than $90 million in funding with WMM’s Production Assistance program. Zimmerman is in great demand around the world as a speaker, panelist, and mentor. She has been on the juries of film festivals around the world including IDFA, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the Cartagena International Film Festival. She recently gave workshops and mentored filmmakers at Doc Lab in Krakow, E-Docs in Ecuador, and Docs Lisboa and has been on the selection committees for Docs Barcelona and other pitching forums. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including NY Women in Film and Television’s Changemaker Award and Hot Doc’s Doc Mogul Award, given to those who have made an essential contribution to the creative vitality of the documentary industry, both in his/ her home country and abroad. Recently she was invited to be a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.

SCREENINGS

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 13

GEN_

Gianluca Matarrese (France, Italy, Switzerland, 2025, 109 min.)

20:30 | Tuschinski 1

As the head of the fertility and gender department of a Milan’s Niguarda hospital, the charismatic Dr Maurizio Bini oversees the dreams and struggles of aspiring parents undergoing IVF alongside the deeply personal journeys of individuals reconciling their bodies with their gender identities.

This fly-on-the-wall documentary follows him in the run-up to his retirement. In his consultation room he asks probing questions, builds trust, and manages unrealistic expectations, always guided by a deep sense of empathy. “We do what is in the patient’s best interest, not always what the patient asks for,” he explains.

Operating in a politically charged environment, Dr Bini and his staff must also navigate the ethical and social dilemmas posed by a conservative government and the ever-increasing pressures of a commercialized healthcare market eager to commodify the human body. In the context of such challenges, this intimate portrait of a passionate, unconventional medical professional becomes a lens through which viewers are invited to reflect on the purpose of medicine and the role of compassion in public healthcare.

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14

DO YOU LOVE ME

Lana Daher (Lebanon, France, Germany, 2025, 76 min.)

21:00 | Kriterion 1

Lana Daher explores Lebanon’s audiovisual history in a personal, disorienting and tender journey. Do You Love Me is composed entirely of archival materials—films, television programs, home videos and photographs—that cover the past 70 years. The filmmaker uses them to create a new narrative about her homeland and her hometown, Beirut.

Drawing from more than 2,000 archival sources—visuals and sounds spanning from the Lebanese Civil War to the present—Daher interweaves media fragments by moving back and forth in time. We see a Lebanese journalist returning to a home devastated by Israeli airstrikes, a taxi driver recounting the story of the Murr Tower—a never-completed building that now serves as a war monument—and a guide leading Western visitors around tourist sites.

Daher reflects on Beirut’s collective memory, which, like her film, lacks a strict chronology. In a country where recent history is not part of the school curriculum, this archival film forms a unique testimony to the multilayered identity of Lebanon and its capital.

MILITANTROPOS

Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozgovyi (Ukraine, Austria, France, 2025, 111 min.)

20:30 | Rialto De Pijp: Bovenzaal

Militantropos, the opening text explains, is “a persona adopted by humans entering a state of war.” It’s the title of this film exposing how the Russian full-scale invasion has permeated all facets of life in Ukraine.

Starting from the moment the first evacuation trains depart from Kyiv’s central station, the film pieces together everyday lives transformed by war. We see civilians train in combat skills, men head to the front, crops wither, and mothers and young widows grieve. And we hear that constant, ominous rumble in the distance.

In thoughtfully crafted scenes, we witness the evolution of an instinct to survive, and an enduring need for compassion. Some scenes—like when a swarm of press photographers in bulletproof vests try to capture images of an old woman carrying a shopping bag—have an absurd quality. Others—like the soldier writing a poem for his beloved—are deeply moving. During brief lulls in the fighting, we see young men in the trenches watch the Soccer World Cup. Gradually, a picture emerges of how the human psyche adapts to a new reality: People become part of the war— and the war becomes part of them.

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15

MAILIN

María Silvia Esteve (Argentina, France, Romania, 2025, 89 min.)

18:45 | Tuschinski 2

Mailin tells her daughter a bedtime story. It’s a fairytale that soon turns dark, about a girl born from true love and a beast that devoured her childhood. To allow her daughter the childhood she never had, Mailin needs to confront her own pain and fear.

Mailin collaborated with filmmaker María Silvia Esteve on this film for eight years, during which she seeks justice after being sexually abused as a child in Argentina. The perpetrator, a priest and family friend, was responsible for many more victims. A wealth of archival footage, home movies, and audio recordings from court hearings accompany Mailin’s story and the accounts of family members and friends. A picture emerges from the enduring impact of the abuse, which is powerfully evoked in ghostly visuals accompanying the fantasy story that runs throughout the film.

Understanding—or even just remembering—what happened to her as a young child has been a long journey for Mailin. Her courageous efforts to overcome the past stand in sharp contrast with the church’s stifling attempts to hush up the scandal. Mailin’s strong, honest and fragile account conveys the vital importance of acknowledgement and retribution.

PAST FUTURE CONTINUOUS

Morteza Ahmadvand, Firouzeh Khosrovani (Iran, Norway, Italy, 2025, 76 min.)

18:30 | Eye 1

Maryam fled Iran decades ago and settled in the United States. Her parents remained in Tehran. Now that they are growing older and political unrest is intensifying, she is concerned. She persuades them to install security cameras in every room, so she can stay in direct contact with them from a distance. Maryam finds herself glued to this virtual connection, only now realizing how lonely they must have been all these years.

Footage from these cameras inside Maryam’s childhood home forms the basis of this moving, tender, and philosophical film by Firouzeh Khosrovani and Morteza Ahmadvand, respectively director and art director of Radiograph of a Family (2020). The security footage shows the parents shuffling slowly but routinely through their rooms.

Over this silent montage, at times intercut with home videos from her childhood, Maryam reflects on half a lifetime without her parents, on growing up in Tehran, and on why she can never return. Stylized images of birds seem to symbolize both a lack of freedom and courageous attempts to break free.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16

FORDLÂNDIA PANACEA

Susana de Sousa Dias (Portugal, Brazil, 2025, 62 min.)

13:15 | Tuschinski 1

In 1928, industrialist Henry Ford built a company town in the Brazilian jungle and established a rubber plantation. Within a few years his industrial utopia collapsed, coming to an end in 1945. Fordlândia was largely abandoned and became known as a ghost town.

Following on from her previous film Fordlandia Malaise, in this documentary Susana de Sousa Dias evokes the spirits that still haunt the place: of those who built the town and died in the process, from snakebites, infections, the blazing sun, and exhaustion; and of those who once lived there but are no longer remembered.

Above all, the film lets us hear from the people who live there now. Since the early 21st century, Fordlândia’s population has been growing. Recent archaeological findings show that the history of this settlement goes back much further than Ford’s utopian illusion, which should not be allowed to dictate the land’s future. The images unfold dreamily, as if the camera itself were a floating spirit, releasing Fordlândia from the imprint of colonialism.

I WANT HER DEAD

Gianluca Matarrese (Italy, 2025, 86min.)

21:15 | Tuschinski 1

Two women stand facing each other amid the ruins of a Roman theater. Under the watchful eye of the local police and the family to which they both belong, Luisa and Imma air their mutual grievances. The heated argument that follows reveals just how deep the rift runs between the two sisters-in-law.

Director Gianluca Matarrese used a decade-long conflict in his own family to explore the meaning of blood ties in a Calabrian village. Contrada Viscigliette has only seventy inhabitants, all of whom are related. Disputes like the one between Imma and Luisa therefore have a major impact on the community. Matarrese introduces a group of aunts who try to reconcile the two women.

This allows the viewer to learn more about the background of the conflict. A mother who turned her back on her daughter. A difference in social status that bred contempt. Kevin Brunet’s camerawork captures the conversations, dinners and arguments so vividly that as a viewer you sometimes feel like you’re watching a tragicomedy by Ettore Scola. A folk song plays: “The real winner is the one who forgives.” Will either of them be able to do so?

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16

MATABELELAND

Nyasha Kadandara (Kenya, Zimbabwe, Canada, 2025, 76 min.)

21:30 | Pathe City 2

Chris left Zimbabwe 20 years ago to make a fresh start, but he is still struggling. Work in Botswana is hard and underpaid, and numerous relatives keep making demands of him. He has long believed his family’s misfortunes and his financial struggles are the result of a curse, related to a trauma that he has been carrying for decades.

Nyasha Kadandara’s first feature-length documentary is named after the region in Zimbabwe made infamous by Operation Gukurahundi. Under the regime of President Robert Mugabe, more than 20,000 Ndebele were killed in Matabeleland between 1983 and 1987, among them Chris’s father. There was never a proper funeral, and Chris believes his father’s spirit haunts the family.

The news of Mugabe’s death reopens Chris’s old wounds. A portrait emerges of a restless man caught in his own frustration, until he will finally be able to confront his cruel family history. Touches of humor and a strong musical presence ensure that Matabeleland never becomes overloaded. And despite confrontational moments, this is ultimately a film about healing, moving forward, and compassion.

ATTENDING IDFA 2025

FESTIVAL PROGRAM

IDFA’s program sections are a testament to the evolving world of documentary film. From emerging art forms to established cinematic traditions, our slate of competitions and non-competitive sections offer something for every filmmaker and film-lover. Included in your IDFAcademy pass there are 20 free tickets for all regular IDFA screenings and events.

FILMMAKER TALKS

Filmmaker Talks are hour-long interviews with renowned documentary directors, focusing on their creative methods, body of work, and views on filmmaking. To access these sessions, you need to book a ticket on IDFA’s website; this is included in the 20 tickets that come with your pass. For IDFAcademy participants, we include a special talk in the program: the Guest of Honor Master Talk. This year, renowned filmmaker Susana de Sousa Dias will give a talk on Sunday afternoon. Check the time and location in the IDFAcademy schedule and pick up your ticket, if interested, at the IDFAcademy Desk.

DOCLAB

During IDFA 2025, DocLab acts as a platform for interactive projects across a range of programs, exhibitions, and live events where a curated selection of innovative new media projects can be experienced. To access this program, book tickets through IDFA’s website; these are included in the 20 tickets available in your IDFAcademy pass.

CODE OF CONDUCT AT IDFA

The Code of Conduct applies to all IDFA staff, contractors, volunteers, professional guests, audiences, and relations. IDFA is committed to providing a safe and friendly environment for all, where everyone is treated equally, without discrimination, exclusion, or preferred treatment on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, pregnancy, age, religion, political opinion, language, nationality, social position or ability. Depending on the severity, context, and the intent of the behavior, consequences may range from a verbal warning to permanent exclusion or legal action.

To read the Code of Conduct, go to the attending section on the IDFA Professionals website.

INDUSTRY PROGRAM

During the festival, the industry program gathers the world’s documentary community to discuss the evolution of our industry, offer surprising new perspectives, and build long-lasting connections. The extensive program of high-profile talks, presentations, and matchmaking runs for 5 days annually welcoming some 3,000 documentary filmmakers and professionals.

INDUSTRY TALKS

Industry Talks dive into the key trends and urgent discussions currently defining the industry. All IDFAcademy participants have access. No need to reserve tickets; first come first serve.

INDUSTRY SESSIONS & DELEGATION PROJECT SHOWCASES

Industry Sessions bring you up to speed on the latest developments in the industry. Delegations will present projects in the Showcases. All IDFAcademy participants have access. No need to reserve tickets; first come first serve.

SOCIAL EVENTS

IDFA’s daily social events are unmissable for guests to mingle and network. Bringing together IDFA passholders daily, the Guests Meet Guests cocktail events are a great moment to connect with other delegates and keep your finger on the pulse of the festival. See at the end of this page the times and locations.

PRESS & INDUSTRY SCREENINGS

All films selected for the International and Envision Competitions, all world premieres from Luminous and Frontlight are available to accredited press and industry.

Passholders must reserve a free ticket online to gain admission. Log into your MyIDFA account and book the screening of your choice. Tickets are available the day before the screening starts and will be uploaded onto your pass.

AVAILABLE ONLINE

In addition to all the festivities in Amsterdam, we have a few online services for you. The following are available to all guests, whether attending in person or online.

• Press & Industry Library: Watch films from the IDFA 2025 selection online and on demand from November 13 to 23. Please note that films only become available in the Press & Industry Library after their premiere.

• Guest List: Access company profiles, bios, and contact information of all accredited guests through our online directory.

