FULL IDFA PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED: EIGHT POLISH PRODUCTIONS IN AMSTERDAM
The full programme of this year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam has now been unveiled. No fewer than eight Polish productions and co-productions are featured across the International Competition, Frontlight, Luminous, Signed, Best of Fests, Dead Angle and IDFA DocLab. This year’s edition of one of the world’s leading documentary film festivals will take place from 12 to 22 November.
Founded in 1988, IDFA has grown into one of the most important international institutions dedicated to documentary cinema and new forms of non-fiction storytelling. Its activities extend far beyond the festival itself, encompassing project funding initiatives, industry markets, talent development programmes, educational activities and a year-round documentary centre in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark.
Elwira Niewiera’s “Women and War” will compete for the IDFA Award for Best Film in the International Competition and will have its world premiere in Amsterdam. The documentary explores the long-term consequences of war through the experiences of Ukrainian women who have survived war crimes and are attempting to regain a sense of safety and rebuild their lives. Over the course of a year, the camera accompanies the protagonists during therapy at a rehabilitation centre in the Ukrainian Carpathians, creating a story not only about trauma, but also about female resilience, intimacy and mutual support. The film’s official English title is “Women and War.”
Mateusz Mularski’s “Notes From a Besieged City” has been selected for the non-competitive Frontlight section, which presents documentaries addressing some of the most urgent issues facing the world today. Filmed over three years, the documentary observes the daily lives of people in Kherson, a city that was liberated in November 2022 after almost nine months of Russian occupation but remains under constant shelling.
“Notes From a Besieged City” had its world premiere at the Krakow Film Festival, where it screened in the Polish Competition and Joanna Zielińska of Big Wave Films received the award for Best Producer of Polish Documentary and Short Films. The film will have its international premiere in Amsterdam.
Krzysztof Tomaszewski’s short documentary “Mentor” has been selected for the Luminous section. Its protagonist is a mysterious young boxer training in Warsaw’s Praga district. His fellow club members try to work out who he really is, constructing their own versions of his life until their assumptions eventually collide with reality. The film is therefore not only a portrait of an enigmatic athlete, but also a story about our tendency to fill in the gaps in other people’s lives. The title “Mentor” is also used internationally.
Poland’s presence at IDFA also reaches beyond documentary cinema in its traditional form. Michał Stankiewicz’s “Being in You” will be presented as part of IDFA DocLab. The mixed-reality documentary was created with American singer and geologist Cat Janice, both during her lifetime and through the recordings, voice, music and other materials she left behind.
The project reverses the conventional logic of immersive experiences. Rather than inviting the viewer to enter its protagonist’s world, it asks whether her digital trace can enter the world of the living through their senses, imagination and physical movement. “Being in You” becomes an intimate reflection on memory, presence and the boundaries of human existence at a time when technology allows fragments of a person to endure after death. The project has already had a major international presentation, having been selected for the main Venice Immersive competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
Four Polish titles had already been announced by IDFA. Klaudia Szott’s “MIX” will screen in Best of Fests, while Andrei Kutsila’s “Letters From the Silenced Country” and Michał Marczak’s “Closure” have been selected for Signed. Paweł Łoziński’s “The Balcony Movie” will return to the festival as part of the special Dead Angle: Common Ground programme.
You can read more about these films and their presence in the IDFA programme in our previous news story.