2025 IDFA Forum Slate Revealed Ahead of Amsterdam Festival

International Documentary Festival Amsterdam unveiled the lineup for its 2025 IDFA Forum today, promising a compelling slate that welcomes “a new cohort of debut and seasoned filmmakers to the international stage.”

Just over 50 documentary projects have been selected for the forum, chosen from among 841 entries.

“The 33rd edition of the festival’s co-production and co-financing market takes place at a time when the world is grappling with multiple overlapping crises affecting every aspect of our lives: from escalating wars and conflicts to political turmoil, social and economic hardships, deepening inequalities, environmental damage—and our recurring failure to learn from the past,” IDFA notes in a release. “As an inherently political art form, documentary cinema has the capacity to explore and examine these issues with depth and nuance. The IDFA Forum carries their urgency into its up-to-date edition, recognizing the need to give space to the vital realities and elevate voices exploring their complexities.”

Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, Head of IDFA Industry, said in a statement, “The selection demonstrates how versatile the domain of the documentary filmmaker and new media creator is. Through the use of inventive cinematic language and formats, these projects bring underexposed stories while also exploring non-narrative expressions, both of which provide context in a society marked by turbulence and uncertainty.”

IDFA Forum runs November 16-19, unfolding at three venues: Amsterdam’s Pathé City cinema, ITA, and @droog. “The line-up maintains gender balance across the formats,” IDFA notes, adding that two dozen filmmakers will unveil debut features. Scroll for the full lineup.

The Forum Pitch and Producers Connection sections feature a total of 33 projects. Among the highlights, The Video Guy, directed by Sam Howard and Alexander Dickerson-Watson. “From a humble hustle shooting track videos for local rappers,” IDFA shares, “the project morphed into a sprawling decade-long endeavor that follows five African-American youths set to become the next Kendrick, all the while unpacking the hyperreal fantasies, projected onto—and in part perpetuated by the men—and the few paths open to them.”

Mohamed Jabaly, who won the Best Directing Award at IDFA in 2023 for Life is Beautiful, will present My Sister Gaza, co-directed with his siblings Rima and Ibrahim Jabaly, and co-produced with Idioms Film, Palestine. Elhum Shakerifar serves as executive producer. “Punctuated by the rhythms of war, this collaborative film presents a poignant first-person documentation of the daily reality in Gaza in the early days of the genocide, as lived and chronicled by Rima and Ibrahim Jabaly. These scenes are continually entwined with conversations with their older brother, exiled filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly.”

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Petra Costa (The Edge of Democracy), who is in Oscar contention this year for Apocalypse in the Tropics, will pitch an untitled project produced by Rémi Grellety – himself a two-time Oscar nominee for Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat and I Am Not Your Negro.

Greletty is co-producer on another project that’s being pitched — Todo Lo Sólido, directed by Luis Gutiérrez Arias and Zaina Bseiso.

Another prominent filmmaker in Oscar contention this year, James Jones (Antidote), will pitch The Face of Power, produced by Sasha Odynova.

Alexandru Solomon, who has brought multiple films to IDFA including Cold Waves (2007); Kapitalism: Our Improved Formula (2010); and Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife (2023), returns to pitch Small Expectations, alongside executive producer Ada Solomon of microFILM. “Unfurling during Romania’s electoral race, the documentary follows former civic activist Nicușor Dan who takes the helm of the troubled office.”

Among other standouts is Alison O’Daniel’s Inframince, about Havana Syndrome, the alleged “sonic attacks” on U.S. diplomats that were initially reported in Cuba. “Stretching the possibilities of film, O’Daniel turns the subject into form, articulated ‘ecstatically and expansively’ through a sensorial cinematic language,” IDFA comments. “The inquiry into the mysterious phenomenon thus gradually unfolds into a cinematic probe of sound itself and its weaponization.”

Six projects have been selected for Rough Cut Presentations at this year’s IDFA Forum, among them Lucas Paleocrassas’ Bugboy, which “opens conversation about difference and self-acceptance through a gentle portrait of a teenager, George, with a rare eye condition that affects his self-image.”

Dreams of the Wild Oaks by Bakhtiari director Marjan Khosravi and producer Milad Khosravi “embraces elements of a fictionalized narrative and magical realism to subtly approach the sensitive topics of child marriage and environmental destruction in rural Iran.”

IDFA DocLab Forum, the market’s new media strand, will present 12 projects in various stages of development and production. “The selection spans diverse formats, including interactive narrative VR 360°, multi-user VR game installation, AR, AI, multimedia installation, live performance, AR multi-user VR room scale, and multimedia multi-user installation, among others.” The projects engage with such themes as gender and sexual identities, war trauma, mobility, cultural heritage in the context of displacement and digital obsolescence, and perspectives on ecosystems.