LOCATIONS INDUSTRY

GUEST DESK

ITA – Ground floor

Accredited guests can pick up their pass and get general information about the festival at the Guest Desk. Opening days and times:

Nov. 12 12:00–18:00

Nov. 13 - Nov. 15 09:00–20:00

Nov. 16 08:00–21:00*

Nov. 17 08:00–21:00

Nov. 18 - Nov. 19 09:00–20:00

Nov. 20 10:00–20:00

Nov. 21 10:00–18:00

Nov. 22 & 23 Desk closed**

*Note: Access to ITA is limited on Sunday, Nov 16 from 14:30 to 16:00, due to Sinterklaas parade

**Guest Services reachable via phone on +3120262076

INDUSTRY DESK

ITA - Ground Floor (next to Guest Desk)

At the Industry Desk, we can help you with any questions regarding IDFA’s activities for professionals. We can help guide you through the industry side of the festival, and keep you informed on our array of talks, sessions, and meetings.

Nov. 15-20 09:00–17:00

CONSULTANCIES DESK

ITA - Plein Foyer, first floor (Nov 15-16)

ITA - De Balie, ground floor (Nov 17-19)

Get expert advice on all aspects of documentary filmmaking—from distribution and festival strategy to grant writing, impact producing, and non-fiction XR—or consult with delegation representatives from around the world on ways of collaboration with them.

GUESTS MEET GUESTS

Each day at 18:30 at Kanarieclub

Nov 14

Nov 15

Nov 16 hosted by Polish Docs

Nov 17 hosted by ARTE

Nov 18 hosted by Catalan Films

Nov 19 hosted by HotDocs

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR PASS?

You can pick up your pass at the Festival Centre located at ITA -Internationaal Theater Amsterdam-. On the ground floor you will find the Guest Desk. The address is Leidseplein 26.

IDFACADEMY LOCATION

IDFAcademy 2025 will be mainly held at De Balie, at Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 1017 RR Amsterdam. A couple of sessions will take place in ITA - Internationaal Theater Amsterdam - Leidseplein 26, 1017 PT Amsterdam.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

For almost all services you have to buy a ticket in advance. Tickets can be bought at most supermarkets and a lot of stops have ticket machines as well. All train stations have ticket machines which accept payment by card only. With your ticket, you will always have to check in when getting on the transportation and check out when getting off. Depending on where in Amsterdam you need to go first, we suggest you check the 9292 app/website (https://9292.nl/en).

IMPORTANT CONTACTS IDFA

Monica Baptiste: monicabaptiste@idfa.nl only for urgent matters +31 6 45 03 29 24

Eline Warnier: elinewarnier@idfa.nl only for urgent matters +31 6 57 03 59 18

Miral Alkadri: miraalkadri@idfa.nl

IMPORTANT CONTACTS GENERAL

Emergency number: 112

Police (non-emergency): 0900-8844

Taxi Amsterdam: +31 20 6777 777

TICKETS

Your IDFAcademy Pass gives you twenty tickets that you can use to attend other Festival events or the DocLab Program. Tickets can be booked at idfa.nl. Log into your MyIDFA account and your tickets will be automatically uploaded to your pass. To avoid empty seats, please cancel your ticket if you can’t make it to a screening. Complimentary tickets can easily be returned through your MyIDFA account or by emailing service@idfa.nl.

DIGITAL MAP

The following digital map was created especially for industry professionals. It shows the main locations for the program and other relevant places such as restaurants, IDFA’s screening venues and the nearest public transport station, hospital and police station. You will find the general IDFA map at the end of this guide.

IDFACADEMY PARTICIPANTS

PARTICIPANTS

IDFACADEMY PARTICIPANTS

The 100 participants this year are a diverse group representing 55 nationalities. A significant number are from the selection made following an open call. Some of the participants come from our collaboration with various European film institutes and organizations: Norwegian Film Institute, Danish Film Institute, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Finnish Film Foundation, Lithuanian Film Centre, Slovak Film Institute, Doklab Navarra, Creative Scotland, Film Centre Serbia in collaboration with Dok Serbia, LaScam (Société Civile des Auteurs Multimedia), VAF (Flanders Audiovisual Fund), East Doc Platform, Documentary Association Georgia and the Young Producers program by the Netherlands Film Fund.

The total list of IDFAcademy participants includes six directors and producers supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund. The Fund supports filmmakers working in contexts without robust public–private funding structures or where censorship restricts creative independence — across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. Lastly, filmmakers participating in other IDFA training programs complete their workshops by attending IDFAcademy. There are six international participants from IDFA Project Space and six Dutch participants from IDFA Project Space NL.

GROUP 1

Andrea Ro Riggen

Andrea is a filmmaker and visual artist from Guadalajara, Mexico. She graduated from ITESO with a major in Communication and Audiovisual Arts and a minor in Gender Studies. Her work as a director fuses elements of art, documentary, and experimental narratives. She focuses her practice on women’s rights, sexual liberation, and the power of representation. She is currently producing and directing the feature documentary Brujas and the documentary short film Misocompra, both about reproductive rights in Jalisco. Misocompra premiered in Guadalajara’s International Film Festival as part of the in-competition official selection. Brujas is currently in post-production and has been part of Guadalajara’s WIP DocuLab and DocsMX WIP in Mexico City.

Armin Septiexan

Armin Septiexan is a visual artist, curator and documentary filmmaker based in Savu Island, West Timor Indonesia. His artworks are fueled by his eagerness to communicate in brutal honesty about human rights issues such as Distance (2020) about a migrant worker from Kupang being a human trafficking victim, and Reunion of Stolen Children (2019) on post-war Timor Leste. Armin creative works rely on his close and deep (participatory) observation and connection building with every story he tells. Oma is his debut feature-length documentary which he has been filming since 2019.

Camille Bildsøe

Camille Bildsøe is a documentary filmmaker with over 12 years of experience, having worked both independently and alongside renowned directors such as Eva Mulvad, Mikala Krogh, Tomas Gislason, and Morgan Spurlock. Her debut feature, I Wish The World Was a Paper Plane, premiered at CPH: DOX in 2021. Since 2022, she has been working on her next feature, Louder Than Silence, a film set in Afghanistan expected to premiere in 2026. Camille has worked extensively in the Middle East and in conflict zones like Palestine, where she also lived for several years. Her films often follow children and young people navigating grief and trauma during their formative pre-teen years. With deep sensitivity to her subjects, she focuses not only on the forces that shape their lives, but on their shared humanity. Through her work, Camille creates films that are empathetic, thought-provoking, and rooted in a strong ethical perspective, intertwining the personal with the political.

Carina NicHaouchine

Carina NicHaouchine is a Scottish Algerian filmmaker based in Glasgow with a focus on creative documentary. After her first short doc, ULULATION, made through Scottish Documentary Institute’s (SDI) Bridging the Gap, she trained with OTOXO Productions in Barcelona. She is currently in post-production for her first feature film, DUNGEON MASTERHOOD (a coming-of-age documentary - with dragons!) with Peabody Award-nominated producer Steven Lake, funded by Screen Scotland

and part of Sheffield DocFest’s Meet Market 2025. She is also developing a second feature film, GORSE: AN ACT AGAINST NATURE, which has been supported by Sheffield Doc Fest’s Queer Realities Director’s Lab, SDI’s Write Now Fund and UnionDocs Summer Development Lab. She is a BAFTA Connect member, was selected as one of SDI’s ‘New Voices’ and was a participant in Film in Mind’s supervision group for emerging filmmakers and Reclaim The Frame’s Filmonomics 8.

Elene Mikaberidze

I was born in Georgia in 1988 and spent most of my life in Brussels, where I grew up and studied politics and gained an MA degree in Eastern Europe & Caucasus Studies with the thesis The Representation of War and the Narratives of Identity in Modern Georgian Cinema. In 2016 I moved back to Georgia and started to direct films. I worked as a programmer at the Tbilisi International Film Festival. I am also an alumnus of Filmmakers for Peace at GoEAST IFF, From Script 2 Film, EurasiaDOC, Talent Nest at Vilnius Meeting Point, EAVE, and more. My last projects were all supported by multiple film centers and funds, like the French CNC, the Belgium Film Fund, The Doha Film Institute and the Hubert Bals Fund. My first feature documentary Blueberry Dreams premiered in 2024 in the Next Wave competition at CPH DOX.

Eli Maene

Based in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eli Maene is a filmmaker whose work resonates on the

international stage. His 2024 short documentary, Lobi Ekosimba, has achieved remarkable success, winning the Jury Prize at the Khouribga African Film Festival and receiving Special Mentions at Africlap (Toulouse) and the International Ciné Gibara Festival (Cuba). It has also been selected for numerous prestigious festivals worldwide, including Vue d’Afrique (Montreal), the Dresden Short Film Festival, and is in competition for FESPACO 2025. Eli Maene has also directed Biso Pe Toza (2021) and Derrière nos portables (2017), both of which have been selected for various festivals. His expertise extends beyond directing; he served as Director of Photography and First Assistant Director on Mulika (2022), a film screened at the Locarno Film Festival. Currently, Eli is developing the feature-length documentary Laisse nous combattre, a promising project that has already received the Vision du Réel Industry Award at the Yaoundé Film Lab 2024.

Faiçal Benaghrou

After serving ten years in the Navy, Faiçal Benaghrou began his self-taught artistic career in 2015 with two experimental short films, Décalage and Confusion. In 2016, he founded his production company, FilmsBeldi, through which he directed numerous institutional films, enabling him to achieve financial independence and pursue his own creative projects. His first short fiction film, Alter Ego (2016), was selected at the Stockholm and Sofia International Film Festivals, while his second, Ales (2018), received multiple awards and was screened at the Durban International Film Festival. Since relocating to France, he founded Les Rencontres du Cinéma

Marocain de Toulouse, an initiative dedicated to promoting Moroccan cinema and fostering dialogue around contemporary artistic practices. Over the past years, he has been developing his first feature-length creative documentary, When Time Dissolves into Silence, supported by renowned programs including La Ruche Documentaire (FIDADOC), AFRICADOC, FIPADOC PRO, MEDIMED, Producers Lab (DFI) and became part of the EURODOC network.

Karanja Ng’endo

Karanja Ng’endo is a Kenyan filmmaker born and raised in Nairobi and is inspired by the beauty and authenticity of African storytelling. He wants his audience to be moved by the stories he tells. His works have been selected and won awards at the AMVCA, Zanzibar International Film festival, Carthage Film Festival, Kalasha International, and Kisima Film Festival, among others. He was part of the inaugural class of the Multichoice Talent Factory program. He is an American Film Showcase Alumni, recently completed a film residency at international class at Germany’s FilmAkademie Baden-Württemberg, was awarded the One World Media 2020 Fellowship, and recently attended the Ouaga Film Lab 2022 and the Somefineday Pix 2024.

Lasse Linder

Lasse Linder (b. 1994, St. Gallen, Switzerland) is a filmmaker whose work moves between documentary and fiction, exploring how people — and animals — seek belonging and meaning. He

completed his BA in Film at the Lucerne School of Design & Art (HSLU) in 2019. His short documentary All Cats Are Grey in the Dark (2019) screened at over 100 festivals worldwide, including Locarno, IDFA, DokuFest, and MoMA, earning major awards at TIFF, Tampere, and Regard, as well as the 2020 European Film Award for Best Short Film. His latest short, Air Horse One (2025), premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and won the Zurich Film Award. Linder is currently pursuing an MA in Documentary Film at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He is in post-production on his first feature documentary Sunsets Don’t Matter and in production on his second, Translating Love.

Milena Pellegrini

Milena Pellegrini was born in Neuchâtel in 1992 and is currently based in Lausanne. She studied Political Science at the University of Lausanne and Development Studies at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Her academic work focused on the role of cinema in post-conflict societies and the political issues surrounding film financing. She began her professional career in the performing arts sector, working at Pro Helvetia – the Swiss Arts Council – before joining various cultural organizations as an administrative and production manager. In 2023, she co-founded the Lausanne-based production company Les films de l’alambic alongside Jaber Debzi and Karim Sayad. Alongside her work as a producer, she is actively involved in several initiatives within the Swiss film industry. She serves as Secretary General of Pro Short, the Swiss short film association, and as coordinator of the screenwriting workshops La Salle

Morris Rohof

From the Netherlands, Morris Rohof (1996) graduated in 2022 with a master’s degree in film studies from the University of Amsterdam. During and prior to this period, Morris worked at Submarine on various films, series, and podcasts for broadcasters and media platforms both in the Netherlands and internationally. Morris has experience coordinating international co-productions and has worked as a production manager and post-production coordinator with various directors, broadcasters, and distributors.

