Leading documentary festival IDFA has added more than 100 films to its 39th edition, which runs from Nov. 12 to 22 in Amsterdam. Among the newly announced titles are those for the short documentary competition, and the sections titled Signed, Best of Fests and Paradocs. The new media program, DocLab, has also unveiled the first projects from its 20th anniversary program, including the winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant.
IDFA Competition for Short DocumentaryThe IDFA Competition for Short Documentary has 15 films that “use creativity and imagination to push the boundaries of short documentary,” the festival says. The tragicomic portrait of humanity and its fallibility, “The Bus of Broken Hearts,” by Björn Carlberg and Johan Palmgren, follows the world’s biggest cross-country ski race, where thousands of disheartened participants fail to make it to the finish line. Several titles turn their attention to the act of looking itself.
Revealing a glimmer of hope in the aftermath of an earthquake in Southern Turkey, Perihan Incegöz’s “Our Village From the Moon” captures Kurdish children as they turn the ruins into a playground and “dream of the moon.” “Picnic – In Light Invisible to the Human Eye,” by Jan Ijäs, follows Israelis who travel to the border of Gaza to see the devastation of the region first-hand. IDFA DocLab 20th anniversaryFor two decades, IDFA’s new media program DocLab has explored how emerging technologies and new forms of interaction can expand what documentary can be and how audiences experience it. For its 20th anniversary, IDFA DocLab unveils the first projects, including the two winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant and new works developed through a two-year research program, Shared Realities.
The Netherlands Film Fund and IDFA DocLab have selected two participatory works that turn systems that shape everyday life into audience experiences for the 2026 Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant: “The Love Files,” by Sanne De Wilde and Samir Veen, that invites audiences “to step inside and critically review a ‘love file’ application for a residence permit,” and “All the Downtime,” by Ant Hampton, “immersing audiences in an algorithm-led distribution center, just as a power outage disrupts the order and gives way for creative disorder.” Each receives €10,000 to finalize and present the work at IDFA DocLab. The 20th anniversary program additionally features new works developed through Shared Realities, including Tamara Shogaolu’s “The Invisible Woman,” a VR opera that recovers the story of Francisca de Angola, a 17th-century Black woman in Amsterdam, and Polymorf’s “Microbiome Restaurant,” with two sensory experiences exploring the human body as an ecosystem. Other projects include “Orgasmagoria,” by Dries Verhoeven, screened at sex theater Casa Rosso; and “Archive Arcade,” which restores landmark immersive works, including “Thanatorama” by Ana Maria de Jésus, the first project ever selected for IDFA DocLab.
The complete IDFA DocLab program will be announced on Oct. 13. SignedSigned showcases the “latest cinematic adventures of some of the most original filmmakers of our time.” The selection of films celebrates those with “a unique artistic signature, beyond the canon,” IDFA says. The selection “reflects on lives lost, those left behind, and what remains after upheaval.” Michal Marczak’s “Closure” follows a father in search of his missing son along the Vistula River near Warsaw, in “a meditation on grief suspended between hope and fear.” Turning to the systems that shape everyday lives, Ava DuVernay’s “14th” traces the legacy of the U.S.
Constitution’s 14th Amendment from Reconstruction to the present. Guillaume Massart’s “Detention” enters a French prison officers’ training school, following recruits as they grapple with the gap between classroom ethics and the unpredictable realities of life behind bars. Several established filmmakers return to IDFA with short films born from the urgency of the present, responding directly to the times we live in.
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