IDFA Forum attendees will also have access to new thematic Informative Panels that will “offer filmmakers practical insights on navigating the documentary financing landscape.” Alongside the Forum events, IDFA’s premier market and distribution incubator for creative documentary films, Docs for Sale, runs concurrently from November 15-19.

These are the projects selected for the Forum Pitch, Producers Connection, Rough Cut Presentations, and DocLab Forum:

Forum Pitch

A Film For One, dir. Alexandre Donot-Saby, prod. Valérie Montmartin / LITTLE BIG STORY (France), co-prod. Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre / PORTAGE FILMS (Canada)

All Fixed Up, dir. Hao Zhou, prod. Jenny Wu (China), co-prod. Tyler Hill (United States)

Codename: Guster, dir. Katharina Warda, Jascha Hannover, prod. Alexandre Tondowski / Tondowski Films (Germany), co-prod. Alexandre Tondowski / Tondowski Films, Thandi Davids/ Storyscope (South Africa)

ExCoded, dir. Javier Lovera, prod. Hannah Donegan / Have Magic Media, Marc Serpa Francoeur / Lost Time Media (Canada)

I’ve Always Said We, dir. Lucia Sanchez, prod. Lucia Sanchez / Les Films d’Ici, Marie Régis / Anoki (France), co-prod. Michèle Massé (Spain)

Inframince, dir. Alison O’Daniel, prod. Maya E. Rudolph / Louverture Films (United States)

Karsai vs Hungary, dir. Marcell Gerő, prod. Sara László / Campfilm (Hungary), co-prod. Jean-Laurent Csinidis / Films de Force Majeure, Mátyás Prikler / MPhilms (Slovakia, France)

Lonesome Land, dir. Virpi Suutari, prod. Virpi Suutari / Euphoria film oy (Finland)

My Name is Khalil, dir. Bilal Alkhatib, prod. Tania El Khoury / Les films de l’Altaï (Palestine, France, Lebanon)

Never Arrive, dir. Tenji Takakura, Sansan Liu, prod. Jia Zhao / Muyi Film, Takahito Kanegawa / Temjin TV Production Co Ltd (The Netherlands, Japan)

Nighthawk, dir. Adam James Smith (China, United States)

Small Expectations, dir. Alexandru Solomon, prod. Ada Solomon / microFILM (Romania), co-prod. Frederik Nicolai (Belgium)

Sundays, dir. Justine Martin, prod. Amélie Tremblay / Nemesis Films inc (Canada)

Talia after Talia, dir. Pedro Speroni, prod. Tomas Raimondo / El Ojo Silva, Pedro Speroni / El Ojo Silva (Argentina)

The Face of Power, dir. James Jones, prod. Sasha Odynova, James Jones (United Kingdom)

The Documenters, dir. Loretta van der Horst, prod. Claudio Montesano Casillas / The Waves, Ilja Roomans / Docmakers (The Netherlands)

The Path That Walks, dir. Efthymia Zymvragaki, prod. Efthymia Zymvragaki / Gris Medio (Spain), co-prod. Iris Lammertsma / Witfilm (The Netherlands), Eirini Makedona Pangkopoulou/ Sisilo (Greece)

The White Doctor, dir. Zippy Ms Kimundu / Afrofilms International, prod. Colum McKeown / Little Wing Films, Zippy Ms Kimundu / Afrofilms International Company Ltd (Kenya, Ireland), co-prod. Alex Tondowski / Tondowski Films (Germany)

Todo Lo Sólido, dir. Luis Gutiérrez Arias, Zaina Bseiso, prod. Luis Gutiérrez Arias / Bahiam Colectiva, Zaina Bseiso / Bahia Colectiva (Cuba), co-prod. Rémi Grellety / Warboys Films, Sara Skrodzka / Warboys Films, Daniela Muñoz Barroso / Estudio ST (France)

Untitled Petra Costa Project, dir. Petra Costa, prod. Rémi Grellety / Busca Vida Filmes (Brazil)

Untitled Watermelon Pictures Documentary, editor. Rabab Haj Yahya, prod. Ayah Selene

Producers Connection

Eleven Ears, dir. Yashaswini Raghunandan, prod. Yashaswini Raghunandan (India), co-prod. Heejung Oh / Seesaw Pictures (South Korea)

Flying like a Bird, dir. El Mahdi Lyoubi, prod. Hicham Falah / Cinema Salama (Morocco), co-prod. Marie Dubas / Deuxième Ligne Films, Louise Bansard / GoGoGo Films (France)