Mukesh Kumaravel

in an exchange program at Tokyo University of the Arts (GEIDAI). His graduation film was nominated in the Young Talents category at the 2025 Laurier’s de l’Audiovisuel. He is currently developing his first feature-length documentary in Japan and a fiction feature film in Paris.

Sachli Gholamalizad

Director Sachli Gholamalizad has 15 years of experience as a storyteller with her theatre plays and video work. She is currently developing her first feature documentary NOT MY PARADISE Sachli was born in Iran and came to live in Belgium in her childhood. She studied theatre at RITCS (the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound) in Brussels. She created her first play, A Reason to Talk in 2013. This production picked up awards including the Fringe First 2015, Circuit X, Roel Verniers, and was shortlisted for an Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award. In 2016 and 2019, she toured internationally with her 2nd and 3d solo plays, performing in Toronto & Montreal, Buenos Aires (FIBA), Barcelona (GREC Festival), and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, among others. Sachli Gholamalizad also works as an actress, ao in Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version (2023), awarded at the Sundance Film Festival, Brian De Palma’s Domino (2019) and Mijke De Jong’s Layla M (2016). She was the protagonist of festival favourite doc When Arabs Danced by Jawad Rhalib (2018). Since 2011, Sachli has created video work, shown in theaters and galleries. In all her work, she explores themes of displacement, dual identity, intergenerational trauma and womanhood. With her first feature documentary Not My Paradise, de sport. She recently completed production on the 30-minute documentary Unleaded by Jaber Debzi, as well as the short fiction film At Home by Karim Sayad.

After seven years with La Fabrique Films in Mumbai, working as an assistant director on European productions in India, Mukesh Kumaravel was selected in 2018 for L’Université d’été de La Fémis, a documentary residency that brings together emerging filmmakers from around the world. Two years later, he joined the film directing program at La Fémis with the support of a scholarship from the Institute Français. During his time there, he explored stories rooted in social realities, focusing on themes of oppression, resistance, and grassroots of politics. His short fiction and documentary films have been screened at festivals such as Doc Lisboa, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Market, and the Sarlat International Film Festival. In 2023, Mukesh took part

she tells the story of a mysterious piece of land at the Caspian Sea and its impact on 4 generations of women.

Onur Can Tepe

Onur Can Tepe is a writer, filmmaker, and architect based in Rotterdam. He graduated from the Berlage Institute and worked as an architect at various bureaus before beginning to write and film. His films have been featured at numerous film festivals both in the Netherlands and internationally. He produces commissioned films about architecture as well as directs and produces documentaries with Sichting Smoke & Mirrors.

Prateek Pamecha

I am a producer and cinematographer based in Mumba, India. While studying engineering, I quickly realised that the set path of life was not for me. I needed rough roads to climb mountains. I trained as a cinematographer at Film and Television Institute of India, where my diploma film CatDog won the First Prize at Cannes Cinéfondation 2020. To make the films I wanted, I had to move beyond cinematography. Along the way, I met exceptional filmmakers whose work deserved to be seen but often lacked the structural support to get there. I could not let that talent disappear into the void. With a longtime friend, I co-founded Moped Films, a home for independent, artist-led cinema where vision is nurtured and supported. Most of the films I shoot now are ones I also produce, allowing me to stay deeply connected to both the creative and practical sides of filmmaking. Our company

is expanding, taking on new projects and collaborations that align with our belief in meaningful cinema. I am also an alumnus of the Busan Asian Film Academy BAFA, BIFF where training under Rithy Panh shaped my understanding of ethics, memory, and responsibility in filmmaking. This year, I return to Busan as a technical assistant. Currently I am developing two feature length nonfiction films-Where Do We Go From Here and Tales of Vikrampur.

Rimantas Oičenka

Rimantas Oičenka became passionate about cinema while watching classic films at the Vilnius Ozas cinema hall. In 2017 he made an amateur short documentary Too Good for Hollywood about the long-time film projectionist of the Ozas cinema hall, Valdemaras Isoda. The premiere of his second short documentary film The Trip (2022) took place at the Warsaw International Film Festival, where the film received a Jury Special Mention award.

Silvie Ojeda

Silvie Ojeda is a Colombian documentary filmmaker, photographer, and communicator based in Brazil since 2019. For over 15 years, she has documented the impact of Colombia’s armed conflict from the voices of peasants, farmers, and rural communities, centering their stories of resistance and resilience. Her work combines image, sound, and testimony to expose the traces of colonial violence and to reclaim memory from those historically silenced. She studied Photography at Humber College

(Toronto), Visual Arts in Colombia, Cinematography at SICA (Argentina), and holds a Master’s in Content Editing from the University of Salamanca. Her short film Respirar el Agua, about nonviolent cultural resistance, won the post-conflict category at the Bogotá International Documentary Film Festival (MIDBO). Deeply committed to social justice, her films explore how memory, land, and identity intersect, creating visual narratives that challenge dominant histories and celebrate the dignity of everyday life in conflict-affected territories.

Tatiana Botovelo

Tatiana Botovelo, a Franco-Malagasy filmmaker based in Marseille, initially studied anthropology before training in documentary filmmaking. In 2022, she completed her first film, ALIAS, which was selected at several international festivals and awarded at the Nice Social Cinema Festival.She is currently developing ZAFY PETITE FILLE DE, her next feature-length documentary, supported notably by the CNC.Following ZAFY PETITE FILLE DE, she is writing her first fiction feature, VELOMA, JULIENNE, produced by Dhia Jerbi and Manon Lavaud of Muja Films. Since 2021, Tatiana has participated in several writing residencies that enabled her to finalize her first documentary and advance her current projects. She has been a recipient of prestigious programs such as Meditalents, Ateliers Médicis, Pitchs d’Addoc, Groupe Ouest Developpement, GREC, and the Institut Français.

Tynymgul Eshieva

Tynymgul Eshieva is a Kyrgyz filmmaker, producer, and strategic storyteller transitioning from a career in journalism and nonprofit communications into creative documentary filmmaking. With over a decade of experience in media literacy, advocacy, and narrative work across Central Asia, she is committed to telling stories that bridge culture, identity, and social change. Her current project, Indira, is her first feature-length documentary as a director. The film follows a prominent human rights lawyer in Kyrgyzstan, revealing the intimate and political realities of defending women and children in a society in flux. Tynymgul’s filmmaking journey began with short creative projects. A Little Bit of Mischief (2023), a 4-minute doc film, won Best Amateur Film at the 48 Hour Film Race Contest. Her short documentary I Grew Up Here (2023) screened at the Method Doc Festival in Almaty.She has participated in several training initiatives, including the AlmCinema Documentary Course (2023), Eurasia Doc (2023–24), Tashkent WomenDoc (2024), and the Alternativa Impact Lab (2024), where she received the main prize for her impact strategy on Indira.

Yash Zhang

Yash Zhang is a London-based Chinese filmmaker and performer whose work explores queerness, fluidity, mental health, and performance. Yash’s work-in-progress debut feature documentary Ma, Let’s Fly Together has been selected for the UnionDocs Summer Lab 2024, Edinburgh Pitch in 2024,

Queer Art Mentorship, IDFA Project Space 2025, Sheffield MeetMarket 2025, etc. Yash’s short films and collaborations have been featured at various festivals and exhibitions, including Alchemy (2025), DOXA (2025), Nowness (2024), SQIFF (2025), Sheffield Doc Fest (2024), Indie Memphis(2022), etc. Yash holds an MFA in Creative Documentary from University College London and a BA in Theatre and Film from Rhodes College.

GROUP 2

Dalija Dozet

Dalija Dozet is a filmmaker based in Zagreb, Croatia. She graduated in Film and TV Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and since then has been engaged in a variety of film, television, and commercial projects. Her work often explores the conventions of different film genres, focusing on themes such as loss, intimacy, and the challenges of communication. Her first documentary feature, My Dad’s lessons won Zagreb Dox’s Big stamp award in regional 2025. competition. She is a member of the Croatian Film Directors’ Guild and president of Kinoklub Zagreb. She is cofounder of the Filmska RUNDA short film festival in her hometown Osijek. Currently she is developing her new documentary project, Otti. During the years, she has participated in professional training programs and events such as Sarajevo Talent Campus, Docu Rough Cut Boutique, Locarno Film Academy, European Short Pitch, Euro Connection, Go short Breaking Ground Campus, Last Stop Trieste, Circle, Rise & Shine, Odense Film Campus.

Erickey Bahati

Erickey BAHATI Eric, known professionally as Erickey XY 93, is a Congolese director, screenwriter and producer. He lives and works in Goma. Initially selftaught, he completed his training through various workshops in directing, screenwriting, cinematography, and production with organizations such as Yole Africa and les Ateliers Varan. Erickey’s artistic approach treats cinema as a powerful space to explore human condition and social dynamics. His work frequently reveals the interior strength of communities and affirms a vibrant African identity, with resilience often being a central theme. He has directed and produced several acclaimed short films and documentaries, including Elongo Elonga (Koudougou doc 2023), The Rwhoo (Fespaco 2024) and Binti (Fickin 2020) and Etat de siege a feature documentary in postproduction. As a producer, he is currently working on three feature films and one short film: The master of lightning (GLPCL 2024, Les Ateliers de Toumai 2024), Loterie and Yuri (GLPCL 2025)

Huihui Lou is an independent film producer based in Shanghai and Paris, and the founder of the French production company Oui Production. She is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and holds a master’s degree in directing, producing, and screenwriting from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her work focuses on intimate, cross-cultural stories that explore identity, migration, and memory, often through a

Huihui Lou

hybrid documentary-fiction lens. Films she has produced have been selected for international festivals including the Locarno Film Festival, Pingyao International Film Festival, and Festival Tous Courts. Through Oui Production, Huihui supports emerging independent voices, fostering collaborations between Asia and Europe. The company is currently developing four feature films and three short films, spanning different genres, languages, and production countries.

Hussein Eddeb

Hussein Eddeb is a Libyan filmmaker and journalist with over a decade of experience in media and storytelling. His short film Ta3bir (2017), which explores freedom of expression, was screened in Marseille, Milan, and Tunis. In 2018, his film Friend Bashir won third place at the EU Migration Media Award. The following year, he received the Team Challenge Award in Journalism from the Thomson Foundation in London. In 2024, he earned a master’s degree in media and communication management in Berlin. Since 2023, Hussein has been directing and co-producing his first feature-length documentary, The Birth of Derna.

João Henrique Kurtz

João Henrique Kurtz is a Brazilian Producer dedicated to projects promoting diversity and inclusion, especially within the queer community. Their first short film, Satin Bird (co-written, co-directed, and produced), is a hybrid documentary about their father’s passing, praised by Oaxaca FilmFest as poignant,

creative, and powerful. Kurtz was a Development Producer on Petit Mal (2018), selected for Buenos Aires Talents Campus and premiered at FID Marseille. In 2022, they produced their first documentary feature, UÝRA – The Rising Forest, which premiered at Frameline46, winning the Audience Award. The film was screened at over 40 festivals worldwide, including Brasilia Film Festival and São Paulo International Film Festival, and won awards such as the Grand Jury Award at NewFest, the One World Media Award for Best Feature Documentary, and the Jury Prize at London Film Week. Currently, Kurtz is developing new projects that continue to explore stories rooted in social justice and personal identity.

Kim Buckx

Drawn to stories that show us the world outside of our own bubbles. My journey into film began during Media & Culture studies at the University of Amsterdam and deepened through the film-focused program at REDUCATIONS Creative Academy. Here I found the power of documentaries to spark empathy, challenge assumptions, and invite audiences to step into the lives of others. For the past three years, I have been part of the production team at Zeppers, working on a wide range of documentary projects that each bring unique questions, themes, and creative challenges. These projects have strengthened my belief that documentaries can serve as a unique space for reflection and meaningful dialogue. Through my work, I strive to support stories that question, inspire, and connect audiences.

