International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
IDFA is an independent, international meeting place for audiences and professionals to see a diverse (in form, content, and cultural background) program of high-quality documentaries. IDFA selects creative and accessible documentaries, which offer new insights into society. By 2009, IDFA had achieved the reputation of the most important doc fest. Every year in November, the festival takes place over the period of 11 days, in more than 40 venues around the city, welcoming an audience of 295.000 (2019), and a record number of documentary film professionals, as over 3500 gather for the festival, from more than 100 countries every year.
The festival was initially held at the Leidseplein area in the centre of Amsterdam. It has since spread to a number of other locations, including the Tuschinski Theatre and EYE Filmmuseum. Apart from its international film program, the variety of genres, and the many European and world premieres featured each year, the festival also hosts debates, forums, and workshops. Since 2007, the festival's New Media program IDFA DocLab showcases the best interactive non-fiction storytelling and explores how the digital revolution is reshaping documentary art. By that year, IDFA had grown to an audience of 145,000.
In addition to the festival, IDFA has developed several professional activities, contributing to the development of filmmakers and their films at all stages. At the co-financing and co-production market IDFA Forum filmmakers and producers pitch their plans to financiers; at Docs for Sale new documentaries are on offer to programmers and distributors; the IDFA Bertha Fund supports filmmakers and documentary projects in developing countries, and the IDFAcademy offers international training programs for up-and-coming doc talents.
IDFA was founded as a successor to the Festikon, a festival of educational cinema founded by the Dutch Film Institute in 1961 and closed in 1987 due to the lack of interest of the audience. Menno van der Molen, Festikon's director, envisioned the new festival, entirely dedicated to documentaries. Van der Molen invited Ally Derks, who had joined Festikon's team as an intern in 1985, to prompt the idea and create IDFA. Derks headed IDFA from 1988 until 2017, when she stepped down. First colleagues that were invited to join the team were Derks' fellow Theatre and Film Studies graduates Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen and Willemien van Aalst. As the festival's undoubted leader, Derks was nicknamed ‘Madam IDFA’ and ‘the High Priestess of Documentaries’, her vision was the one that shaped the event's program and profile for almost 30 years. In 2001, she installed 7 official ‘pre-selectors’, the Dutch film professionals, who evaluated the submissions and chose 500 that would qualify for further evaluation by Derks.
IDFA has always been politically charged and prioritised the socio-cultural impact of documentary cinema. As explained by the team, it was opened to “to be a platform for voices that are usually not listened to”.
In 2013, IDFA inaugurated the Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia program.
In 2016, Derks announced stepping down. In almost three decades under her rule, IFDA grew into the largest and most prestigious doc festival in the world. After Derks' resignation, Barbara Visser oversaw the 2017 edition as interim director. In January 2018, Syrian film producer Orwa Nyrabia was appointed new artistic director of IDFA.
At the opening ceremony in held on 8 November 2023 in the shadow of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, three activists burst onto the stage and waved a sign saying "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", to show solidarity with the people of Gaza. The audience, which included the festival director Orwa Nyrabia, applauded the activists. On 10 November members of Israel's film community condemned the use of the slogan and Nyrabia's applause. Following the IDFA's official apology, the Palestinian Film Institute withdrew its three documentaries from the festival and started a petition in protest. In the aftermath, Orwa Nyrabia was forced to resign after the 2024 edition.
In the first few years the festival had only the Joris Ivens competition. By 2007, it had four competition programs and the Audience Award, but the Joris Ivens Award (for feature-length documentaries) remained the main prize. Films in competition films must be world, international, or European premieres. The Joris Ivens Award was renamed the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary after the 2008 edition, it was presented annually until 2020.
In 2021, IDFA announced a new program structure and introduced new central sections: Envision and International Competitions for over 40 and 60 min, respectively, flanked by several cross-section awards (Best Dutch Film, Best First Feature and ReFrame Award). As before, only premieres are allowed to compete in the main competition.
The best new documentaries of the year compete in IDFA's main competition programs:
Alongside the competition programs, five awards are awarded during IDFA:
In addition to the competitions, IDFA presents several non-competitive film programs:
In this program section, the festival presents the latest documentaries by renowned documentary auteurs.
In Best of Fests, the festival presents films that have made an impact on the international festival circuit this year.
In this section, the festival presents films from all over the world, which are thought-provoking in their form and choice of theme.
The films in this section showcase what is going on beyond the frame of traditional documentary filmmaking, on the borders between film and art, truth and fiction, and narrative and design.
Screenings of many films from this program are accompanied by live performances connected to the films.
In addition to the regular programs, each year the festival presents programs like Queer Day, featuring new documentaries about LGBTQ-related topics; Focus programs which zoom in on aspects like sound design, editing, and cinematography or a topical theme; a themed program by DocLab, featuring live events and an interactive exhibition; and a retrospective of a filmmaker who also chooses a personal documentary Top 10.
The IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction rewards the best immersive non-fiction of the festival.
The IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling rewards the best Digital Storytelling.