Four Comrades, One Echo, dir. Kiva Liu, prod. Kiva Liu (The Netherlands)

Into the Mist, dir. Azadeh Moussavi, Kourosh Ataee, prod. Azadeh Moussavi, Kourosh Ataee / Fanoos Films (Iran)

My Sister Gaza, dir. Mohamed Jabaly, Rima Jabaly, Ibrahim Jabaly, prod. Mohamed Jabaly / Palarctic Productions AS (Palestine, Norway), co-prod. Mohanad Yaqubi / Idioms Films (Palestine)

Resisting Residents, dir. Nikos Pilos, prod. Kalafati Dafni / FILMIKI S.A (Greece)

Serraria, dir. Ricardo Imakawa, Matias Borgström, prod. Matias Borgström, Ricardo Imakawa / Salga Filmes (Brazil)

The Pylon and the Lake, dir. Sylvain Yonnet, prod. Cécile Lestrade, Elise Hug / Alter Ego Production (France)

The Video Guy, dir. Sam Howard, Alexander Dickerson-Watson, prod. Erica Starling Productions (United Kingdom)

The Black Wedding – 7 Years of Eternal Mourning, dir. Dragan Nikolić, prod. Jovana Nikolić (Serbia)

Tongues of Fire, dir. Alyx Ayn Arumpac, prod. Alyx Ayn Arumpac / Guerreros (Philippines)

Trail on the Water, dir. Juan Pablo Polanco, prod. Laura Nogal / Los Niños Films (Colombia)

Rough Cut Presentations

Architecture as Invention, dir. Michael Madsen, prod. Per Damgaard Hansen / Paloma Productions (Denmark), co-prod. Ove Rishøj Jensen / Auto Images, Cecilie Bolvinkel / Auto Images, Heino Deckert / Majade filmproduktion GmbH (Germany, Sweden)

Bugboy, dir. Lucas Paleocrassas, prod. Rea Apostolides / Anemon Productions, Yuri Averof / Anemon Productions (Greece), co-prod. Maria Stevnbak Westergren / Toolbox Film ApS, Adam Leibovitz / Flach Film Production (Denmark, France)

Dreams of the Wild Oaks, dir. Marjan Khosravi, prod. Milad Khosravi / Seven Springs Pictures (Iran), co-prod. Stephanie von Lukowicz / Lukimedia S.L., Thibaut Amri / Avant la Nuit (France, Spain)

Getting the Message, dir. Neasa Ní Chianáin, prod. David Rane / Soilsiu Films (Ireland), co-prod. Hanne Phlypo / Clin d’oeil films, Ilja Roomans / Docmakers (Belgium, The Netherlands)

Sweet Belonging, dir. Benjamin Bucher, prod. Olivier Zobrist / Langfilm (Switzerland)

The Cord, dir. Nolwenn Hervé, prod. Estelle Robin You / Grande Ourse Films (France)

DocLab Forum

Amasonic, dir. Marcel van Brakel, M. Cecilia Oliveira, prod. Corine Meijers / Studio Biarritz (The Netherlands)

Anatomy of Revolution, dir. Lara Baladi, prod. Lara Baladi (Egypt)

Body Count, dir. Cris Bringas, prod. Mica Oliveros, Sönke Kirchhof / INVR.SPACE (Philippines, Germany)

Cripping Up, dir. Amy Crighton, Meg Fozzard, prod. Meg Fozzard / Unlikely Tangent Studios (United Kingdom)

Fear City Paradise, dir. Darren Emerson, prod. Dan Tucker / East City Films (United Kingdom)

Ghost Towns, dir. Robin Coops, prod. Floris Smit / UPscaleXR, Robin Coops / Coops&Co (The Netherlands)

I’m in Love with my Testo, dir. Juno Álvarez, prod. Nell Córdova / Cacao Cinema (Spain), co-prod. Paola Álvarez (Germany)

Inside A Stripper’s Mind, dir. STORRY, prod. Karimah Zakia Issa / KZI Films (Canada)

Like Every Cloud (Zayy Kulli Ghaima), dir. Bentley Brown, prod. Bentley Brown / Aboudigin Films, Turki Al Mutairi (Chad)

Metramorphosis, dir. Laura Yilmaz, prod. Fanni Fazakas / RumeXR (New Zealand, Hungary)

Reframing Queer Exile, dir. Emma Hamilton, prod. Anne-Lise Miller / Adventice (France)

The Eyes of Mila Kaos, dir. Yimit Ramírez, Tony Alonso, prod. Patricia Pérez Fernández / Free Hundred Media (Spain), co-prod. Boris Prieto / Vega Alta Films (France)