Kitalé Wilson

Kitalé Wilson is a director, producer and writer recognized for award-winning documentary work. Nominated for Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year in 2022, their recent short documentary, Even in Darkness, won the Audience Award for Best Short Documentary at the Brooklyn Film Festival. Kitalé’s projects include Project Zero, a net-zero sailing odyssey from Australia to Iceland via Patagonia and Antarctica, which has received development funding. Recently returned from filming in Mosul, Iraq, their work spans environmental and socially driven storytelling, with an emphasis on narrative craft and intentional cinematography that stir one’s soul.

Koel Sen

Koel Sen is a filmmaker, artist and producer from India who is currently an artist-in-residence at the Halle14 in Leipzig, where she is working on her current documentary project. In her film work Koel combines film footage (original and found), personal archives, text, still images and new media to explore collective memory, marginalized histories, and women’s role in political movements in India. A Berlinale Talent (2023), Koel developed In the Light of Darkness at the Doc Station. She was awarded the ‘maecenia’ Grant for women artists in Frankfurt (2023). Koel has also presented her project at the DOK Leipzig (2022) and has also been an artist-in-residence at the ADKDW, Cologne (2022). An alumna of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) and La FÉMIS, Paris, Koel’s films have screened

globally at film-festivals and art platforms. Her short-documentary Bahava won the Emerging Talent Award at IAWRT Philippines and screened at the Grenoble Indian Film Festival (2021). Her short fiction Valay premiered at IDSFFK, Kerala (2019).

Marcin Wierzchowski

Marcin Wierzchowski (b. 1984, Warsaw) is a Polish German director, writer, and producer working between Frankfurt and Warsaw. After leaving school at 17 to work in a video store, he later completed his education and studied Fine Arts with a focus on film at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mainz. His debut documentary, Hanau – One Night and Its Consequences (2022), won the Grimme Award and formed the basis for his first feature film The German People (2025), which premiered at the Berlinale and received numerous international awards. In 2021, he was awarded the Gerd Ruge Grant for Traumaland, a long-term documentary project. Wierzchowski is currently in post-production on a film shot over five years in Rio de Janeiro, exploring the Bolsonaro era and the rise of evangelical power. He is developing his first fiction projects and produces through a Polish German production company with an international outlook.

Marlene Dirven

Marlene Dirven (Netherlands, 1992) is a writer, composer and filmmaker. She studied classical cello before pursuing Middle East Studies in Leiden and Edinburgh, with a focus on Iranian film and literature. After a brief career in diplomacy in Brussels and Tehran, she shifted

her focus to screenwriting. Following the publication of several poems, she worked as a scriptwriter at a video production company and as assistant director to filmmaker Rob Rombout in Brussels. In 2024, she graduated from the Artistic Research Master of Film at the Netherlands Film Academy. During this time, she started using music compositions to explore film language prior to writing a screenplay. Her work has been supported by institutions including IDFA, MCM Marseille, and the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). Since 2018, she has led coaching sessions, workshops, and courses on writing, screenwriting, and filmmaking to an international audience.

Matias Borgström

Matias Borgström (b. Argentina, 1987) has been a documentary filmmaker for over a decade. He is the co-founder of the Brazilian documentary production company Salga Films and a founding member, board director, and head of programming of Citronella Doc, a festival that annually screens contemporary documentaries on Ilhabela Island, Brazil. Offering a completely free and diverse program, the festival features award-winning films, talks, and a range of other activities. His first feature documentary as director and producer, Ouvidor, has been screened and awarded at festivals in 17 countries and continues to circulate internationally. He is currently working on his next film, which portrays an isolated fishing community under threat on the Brazilian coast. Matias has also worked as a director and project developer at Grifa Filmes, a major documentary production company with three Emmy Award nominations and two Oscar-shortlisted co-productions.

Naomi Wills

Naomi Wills is a Rotterdam-based independent producer, captivated by the raw power of documentary and hybrid storytelling. Believing that reality consistently outdoes fiction, she’s on a mission to bring authentic, compelling stories to life. Armed with nearly a decade of HR experience – including time in the corporate trenches –, she thrives on assembling the right teams and creating the right conditions to craft high-quality, artistically-driven films that hold a mirror to our times, set against the backdrop of the messy reality of our world.

Néstor López

Hispanic-Portuguese film director and founder of the production company Filmakers Monkeys. As a director, he won the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film with Seeds From Kivu, which was screened at the United Nations, the Vatican, and the European Parliament, in addition to winning festivals such as Sitges, New York Shorts, and Málaga, and being selected at Encounters, Docs Against Gravity, and preselected for the Academy Awards. He has also been selected for IDFA Academy, Ji.hlava Academy, and made the shortlist of Rotterdam CineMart. As a producer, he has won two additional Goya Awards, been shortlisted for the Academy Awards, and received the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, as well as selections at the Official Section of the Venice Biennale and the Berlinale Co-Production Market. To date, he has produced 34 short films and 4 feature films.

Pauline Blanchet

Pauline Blanchet is an award-winning film director and producer whose work explores sports, nationalism, and identity. Her short documentary Zuckerberg You Owe/Own Me has been screened internationally, and she has participated in talent programs at CPHDOX, Sheffield Doc Fest, Sundance Co// ab Documentary Course, Ateliers Médicis, and has pitched in Dok Leipzig’s Short ‘n’ Sweet. Her current project Big in Gazi Baba has earned multiple awards, including the Vanessa Redgrave Award at PriFest, the Al Jazeera Balkans Co-production Award, Cannes Docs Marché du Film Award, the IDF East Silver Caravan Award, and the EURODOC Award for Best Pitch. Her archive film What You Remember, currently in development, received a Special Mention Award from Sandbox Films at AFO in 2024. In addition to her filmmaking, Pauline has produced over five podcasts and served as Senior Producer at World Radio Paris.

Pew Banerjee

Pew Banerjee is an independent filmmaker and producer based in New Delhi, India. She worked as an Assistant Director on All That Breathes (2023), directed by Shaunak Sen — a documentary that was nominated for an Academy Award and won top honors at both Sundance and Cannes, along with over 25 other international awards. In 2022, Pew joined Kiterabbit Films (a company run by All That Breathes producers, Aman Mann and Shaunak Sen) as an Associate Producer, where she has since contributed to

multiple projects across various stages of development and production. She is currently producing God of the In Between by Archana Phadke, a project which was recently awarded the Doc Society grant. She is also co-producing How Love Moves by Pallavi Paul, which has received support from IDFA, the Asian Cinema Fund, and other international grants.

Sheriya Twana

Born in the late 80s in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, TWANA SHERIYA studied international law at the University of Kinshasa. Passionate about cinema, he joined the “Actions deKinshasa” workshops for training in cinematographic techniques. This will allow him to developvskills and competencies in the field. In March 2016, he joined PYGMA COMMUNICATIONS as a copywriter. In December of the same year, he began producing his first documentary OPEN SPACE. In December 2017, he directed A vil prix, which will be nominated at the 13th edition of the MOBILE FILM FESTIVAL. At the same time, he was voted best advertising scriptwriter at the BILILI AWARD. In 2020, he co-produced and directed APRES COUP, a short fiction film (Best Short Film at the Kinshasa International Film Festival and nominated at the Écrans Noirs de Yaoundé).

Sophia Rubischung

Sophia Rubischung is a Swiss-Austrian producer, born and raised in Zurich. She holds a Master of Arts in History and English Literature from the University of Zurich. She has been working in

production since 2016 and participated in TFL Extended Series, Doha Producer’s Lab, Racconti Script Lab, and EURODOC. She is a member of Swiss Fiction Movement and works as a freelance lecturer. Her projects as producer include the Swiss documentary anthology FUTURA! (2024/2022), the short film EATING THE SILENCE (2021) and the fiction features THE BLIND FERRYMAN (in post, participant of L’Atelier at Cannes Film Festival 2022) and THE SAINT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE (2020).

Tereza

Tokárová

Tereza Tokárová studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Since 2019, she has been working as a producer at kerekesfilm, where she collaborates with director Peter Kerekes on his new documentary about the marathon, a docu-series for Slovak Television, and various international co-productions. In 2021, she founded the production company cinepunkt, with which she completed the documentary Territory of Imagination, directed by Paula Maľárová, premiered at IFF BELDOCS 2023 and awarded the Jury Prize at IFF Cinematik. Her co-production Seablindness, (dir. Tereza Smetanová), had a parallel premiere at DocLisboa IFF and Ji.hlava IDFF 2025, and is currently on its festival circuit. She is also developing the debut documentary Parallel Space, directed by Martin Piga, which won the HBO Award at East Doc Platform 2025, as well as the short film Take Care (dir. Paula Maľárová), among other projects. Tokárová is an alumna of international industry programs such as Dok.Incubator, Emerging Producers, Ex Oriente Film, and EURODOC.

Verónica Haro

Born in Quito, Ecuador, in 1984, she is a filmmaker who graduated from the University of San Francisco in Quito. Since 2005, she has worked on the production teams of eight Ecuadorian feature films, gaining experience in national cinema. In 2019, she premiered her first feature film as director and producer, the documentary When They Left, at the Visions du Réel Festival. She was selected for the EAVE Puentes 2022 program and for the Open Doors Lab at the Locarno Film Festival in 2023. She has taught film production classes at UDLA and has led workshops in rural areas of Ecuador and at Fragmentos de lo Real (Bolivia). She is currently part of the production team for Hiedra, directed by Ana Barragán, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2025. She is the production manager for TITÁN and founder of ABRIL FILMS, a company dedicated to auteur cinema19.

Vladlena Sandu

Vladlena Sandu (b. 1982, Crimea, Ukraine) is a filmmaker and editor whose work explores war trauma, dictatorship, colonialism, and sexual trafficking. Grew up in Grozny during the Russian-Chechen War and was later displaced to southern Russia. Graduated in film directing from VGIK (Moscow) and completed a postgraduate degree in Aesthetics and Cultural Theory. Films have been screened at Berlinale, Rotterdam, DOK Leipzig, Series Mania, GoEast, and other festivals, receiving several international awards. After fleeing Russia in 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, artistic work

continued in Amsterdam, including the award-winning performance The Rainbow Cinema (Best Amsterdam Fringe 2023), based on personal experience of sexual trafficking. Participant in the European Theatre Academy in Avignon 2025. The feature debut Memory, based on autobiographical childhood memories and the Russian-Chechen War, opened the competition program of Giornate degli Autori at the 82nd Venice Film Festival in 2025 and received the People’s Choice Award.

GROUP 3

Akvile Zilionyte-Khan

Akvilė Žilionytė is a graduate of EURODOC 2015 (an international lab for creative documentary) and ESODOC 2020 (European Social Documentary, an eight-month training initiative). She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature and Lithuanian Philology from VDU Education Academy and a master’s degree in film Directing from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (Lithuanian National Film School). In 2017, Akvilė founded Artišokai, a Vilnius-based production company that serves as both a creative harbor and a launchpad for emerging writers and directors. Since 2022, the company has focused exclusively on film production. Previously, Artišokai was active in the contemporary art scene, curating exhibitions at galleries and biennales across Lithuania and Europe. Over the past three years, the company has produced four short films, all of which have premiered or are currently circulating on the international festival circuit. These include selections at Ji.hlava IDFF,

Vilnius IFF, Drama Short Film Festival, Dresden Filmfest, FEST – New Directors/ New Films Festival, Riga International Short Film Festival, and others. Artišokai is now preparing for the premiere and theatrical release of its first feature-length documentary, In Passing. Akvilė’s films often explore themes of social issues and identity, resonating with both audiences and critics alike.

Anne Jan Sijbrandij

Anne Jan Sijbrandij is a documentary filmmaker based in Amsterdam. He holds a Master’s degree in Documentary Directing from the RITCS in Brussels. His recent work delves into themes of intergenerational trauma, impermanence, and identity. His graduation film Nusa Ina premiered at IDFA in the Frontlight program and has since screened at numerous film festivals worldwide. He also directed the short film De Stilte van een Bloem, giving perspective to ‘colonial silence’. He is currently developing his first feature-length documentary, in which he explores his own family heritage alongside a Javanese shadow puppeteer. Together, they search for their shared history, seeking to bridge the cultural divide between their backgrounds. Through intimate and visually poetic storytelling, Anne aims to create films that uncover personal histories within larger cultural and historical frameworks, offering new perspectives.

Annerose van Strijen

After graduating from the Dutch Film Academy in 2020, where her graduation documentary won the ‘Student

Academy Award’, Annerose has worked on numerous documentary projects, by esteemed Dutch directors, as a production manager. In early 2024, Annerose started as a line producer for the label DOCS by Pupkin and has since been involved in the development and production of several documentaries and documentary series. In the documentaries that she has worked on and continues to work on, Annerose is drawn to human stories that symbolize or represent larger topics and issues, both nationally and globally. She thinks it is important that joy and sadness can coexist in documentaries, even when it discusses serious topics because she believes that is what humans experience in everyday life too. DOCS by Pupkin, the label Annerose currently works for, aims to tell human stories in compelling ways, capturing both the extraordinary and the everyday.

Asbjørn Kelstrup

Asbjørn Kelstrup is a Copenhagen-based producer, with a strong focus on international collaborations and co-productions of arthouse films - let it be fiction, documentary or somewhere in-between – always with something at stake, and sometimes even a dash of humor. He graduated from the alternative film school Super8 in 2020 and holds a BA in business administration from Aarhus University together with a master’s degree in film and media studies from the University of Copenhagen. Asbjørn is a Young Nordic Producers Club (2021) and Rotterdam Lab (2022) alum. Among others, he has produced award winning short films premiering at Locarno and the Berlinale, and he is an associate producer

on feature documentary About a Hero, the opening film of IDFA 2024. He has been with Frau Film / Beofilm since 2019, from where he continues to explore the world.

Clara Trischler

Clara Trischler is an Austrian filmmaker whose films mostly deal with worlds that are separated by intangible borders, be they geographical or those of imagination or loss. She has a passion for hybrid documentaries and has found footage material that begins to tell a new story. After studying at the European Film College, Clara Trischler worked in Israel, at Yad Vashem, as a journalist and directing her film The First Sea. After several film and festival jobs there, in Berlin and New York, she studied screenwriting at the Vienna Film Academy and the IUNA Buenos Aires, where she rediscovered her love of documentary film. This led her to Berlin, where she studied documentary film directing at the Film University of Babelsberg and graduated with the documentary Night of the Coyotes. She is co-curator of the film forum “Feminist Perspectives” in Vienna, received several awards (FIPRECI), grants and has been invited to various residencies and programs (Berlinale Talents).

Cynthia Etaba

Cynthia is a director, screenwriter, and author with degrees in business law and skills management. Committed to the development of African cultural industries, she explores issues of community, heritage, and ecology through her films. Her short film, Les

fantômes de Sa’a (2022), is distinguished by its free and symbolic aesthetic. Her documentary work is part of the process of research and collective memory. Her approach aims to create cinema that is poetic, grounded, and capable of social transformation.

Daniel Touron

Daniel Touron de Alba (Mexico City, 1986) is a filmmaker and translator with degrees in Cinematography from the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica and in Hispanic Languages and Literature from UNAM. During his film studies, he specialized in directing and sound, creating several short films including Un lugar, his graduation project, which earned an honorable mention. His work has been selected for festivals such as the Havana, Lima, Sehsüchte, and Puebla International Film Festivals, winning Best Mexican Short at the latter. As a sound professional, he has contributed to numerous short and feature films. Notable credits include Hasta los dientes (Best Documentary, Ariel Awards 2019), and sound design for Sinvivir, Días de invierno, and Armas blancas. He is currently completing Motel by the Lake, his debut feature documentary as director and screenwriter, supported by the IMCINE Project Development Fund in 2022.

Giorgi Parkosadze

Giorgi Parkosadze is a documentary filmmaker, producer, and editor from Tbilisi, Georgia. He has always been curious about meeting strangers, sharing their stories and saving their images to memory, as he believes memory is one of

the main traits that defines us as human beings. In 2015, Giorgi got a MA degree in Multimedia Journalism from the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA). In 2022, he graduated from the Doc Nomads Joint Master’s Program and obtained a. Master of Fine Arts degree in documentary film directing. Giorgi’s first feature-length documentary Requiem to the Hot Days of Summer had its world premiere at the Sarajevo FF and was awarded the best feature length documentary at the Tbilisi IFF. His short essay documentary Master of Loss was screened at several international and local festivals. Another short film la Flor del Camino had its world premiere at IDFA.

Jasmine Issa Issa

In 2019, Jasmine graduated as an editor from RITCS in Brussels. Eager to explore other ways of telling audiovisual stories, she continued her studies in Film at Sint-Lukas, where she graduated in 2024. Since then, she has worked on several notable projects as an editor, writer, and director. Her editing credits include The Short Documentary (dir. Nina Landau, 2025), De Zomer van Eloïse (dir. Lize Cuveele, 2024), A Dog, A Stone (dir. Asma Laajimi, 2023), and Blue Bed (dir. Lize Cuveele, 2021). She also worked as a children’s coach on the feature film Come Back (Savage Film, 2023) and has been an Assistant Editor and DI Assistant at FLOW Postproduction since 2020. In addition to her editing work, Jasmine wrote and directed Tussen oud en nieuw (2024) and the short documentary Bij elkaar (2022). Her work reflects a deep interest in storytelling through both the emotional and technical layers of film.

Jeremy Luke Bolatag

Jeremy Luke Bolatag (he/they) is a Filipino filmmaker based in Belgium. He explores themes on identity, diaspora, and social issues, diving deep into marginalized communities and interpersonal relationships. Jeremy earned his bachelor’s degree in film at the University of the Philippines in 2018. With a full scholarship, Jeremy completed his master’s in Documentary Film Directing (DocNomads) in 2023 at LUCA School of Arts Brussels and finished as Magna Cum Laude. His feature film in development, Forgive Me Father for I Have Sinned, has been awarded script and development support from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

José Jiménez

His work has been primarily developed in the field of non-fiction, where he explores hybrid forms of narration, dialoguing between ethnography and mise en scène. In 2025, he premiered the short film Lengua Muerta which is currently circulating at international film festivals. Out of the same research, he is developing his first feature film, Exterra, as co-director, set to premiere in 2027. Both films have been supported by the Chilean national production fund. He specialized in documentary cinema while studying communications in Chile. In France he obtained a master’s in arts, specializing in film creation at the Université París VIII Vincennes – Saint-Denis, where he made the short film Lettres à l’administration (2016). He has created and produced experimental films on celluloid, and he

has served as a facilitator in new media and film programs for schools in several Chilean locations.

Kathy Wong

Kathy is an independent filmmaker, producer, and writer from Hong Kong and based in Taiwan. As a producer, she is developing several documentary features, with her projects gaining recognition at international pitching forums such as Docs By the Sea, Tokyo Docs, and CNEX CCDF. Most recently, she was selected to participate in the 2025 Berlinale EFM Doc Toolbox Program. She is also involved in the development of immersive documentary works and several narrative feature film projects, actively exploring and experimenting with various roles in the film industry.

Lamia Lazrak

Lamia Lazrak is a Moroccan documentary editor and filmmaker whose work explores identity, familial duty, immigration, exile, and the liminal experiences of diasporic communities. Born in Kissimmee, Florida to Moroccan parents, she moved to Marrakech at age seven when her mother took over the family restaurant. Growing up in that space shaped her storytelling, often blending dreams, spirituality, and magical realism. After earning a Film and Television degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Lamia worked on award-winning projects worldwide, including the short Unsinkable Ships, which won Best Short at the Maine Outdoor Film Festival and screened at CIFF. As an editor, she contributed to

documentaries through Points North’s Recovery in Maine program. She is currently directing her first feature, Dar Marjana, set in Marrakech, following her mother’s decision to sell their family restaurant—a personal exploration of legacy and the unseen, supported by Atlas Workshops, FIDADOC and Points North Institute.

Lay Thida

Lay Thida was born in Myanmar who joined the first Yangon Film School in 2005. Her directorial debut Just a Boy earned her a Heinrich Boell Foundation Documentary Award in 2007. In 2010, she received a Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship to attend a documentary course at the National Film and Television School in the United Kingdom, culminating in producing a short documentary, Wrong Side Up. Her film Bunkus received the second award at the Singapore Film Festival. She recent short documentary film Shadow received Best Human Rights award at the Monteral Independent Film Festival. She is working on her first feature-length documentary film Sisters in War

Lilit Mkhitaryan

Lilit Mkhitaryan has 6 years of experience as a director of short documentaries and her work includes awarded Won Trough Living (Best documentary, Pomegranate International Film Festival) and video-reportage and shorts for Associated Press, VOA, SRF, ORF, NOS and Kika. She has furthermore made commercials for UNICEF Armenia and EU Armenia. Lilit has been selected for EurasiaDoc, CineDoc, Vilnius Meeting Point Talent’s

Lab, EurasiaDoc Co-pro market, GAIFF Pro industry platform and Close Up. She received the IETFA Award within the frame of Close-Up Pitching forum. She holds a master’s degree in art and Culture.

Maisha Maene

Maisha Maene is a Congolese director and producer based in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As an artist, he works on human rights and environmental issues. In addition to various collaborative projects, Maisha Maene has already produced a number of outstanding films, including Eli Maene’s Biso Pe Toza, Eli Maene’s Lobi Ekosimba and Laisse Nous Combattre, Eli Maene’s first feature film. As a director, Maisha Maene has written and directed five short films. His latest short film Mulika won a Pardi di domani Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival 2022 and was awarded a prize at the Dresden International Short Film Festival and selected for Clermont Ferrand, Sundance and FESPACO. Maisha Maene has been selected to take part in the Berlinale Talents 2024 in the Doc Station Lab with his feature-length documentary project Spaceman in Kongo, which is currently in development.

Mariia Lapidus

Semenova

Mariia studied filmmaking at VGIK film school and California Institute of the Arts - both with the biggest scholarships. Her short film The City of the Sun was awarded at Visions du Reél and shown at other international film festivals like Winterthur Kurzfilmtage, FIPADOC, and others. She is

drawn to activism, women rights activism, feminism. Now she is at post-production of her debut feature about sexual violence against women. Also, she is developing a sand animation and live action documentary project about her childhood friendship with the son of working migrants and writing another feature.

Nora Nivedita Tvedt

I graduated from the Norwegian film school in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in Creative documentary directing. My focus in my films is on close relationships and existential themes. My work is shaped by a visual, emotionally grounded language and a subjective approach both in how I film and how I connect with the people I portray. Building trust is central to my process, especially when working with vulnerable stories. My previous films were screened at festivals and TV. I am working with producer Lillian Løvseth at LØV Film. We’ve collaborated since 2020 and just completed our first feature documentary Small Dogs Bark Loud, premiering in cinemas January 2026. I also started working as a junior producer at Ten Thousand Images in 2025.

Saïdou Derra

Born in 1997 in Mouni, Burkina Faso, Saïdou DERRA is a young film producer passionate about documentary cinema. He holds a master’s degree in film production from the Higher Institute of Image and Sound (ISIS) in Ouagadougou, obtained in 2025. From an early age, he developed a strong interest in visual storytelling and in documentary narratives

that question social realities. In 2023, he produced his first short documentary, selected for Festival Vues d’Arques in Montreal, Clap Ivoirein Côte d’Ivoire, and FESPACO 2025, earning several awards that confirmed his talent and artistic vision. In 2022, he founded Locré Film Vision, a production company through which he supports emergins filmmakers. He is currently producing Bânon, They Know by Fayçal SOURA, selected for the 2025 “COURTS CIRCUITS” writing residency in Benin, while also collaborating with renowned studios such as Pilum Piku Production and Diam Production.

Soro Azata

Trained in sociology, Azata Soro is a actress, writer, and filmmaker. She has worked as a first assistant director on various television series and feature films that have been screened both on TV channels and at festivals. Her short film Waffo was selected at FESPACO 2019, the Luxor African Film Festival, the XVIKMFMC 2020 in Russia, and won the Jury Prize at REBIAP 2019. She is also the writer and producer of Les Italiens, a short documentary. In 2023, she appeared in Isabel Coixet’s feature film Un Amor. That same year, she was awarded the Impala call for projects, initiated by Docmonde, Ateliers Varan, and AfricaDoc CI, with her project Diary of a Goat. The project also received the “Brouillon d’un rêve” research grant and a prize at Open Doors Locarno 2025 As an activist and feminist, in 2019 she co-founded the movement Même pas peur with actress and filmmaker Nadège Beausson-Diagne, to denounce sexual violence in African cinema.

GROUP 4

Alberte Lyngbo

Alberte Lyngbo is a Junior Producer at Final Cut for Real in Copenhagen, where she has worked alongside fourtime Oscar® nominee, producer Signe Byrge Sørensen for more than four years. She has contributed to internationally acclaimed productions including President (2021), A House Made of Splinters (2022), Two Strangers Trying not to Kill Each Other (2024) and Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End (2024). With academic backgrounds in Spanish and Anthropology from University of Copenhagen and a Master’s in Intercultural and Latin American Studies from Aarhus University, Lyngbo brings a unique cross-cultural perspective to documentary filmmaking. Her experience in international diplomacy and focus on decolonial processes worldwide inform her approach to storytelling. As an emerging filmmaker committed to developing her craft, she has participated in CPH:INTRO during CPH:DOX 2024 and was selected for the prestigious DOC FORWARD Talent Workshop 2025, a project oriented workshop, where she participated with her first feature documentary in development CONNECTIONS (dir. Anders Jepsen).

An Chu

An Chu is a graduate of the MFA Film program at Columbia University. He’s the participant of Locarno Filmmakers Academy and Golden Horse Academy. His short film, The Stag won the Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction at 2024 Sundance Film Festival. His films

have been selected by Visions du Réel Locarno Film Festival, and IDFA. He has been working on his first feature film, Game of Replacing Gods

Anna Peeters

Anna Peeters is a documentary filmmaker. Her debut film, De Lengte van Liefde (The Length of Love), a portrait of informal caregiving, won the Best Debut Film Award at the Netherlands Film Festival. Since then, she has worked across film and audio, weaving intimate personal stories with broader social themes such as autonomy, care ethics, and social equality. Her work is marked by a gentle, atmospheric style and a reflective, honest approach to storytelling, where subtle metaphors and emotional nuance take center stage. Anna frequently works across disciplines and is currently developing a new documentary exploring the complex relationship between filmmaker and subject.

Catarina Linnea Kimiko Diehl

Catarina Linnea is a Finnish director, screenwriter, and animator known for her bold and colorful explorations of relationships. She has gained recognition for her distinctive, self-taught animation style and her fearless approach to visual storytelling. She studied History of Art at Goldsmiths College in London and completed an MA in Documentary Film at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, in 2012. During her studies, she worked at the experimental film hub no.w.here lab, where she

developed her interest in merging form and emotion through experimental techniques. To date, Catarina has directed seven short films that together form her debut feature-length documentary Family Stories Untold, currently available on YLE’s online platform. The film received the Special Mention Jury Award at the Beirut Women International Film Festival (BWIFF) in Lebanon in 2024. In autumn 2025, Catarina will begin production on her second feature-length documentary Unmade in Japan. Unlike her previous work, this project does not include animation yet continues her exploration of creative documentary form and visual storytelling. Since 2018, Catarina has also been active in performance art, both solo and as part of a collective. Through her artistic practice, whether in film, animation, or performance, her central focus remains in freedom of expression. She seeks to push boundaries, use humor as a tool for understanding, and find innovative ways to represent people who often choose to remain off-screen.

Hlumela Matika

HLUMELA MATIKA is a filmmaker based in Cape Town, South Africa. She works within fiction, auto-ethnography, documentary, and hybrid storytelling. She obtained her undergraduate degree from AFDA in film production, in 2016 and was awarded the Fulbright scholarship and obtained her MFA at Syracuse University, Upstate New York in 2019. She is an alumnus of the Berlinale Durban Talents (2020) and the International Film Academy (IFA) 2019. Her narrative films have screened at various festivals including LeFIFA ARTS FILM in Canada, Edinburgh Short Film

Festival, Leeds International Film festival and New York African Film Festival.

Hynek Spurný

Hynek Spurný is a Czech film producer and graduate of the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), where he specialized in film production. He is the founder and head of Altum Frames, an independent production company dedicated to developing and producing both fiction and documentary films. Through Altum Frames, he focuses on projects that explore contemporary human experience, cultural identity, and emotional truth. His producer’s vision is guided by a deep commitment to storytelling that combines artistic integrity with accessible and engaging narratives. Hynek seeks to collaborate with filmmakers who bring a distinctive creative perspective and an authentic voice. He aims to produce films that not only resonate with audiences emotionally but also contribute to the broader artistic and cultural landscape of European and international cinema. He is currently preparing feature documentary Master Frank by director Jiří Šlofar, fiction feature film Home for Christmas with award-winning director Jan Prušinovský, and collaborating with producer Martin Hovorka at Incognito Studio on the animated feature Mud, Misery and Dreams

Janna Schwab

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in art history from Leiden University and completing journalism internships at De Balie and Eye Film museum, I

started working at Volya Films in 2022. I’m currently focusing on the development of majority productions as a junior. Since 2024, I have started combining work on larger international co-productions at Volya with my own more local and personal projects, such as THE OZARD (Ciska Meister, doc, 25’, NFF 2025).

Juanjo Pereira

Juanjo Pereira is a Paraguayan filmmaker, researcher, and producer whose work focuses on the national film archive and explores themes of modern infrastructure and everyday built landscapes. His debut film Under the Flags, the Sun (2025) won major awards, including the FIPRESCI Panorama Award at Berlinale, the Grand International Prize at BAFICI, and the Human Values Award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. In 2024, he received the HotDocs Forum Award in Canada. Pereira participated in Berlinale Talents, Málaga Talents, and IDFAcademy (2023), where he also won the IDFA Bertha Fund Award and the RTP Prize at DocLisboa’s ARCHÉ lab. That year, he joined the FIAF-INA seminar on film heritage challenges. Formerly a documentary cinema teacher and curator in Paraguay, he has participated in programs at La Fémis, Cannes, Locarno, and Berlinale Talents Buenos Aires, and he currently serves as artistic director and programmer of ASUFICC.

Karrar Al-Azzawi

Karrar Al-Azzawi is an Iraqi filmmaker based in Norway and the co-founder of KAJ Film Production. An

award-winning director and cinematographer, he holds a BFA in Film Directing from the Norwegian Film School. His films focus on untold stories that challenge stereotypes, foster understanding, and create solidarity across borders. His international debut, Baghdad on Fire, premiered at CPH: DOX 2023 and was screened at prestigious festivals, including the Atlanta Film Festival, DOK.fest München, Festival des Libertés, Big Sky, Slamdance, and Bergen International Film Festival. The film received multiple awards and nominations and was broadcast on Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic, France TV, Al Araby TV, NRK, and DRTV. Al-Azzawi is currently working on The Iraqi Warriors (in development), Dreaming Souls (in development), and In My Mother’s Heart (in early development).

Lizzie MacKenzie

Lizzie MacKenzie is a self-shooting director based in the Scottish Highlands, known for her sensitive and playful approach to exploring human and non-human life on the edges of society. Her debut feature, The Hermit of Treig, won the Scottish BAFTA for Best Single Documentary in 2022 and has received multiple international awards, including the Audience Award at Glasgow Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival (2022), Best Director and Best Feature Documentary at Aesthetica (2022), the Grand Prize at Kendal Mountain Film Festival (2022), and the Special Jury Award at Millennium Docs Against Gravity (2023). It was also recognized for Best Cinematography at the Nordic Adventure Film Festival (2023). Her work has been showcased by the BFI as part of

The Camera Is Ours: Britain’s Pioneering Women Documentary Makers.

Lorena Tulini

Lorena Tulini is a Peruvian film producer and distributor whose work in non-fiction cinema intertwines the intimate, the political, and the poetic. Born in Lima and raised in Sydney, her multicultural background shapes a sensitive and inclusive approach to storytelling and film circulation. She studied Audiovisual Communication in Lima, Photography in Brazil, Cultural Management in Peru, and Film Distribution at the EICTV in Cuba, later earning a Master’s in Distribution and Audiovisual Business from ECAM in Madrid, where she currently lives and works. Her debut film Lima Grita (Lima Screams) premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2019, followed by Cielo Abierto (Open Pit), which premiered at Rotterdam in 2023. As a festival distributor at PAI Films, her work has reached major festivals including Karlovy Vary, Doclisboa, Moscow, Cairo, Málaga, Havana, Torino, and MoMA’s Docs Fortnight in New York. She also serves as Communication and Brand Coordinator at the Spanish company Cinetools, fostering creative connections across continents and cinematic forms.

Milica Djenic

Milica Đenić graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, with an MA in Film and Television Directing. She moved to Berlin in 2011 on a DAAD scholarship. She has worked as a freelance filmmaker and 1 AD on various productions in Germany and in the

editorial department of the VoD platform filmfriend.de. She directed music videos and made several short films that have been shown at international film festivals. Her short documentary Guilty won a Special Jury Mention at Zagreb Dox. Milica was the cinematographer of two future documentaries Ditching the fear and Air to breathe directed by Johanna Schellhagen. Currently, Milica is working on her first feature documentary as a director, Tale of the Plum Spirit.

Samira Hmouda

Samira Hmouda is a Brussels-based selftaught filmmaker and curator. In 2012 she founded System_D, a festival-platform for young filmmakers operating outside mainstream circuits and reclaiming their own narratives. She champions free creation rooted in urban imaginaries and hybrid storytelling. As producer and coach she mentors emerging authors while advancing her own work. In 2017 she directed Warrior Kids, a short documentary shot in Senegal inside daaras with talibé children, and co-directed Majnouna, a visual poem inspired by Qays and Layla. Samira co-founded F.U.B.U, a women-filmmakers collective functioning as a “sub-common” of care, creativity, and radical solidarity. She is now developing The Kingdom, her debut feature documentary set in Mbëbëss, the largest landfill in West Africa.

Sammy Shefa Idris

Sammy Shefa Idris (2001) is a filmmaker from a small town in Friesland, Hardegarijp. Admitted on a young

age to the prestegious Netherlands Film Academy. He integrates art forms such as music, poetry, dance, and music videos into his work. His film King Ridwan was screened at many festivals and is part of the Movies That Matter educational program. In 2024, he graduated with Vaders Zijn Ook Zonen (Fathers Are Sons Too), a film about loss and fatherhood. He constantly seeks new ways to tell intimate stories and aims to leave the world a little better than he found it.

Sebastian Molina Ruiz

Sebastian Molina Ruiz (Mexico City, 1995) studied Art History at Universidad Iberoamericana and Cinematography at CCC. He has been a Doc Nomads alumnus since 2025, Guadalajara Talent 2022, Berlinale Talent 2025 (Doc Station), and was selected for the Interaction Film Camp 2025. His films have been screened at festivals such as Locarno, IDFA, Hot Docs, MoMA New Directors/New Films, FICM, FICUNAM, among others.

Shayma’ Awawdeh

Shayma’ Awawdeh is a Palestinian filmmaker whose work explores themes of memory and childhood under occupation. A graduate in filmmaking, she has directed three short films: 4th Floor, This Home Is Ours, and Intersecting Memory. She has also worked in the camera department on several films and has led filmmaking workshops for children, using cinema as a tool for creative expression.

Sidka Saavedra Vera

Sidka Saavedra Vera (Santiago de Chile, 1998) is a filmmaker of Palestinian descent. Since 2017, he has been based in Buenos Aires, where he pursued a degree in Film Direction at the Universidad del Cine. His practice centers on documentary filmmaking, sound design, and experimental approaches to audiovisual narrative. He stood out for his sound direction in Fático (BAFICI 2020) and in feature-length hybrid-documentary Tierra Citrus (Special Mention at the Festival de Cine de las Alturas, 2025). Sidka currently serves as a teaching assistant in third year class “Técnicas Audiovisuales II” at Universidad del Cine, under the guidance of documentary filmmakers Roberto Barandalla and Hugo Manso. Sidka is developing his first feature film, The Boy Girl and the Gothik Whales, with support from Mecenazgo Cultural, Universidad del Cine, and FIDBA LAB (Link 2023). His short film Underground Morphology (2025) was selected for BAFICI, SANFIC, and Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2025.

Steve Terungwa Iordye

Steve Terungwa Iordye is an experienced filmmaker with over 15 years of professional expertise in film editing and cinematography. He has collaborated on numerous high-profile projects with organizations such as the World Bank Group, UN Women, European Union, ECOWAS, Central Bank of Nigeria, The Coca Cola Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. His notable documentary works include Re Imagining PHC, a film exploring Nigeria’s Primary Health Care

system; Up NEPA, an in-depth look at the nation’s power sector; Hope Rekindled, a documentary on the government’s NPower youth empowerment initiative; and Cost of Corruption, an investigative piece examining the alleged mismanagement of Nigeria’s ecological funds. Steve is also the editor of several acclaimed feature films, including The Almajiri, A Father’s Love, A Danfo Christmas, Love and Life, It Blooms in June, and The Lost Days, many of which are currently streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime. He is currently the Director of Herding Greenward (The Last Migration), a Generation Africa 2.0 documentary co-produced with STEPS. The climate change, focused film explores the challenges and cultural transformation of nomadic herders as they settle in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region. He is the Creative Head of The Editors Room (The ER), a post-production hub dedicated to advancing film and television professionals through collaboration, training, and innovation.

Virginia Nardelli

Virginia is a documentary filmmaker and founder of “La Bandita” a cultural association based in Palermo. After earning a BA in Communication Design at the Polytechnic of Milan, she trained in observational and participatory cinema, culminating in a diploma from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Palermo) with the graduation film There’s a Wolf in the Park of the King, which premiered at Filmmaker Festival 2019. Her first feature-length film, The Castle, co-directed with Danny Biancardi and Stefano La Rosa, premiered in the main competition at CPH:DOX. Together, they are currently

developing a new documentary project exploring identity and shared memory Her practice combines creative authorship and collective processes, often working with communities through workshops and hybrid narratives.

Yuriy Dvizhon

Yuriy Dvizhon is one of the leading Ukrainian queer directors with an outstanding experience and recognition in creating various genre of LGBTQ+ related content, including shorts, music videos, fashion films, advocacy campaigns, and documentaries. In 2019, Yuriy received the prestigious “Top 30 Under 30” award for his contribution to the development of Ukrainian society. In 2024, Yuriy has directed a 6-episode travel documentary series And Everywhere I Shine about Ukrainian queer and drag performers, which was commissioned by Radio Liberty and their newly founded VOD platform, VotVot, and is set to premiere at 2025

GROUP 5

Ahmed Abd

Ahmed Abd is an Iraqi filmmaker who grew up in the shadows of the 2003 war. He was a member of the Independent Iraqi Film Center and he is interested in complex self-orientation through his artistic experiences. His first short film BIRDS OF SINJAR (2018) won the Best Journalism award at the BBC Arab Film Festival and his feature film THE FIFTH STORY gained IDFA Competition for First Appearance - FIPRESCI Award 2020. He recently directed his first fictional web series The River’s Shadow, which gained critical acclaim. Ahmed tells stories from Iraq with originality, sensitivity and poetry. Finally, in 2025 Ahmed completed the editing of the feature documentary film FLANA, directed by Zahraa Ghandour.

Alexandre Donot-Saby

After studying abroad at UCLA, Alexandre Donot graduated from La Fémis film school in Paris. He now lives between Saint-Etienne (France) and Los Angeles (USA). As an editor, he has collaborated with directors such as Alex Lutz (Guy, 2018, feat. mockumentary, 6 nomin. at 2019 Césars) Maysoon Pachachi (Our River...Our Sky, 2021, feature drama, nomin. Best UK Film at the 2022 Raindance Film Festival), and Mathieu Rochet (Lost in California, (2023, documentary) Series, prod. Temps Noir/Arte). As a director, his short films explored the aesthetic frontier between theatre and cinema. In 2022, he co-directed his first feature-length documentary, Le Centre (52’), with Raphaël

Rivière (prod. Paraíso Production/France Télévisions).

Ehsan Fardjadniya

Ehsan Fardjadniya is a visual and performance artist living in exile. With a background in fine arts and a strong focus on storytelling through hybrid and documentary performance forms, his work explores themes of displacement, memory, and the porous boundary between dreams and reality. He has presented his films, performances, and installations internationally, and continues to experiment with animation, co-creative methods, and narrative structures that invite non-actors and audiences to engage as active participants. Recent projects such as Edgelanders: Amsterdam on Trial and Rehearsal of Justice explore collective agency, legal imagination, and participatory performance as tools for reclaiming justice narrative power of undocumented people. Next to those projects he is working on his first feature length film House of Dreams.

Emily Copley

Emily Copley is an independent UK based producer currently producing her first feature documentary with multi award-winning Scottish director Lizzie MacKenzie (The Hermit of Treig). She is also Joint Acting Director of the Documentary Film Council (DFC), the UK’s first national body for independent documentary and the current Talks & Sessions Programmer and Senior Producer at Sheffield DocFest. Emily also works regularly as a consultant and pre-selector

for leading funds and festivals including Sheffield DocFest, Doc Society, IDA, and The Grierson Trust. Previously, Emily was Producer at The Whickers, an international fund supporting emerging directors, and has a background in exhibition and distribution. Emily has consulted on a range of acclaimed feature documentaries, including The Hermit of Treig, Red Herring, Our Hoolocks, Children of the Mist, No Simple Way Home, My Place Ozerna, and Light Falls Vertical.

Mohamed

Ibrahim Snoopy is a Sudanese filmmaker, cinematographer, and storyteller whose work explores themes of identity, displacement, and resilience. With a background in independent and documentary filmmaking, he highlights untold stories from communities affected by conflict and migration. His cinematographic style blends Sudanese heritage with contemporary narratives, amplifying marginalized voices through a socially conscious lens. His credits include Khartoum Offside, Sudan, Remember Us, From Argentina to Sudan, and the award-winning short film Journey to Kenya. His latest feature, Khartoum, received the Berlinale Peace Award in 2025. Growing up as a third culture child, Ibrahim brings a unique global perspective to storytelling, connecting personal and collective experiences across borders.

A Ukrainian filmmaker and author based in Berlin. After a background in literature and journalism, Inga shifted her focus

to filmmaking, studying documentary directing at FilmArche (2019-2023). As a co-author, she contributed to acclaimed films like Beyond Revolution (2022, Audience Award at German Documentary Film Award, ZDF) and Anya and Seryozha (2018, 3sat). In 2023, her first mid-length film, How Far Is Close (32 min), premiered at the FilmFestival Cottbus. Her recent film, Teen Angst (2024, 38 min), was also presented in Cottbus and continues it’s run across Europe. Now she is working on her first feature-length documentary, My Diana.

Jacqueline is an independent director and producer from South Africa, with over 20 years of experience in storytelling, from multimedia feminist visual theatre to non-fiction filmmaking. She is the co-director of the media co-operative Mycelium Media Colab, which produces documentary content and offers strategic communications services. She was awarded the Commonwealth Vision Award for her short film Free Energy (2007); produced climate justice campaign content for 350. org in Africa; produces factual content for the local broadcaster SABC; and has directed several short documentary films. Her first documentary, Nosy Mena (2011), about communities vulnerable to climate change in Madagascar inspired her to share similar strong African stories about environmental and climate justice. She is currently producing and directing HOTSPOT, a series of documentary feature films about climate justice in Southern Africa. She co-directed the documentary feature Temperature Rising (2023) and is the Impact Producer on this film.

Jacqueline van Meygaarden

Ibrahim Snoopy

Inga Pylypchuk

Jacqueline is currently developing Chikukwa Custodians a documentary set in Zimbabwe about indigenous knowledge and climate resilience.

Jelena Radenkovic

Jelena Radenkovic graduated from Belgrade Film Academy (FDU) in 2012, specializing in Film and TV Production. With over ten years of experience, she has been involved in various film and TV projects in different production roles. Jelena worked as an executive producer for film festivals such as Cinema City (Novi Sad), Belgrade International Short and Documentary Film Festival, and Free Zone Film Festival (Belgrade). From 2014 to 2016, she was a producer at Tuna Fish Studio, a Belgrade-based production company. Since 2016, Jelena has been freelancing and developing her own projects, working with a range of budgets and producing inspiring works.

João Pedro Prado

João Pedro Prado is a Brazilian filmmaker and holds a master’s degree in Documentary Directing from Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, where he studied under Prof. Stefan Schwietert. He previously studied Philosophy and Film Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and took film courses at the University of São Paulo. His mid-length musical film Ash Wednesday, addressing police violence in Brazil, premiered in 2023 at the Berlinale. In 2024 his short film Dead Period was shortlisted for the German Short Film Award. His graduation project Fission, about Germany’s nuclear phase-out,

co-directed with Anton Yaremchuk, premiered in 2025 at CPH:DOX, DOK.fest Munich, Kraków Film Festival and Tallinn Black Nights. For developing his new documentary The Wars We Play, which focuses on the Ukrainian football club Shakhtar Donetsk, he received the prestigious Gerd Ruge Grant in Germany.

Kathleen Mantel

I am an indigenous documentary filmmaker of Ngāti Kahungunu descent from New Zealand. I have worked as a documentary filmmaker for over 25 years both in New Zealand and the United States. I have made numerous short and medium length documentaries for television and am working on my first feature documentary. My work has been screened on television, at festivals, and online. I am passionate about telling stories about the world around us that are not immediately obvious, the people and the stories that are not often seen or heard from. I am interested in personal stories, the human condition, what makes people tick, get angry, and love. Social issues are a part of all of my work. My style is observant, cinematic, and ranges from highly commercial to highly experimental. I am a writer, director, and producer. I want to change the world... one documentary at a time.

Kyoko Takenaka

Kyoko Takenaka is a Paris-based Japanese producer and actor. She was the first Japanese national accepted into the Acting Department of the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts,

earning her national acting qualification in 2016 and educator certification in 2021. She has performed extensively in public theaters across France. Since 2021, she has produced all films by director Shingo Ota, including Numakage Public Pool and The Chimney Sweeper, both awarded Best Project at the Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival. Numakage also won the First Cut+ Works in Progress Award in 2024. In 2022, she co-wrote, produced, and starred in A Contemporary At Kinosaki, which received the Excellence in Art Award at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival. She was selected by VIPO to join both the Berlinale Co-Production Market (2024) and Cannes Marché du Film (2025) as part of Japan’s official delegation.

Louis Hanquet

Louis studied literature and cinema in La Sorbonne in Paris and started to work as an assistant for Serge Viallet and Sébastien Lifshitz. Gradually, he shifted toward cinematography mainly for documentary films, most of which have been selected at major festivals. Between 2019 and 2024, he directed his first feature film, A Shepherd, produced by Little Big Story. The film portrays Félix, a melancholic and secretive young shepherd living a solitary life in the Southern Alps. It was presented in more than forty festivals around the world, including Visions du Réel, FIPADOC, Verzio Human Right FF, Dokfest Munich, Thessaloniki Documentary FF, and Rai Film biennale. It won 18 awards, was broadcast on France3, RTS and on Tënk.

Ida Karoskoski

Ida Karoskoski is a Helsinki-based film producer working in non-fiction cinema. She recently joined Wacky Tie Films as a producer. Before joining the company, Karoskoski worked as a freelance producer in collaboration with, among others, Testifilmi, Illume, and Zone2 Pictures. Her most recent works include the hybrid short film All the Light That Remains (2025) and the feature-length experimental documentary D is for Distance (2025). Her productions have been screened at festivals such as Rotterdam, Visions du Réel, Oberhausen, and FIPADOC. Karoskoski is particularly inspired by political and hybrid forms, bold and open-minded experimentation, and accessible approaches to the experimental. She works comfortably at the margins of the arthouse field and is constantly seeking films that challenge or renew the traditions of documentary cinema.

Pam Blankert

Pam Blankert is an emerging film producer based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She holds a master’s degree in Documentary and Fiction from the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Since 2022, she has been part of Wit film, a production company known for its creative and socially engaged documentaries, high-quality feature films, and innovative work for young audiences. At Wit film, Pam focuses on the creative development of documentaries and youth documentary series that combine artistic vision with urgent social themes. She is drawn to reflective, visually driven storytelling that

challenges audiences to look at the world, and themselves, from new perspectives. She is currently working on her first feature-length documentary.

Paula Schargorodsky

Paula Schargorodsky is a Uruguayan Argentinian filmmaker and interactive producer. She holds a BA in Political Science and Cinematography and has worked in the film industry since 2005. In 2014, she founded Dream Big Pictures, a documentary house production. Her work includes the viral Op-Doc 35 and Single, published by The New York Times with over seven million views, and the feature-length film of the same title, co-produced with Participant Media and Univision. She is currently editing her second feature, Between the Guru and me. Paula has taken part in international labs and Pitches such as Eurodoc, Dok Incubator, IDFA, Dok Leipzig and has received several awards, including the Tribeca Film Institute Fund, DokLab Navarra Prize, Power to the Pixel-Arte Int Prize, and INCAA’s Incubadora Documental First Prize.

Piotr Jasinski

Piotr Jasinski (1992) - a Polish film director commuting between Warsaw and Prague. He finished a master’s degree in directing at FAMU, Prague. His film education in the Czech Republic was supported by the Visegrad Fund scholarship. His short films have been presented and awarded at prestigious festivals (Warsaw Film Festival, New Horizons, DOC New York City, Cairo International Film Festival, Bogoshorts, etc.). He has been repeatedly

shortlisted for the Czech Film Academy Award in the student section. His diploma film project won the main prize in the Focus Script Cannes 2023 development program. He was a member of the jury for the International Short Film Competition at the 2023 Warsaw Film Festival. He is currently working on his feature debut Rainbow FC (prod. Bionaut) and a feature-length documentary How to Bury a Hole (prod. Kuli Film). PS Always ready to discuss football for hours.

Ruonan Jiang

Ruonan Jiang is an award-winning filmmaker working across fiction and documentary, based between New York and China. She holds a BFA in Film & Television from NYU, with minors in Psychology, Animal Studies, and Business of Entertainment, Media & Technology (BEMT), as well as an MA from NYU’s News & Documentary program. Her work delves into intricate relationships between individuals and the environment, highlighting the intersections of humanity and nature.

Suraj Bhattarai

Suraj Bhattarai is an independent filmmaker. He is a graduate from Doc Nomads, a joint Masters in Documentary Film Directing from 3 different universities in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels. He is an alumnus of the prestigious BAFA film academy in Busan, Korea. He has directed and edited several short films which have been screened at major international film festivals like the Kassel Dok fest, Busan International Film Festival, and Dharamshala International Film Festival. He is

the associate producer of the critically acclaimed feature length documentary project, Agent of Happiness, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Yasmin van Dorp

Yasmin van Dorp is a Dutch filmmaker, dividing her time between Stockholm and Amsterdam. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2019. Following her graduation, she worked as a documentary line producer and researcher on several award-winning documentaries. In 2022, Yasmin decided to change course and moved to Sweden, where she pursued the Film & Media master’s program The Art of Impact at the Stockholm University of the Arts. There, she conducted artistic research on how collaborative filmmaking can illuminate new pathways for interacting with the world around us. She received her master’s degree in 2024, with additional courses in Writing and Philosophy. Her work critically reflects how human beings maneuver through modern times. The Spectacle is her short film debut as a director and had its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 2025, where it won the Full Frame President’s Award for Best Upcoming Filmmaker. The film is currently screening at film festivals worldwide. Yasmin is now developing her first feature documentary, selected for the IDFA Project Space 2025 development lab.

Zoey Black

Zoey Black is a queer indigenous transgender woman of colour living in Cape Town,

South Africa. She is a queer renaissance and culture documentarian, using film and photography to tell authentic and engaging queer stories. Her unique work is focused on using creative mediums as critical vehicles for social change and is dedicated to advancing the discourse on queer human rights around the Africa 2.0.

FILMMAKER SUPPORT HARVEST

IDFA strives to play a major role in the progress of documentary film and in the fostering of new talent in this field. IDFA’s efforts are in multiple areas: the festival provides an international platform for films and industry professionals, brings together a large, diverse audience, and seeks to create a space for emerging talent, offering training and funding to documentary makers. IDFA also presents the results of this funding and training in the form of brand-new films. The Filmmaker Support Harvest refers to films previously supported either by the IDFA Bertha Fund or IDFA’s various training programs: these include IDFA Project Space, in both its international and Dutch versions. Many of the previously supported films that have been selected for IDFA 2025 are also nominated for the IDFA Award for Best First Feature; one has been nominated for the Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award, and one for the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film.

IDFA Project Space NL is a workshop that takes place over several months and aims to assist talented Dutch filmmakers in their development, and to contribute to the creation of a high-quality artistic development plan for a documentary. This year’s participants were tutored by Soraya Pol and Aliona van der Horst. During the IDFA Project Space Showcase on Sunday, November 16, the resulting film proposals and teasers will be presented to the international industry and to the Dutch public broadcasters. A jury will grant the NPO Documentary Talent Award to the most promising film plan, which will receive a prize of €25,000 towards the development of the project. This program is supported by the NPO Fund.

IDFA Project Space is an in-depth talent development program that offers participants the combined experience of project workshopping and longer-term organic support. At the core of the program is the idea of offering space for artistic growth to projects carefully tailored to filmmakers’ individual needs. Participating projects can be at any production stage, ranging from late development to rough cut. IDFA Project Space 2025 welcomed sixteen international filmmaking teams who followed an intensive program spread over four months, combining online components with an in-person week in Amsterdam. A variety of international professionals, with different backgrounds and levels of experience, mentored the selected teams during the various program modules.

As part of IDFA’s Filmmaker Support department, the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) is dedicated to strengthening independent, author-driven documentary filmmaking in contexts without robust public-private funding structures, or where censorship restricts creative independence: across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. IBF provides development and production grants through two funding schemes. Filmmakers from and living in the above-mentioned regions can apply to the IBF Classic funding scheme. European minority co-producers collaborating on documentaries from these regions can apply to IBF Europe. Additionally, a co-production grant is available at the Netherlands Film Fund for Dutch minority co-producers involved in projects that were previously supported by IBF. Beyond financing, IBF offers grantees tailored consultancies, professional guidance and access to IDFA’s talent development programs to support them in their creative and production processes. This year, sixteen IBF-supported films are included in the IDFA 2025 selection.

In addition to the finished films selected for IDFA, seven projects with a link to the Filmmaker Support department have been selected for IDFA’s 2025 markets Accompanying the launch of these markets, ten alumni will present their projects to international and local industries in the IDFA Project Space Showcase.

Producers Connection Presentations: for projects exploring creative and financial co-production opportunities.

• Tongues of Fire (dir. Alyx Ayn Arumpac; Philippines).

• Trail on the Water (dir. Juan Pablo Polanco; Colombia).

IDFA Forum Pitches: for strong creative projects connecting with potential funders, financial and sales partners.

• All Fixed Up (dir. Hao Zhao; China, United States).

• Todo Lo Sólido (dir. Luis Gutiérrez Arias & Zaina Bseiso; Cuba, France).

Rough Cut Presentations: for film projects nearing completion looking for gap financing and distribution partners.

• Dreams of the Wild Oaks (dir. Marjan Khosravi; Iran, France, Spain).

• Sweet Belonging (dir. Benjamin Bucher; Switzerland).

FILMMAKER SUPPORT HARVEST

SELECTED FOR IDFA 2025

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

All My Sisters

Massoud Bakhshi (Austria, France, Germany, Iran; 78 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

A tender portrait of Mahya & Zahra in Tehran, filmed over 18 years. The sisters from a traditional family grow into socially engaged women, against the backdrop of increasingly fierce protests in Iran.

Mailin

María Silvia Esteve (Argentina, France, Romania; 89 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund, IDFA

Project Space 2021

Mailin narrates a bedtime story that unfolds the protagonist’s search for the memory of a childhood brutally interrupted by trauma.

Flana

Zahraa Ghandour (Iraq, France, Qatar, 85 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund, IDFA Project Space 2022

In Baghdad, the director searches for her childhood friend Nour, who suddenly disappeared at the age of ten. She symbolizes the many forgotten and abandoned girls in a society that does nothing to stand in the way of violence against women.

Nominated IDFA Award for Best First Feature

ENVISION COMPETITION

Past Future Continuous

Morteza Ahmadvand, Firouzeh Khosrovani (Iran, Norway, Italy; 76 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

A woman who has fled Iran asks her aging parents, who stayed behind, to install cameras throughout their home so she can remain connected from afar. As she watches the footage, she reflects on family, political unrest in Tehran, and longing for home.

LUMINOUS

Grounded

Simón Uribe Martínez (Colombia, France; 80 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund / IDFA Project Space 2024

Old DC-3s are the lifeline for residents of the Colombian Amazon. The film crew joins one of the planes on a flight to remote settlements. But this connection is under threat, and without it communities will face total isolation.

Paikar

Dawood Hilmandi (Netherlands, Afghanistan; 97 min.) IDFA Project Space 2019 & 2021

Years after leaving Iran, Afghan-Dutch artist and filmmaker Dawood Hilmandi returns to his childhood home. In Paikar, he portrays his relationship with his aging, authoritarian father.

Nominated for IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film & IDFA Award for Best First Feature

PARADOCS

Cinema Kawakeb

Mahmoud Al Massad (Jordan, Qatar; 79 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

Melancholic portrait of a run-down cinema in Amman, Jordan, where the last employees are hoping for a restart. Old news footage, showing a succession of conflicts from the past century, serve as a counterpoin

BEST OF FESTS

Liti Liti

Mamadou Khouma Gueye (Senegal; 76 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

The neighborhood in Dakar where filmmaker Mamadou Khouma Gueye’s mother lived for decades has to make way for a new train line. As Gueye documents the forced relocation of the community, he also creates a sensitive, poetic portrait of his mother.

The Broken R

Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren (Ecuador, Italy; 86 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund, IDFA Project Space 2024

Director Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren returns to his childhood home in this creative and personal film essay. He reflects on a youth in which he faced much rejection due to a facial disorder, and on his complex relationship with his parents.

Cutting Through Rocks

Mohammad Reza Eyni, Sara Khaki (United States, Iran, Germany, Chile, Netherlands, Canada; 94 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

As the first female council member of a village in rural Iran, Sara is determined to break through patriarchal traditions. She fights to curb child marriage and, in her free time, teaches girls to ride motorbikes—something that quickly meets with resistance.

Do You Love Me

Lana Daher (Lebanon, France, Germany; 76 min.)

IDFA Bertha Fund, IDFA Project Space 2020

In this personal and loving journey into the audiovisual history of Lebanon and Beirut—composed entirely of archival footage spanning the past 70 years—Lana Daher tells a powerfully moving story about her homeland.

Nominated Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award

Matabeleland

Nyasha Kadandara (Kenya, Zimbabwe, Canada; 76 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

Twenty years after fleeing his home country of Zimbabwe, Chris is still struggling. To recover and truly make a fresh start, he must confront the cruel fate of his family in Matabeleland.

Memory

Vladlena Sandu (France, Netherlands; 98 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

In her first feature-length documentary filmmaker Vladlena Sandu, who lived through the war in Chechnya as a child, studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via cinema.

Militantropos

Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozgovyi (Ukraine, Austria, France; 111 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

Solidarity, grief, and defiance have defined daily life in Ukraine since the very first day of the Russian full-scale invasion. This powerful account shows how war inevitably infiltrates every aspect of life and the human psyche.

Redlight to Limelight

Bipuljit Basu (India, Finland, Latvia; 100 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

Making films is a way for a group of sex workers in the Indian city of Kolkata to give their lives a new, hopeful impetus. Full of energy and with growing self-confidence, they show who they really are.

Under the Flags, the Sun

Juanjo Pereira (Paraguay, Argentina, United States, France, Germany; 90 min.)

IDFA Bertha Fund

Produced entirely from archival footage, this film paints a picture of the propaganda machine surrounding dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay with an iron fist from 1954 to 1989.

Welded Together

Anastasiya Miroshnichenko (France, Netherlands, Belgium; 96 min.) IDFA Bertha Fund

An intimate, moving portrait of Katya, a woman in her early twenties who is a professional welder. Abandoned as a child, she tries to mend her broken family while also protecting her toddler sister from their mother’s addiction.

FILMMAKER

CREATIVE EUROPE MEDIA

SUPPORTS PROMOTES INVESTS IN APPLAUDS DOCUMENTARIES

Contact your local Creative Europe Desk for advice

Co-funded by the European Union

The Creative Europe MEDIA programme strengthens Europe’s ﬁlm and audiovisual sector with funding for development, distribution and promotion, alongside broader support for cinemas, festivals, VOD, training, markets, and cross-border circulation. Check out some of the MEDIA-supported titles at this year’s IDFA, including Imago, Better Go Mad in the Wild, and Those Who Watch Over

Learn more about Creative Europe –MEDIA funding & opportunities

For Netherlands-based AV professionals: www.creativeeuropedesk.nl

Better Go Mad in the Wild

Those Who Watch Over Imago