IDFA Chief Orwa Nyrabia Promises “Instant Classics” At Doc Festival

37^y The Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival is in full swing, opening with the world premiere of a film that can be described as part reality, part fantasy, part real and part made-up.

About the hero It stars Werner Herzog, or an artificial intelligence replica of himself, and uses a famous quote of his as a starting point: The German director once said: “A computer will not be able to make a film as good as mine in 4,500 years.” Testing this out, director Piotr Winiewicz worked with machine learning engineers to commission the AI ​​to write a script based on Herzog's filmography (Herzog authorized the project).

The result is a story about the possible suicide or murder of a man in a German industrial city who worked for a company developing a mysterious “Infinity Machine.” The supporting character has an emotional connection with the toaster (I'm not sure what that says about Werner Herzog or the AI ​​”brain”).

About the hero It is one of dozens of films featuring a baker in international competition at IDFA, almost all of which are world premieres. In total, the festival will present 254 documentaries and 27 new media projects.

“I think we have a great program,” says Urwa Nyrabia, IDFA’s artistic director. “We have very strong competition. I dare say there will be instant classics here. There are some really great films.”

This is Nairabia 7^y And the last year he leads the festival. Earlier this month, he announced that he would step down in July 2025.

“Don’t feel sad,” Nerabia tells Deadline. “If you trust me, trust me on this too, that this is the right time, this is the right moment to do this for the good of everyone, for the good of IDFA and for the good of me.”

Nirabia, a Syrian national, succeeded IDFA co-founder and longtime festival leader Allie Dirks in 2018. During his tenure, he has had to negotiate the pandemic, and last year he faced one of his biggest challenges as protests erupted at the festival over the Israeli invasion. Gaza after October 7^y Hamas' lightning attack on Israel. IDFA could have played it safe this year by steering clear of content from this part of the world, but in fact the 2024 program is packed with films from Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. Among them Eyes of Gaza“a hellish portrait” that follows “three Palestinian journalists in northern Gaza as they are forced to put their lives in danger while trying to do their work,” IDFA wrote.

“This is a movie, I think it's the first movie to come out of Al Jazeera's new OTT platform called Al Jazeera 360,” Nerabia notes. “This film is particularly interesting because in a way it is a report that sticks with these three journalists who are on the ground in Gaza. Somehow, by being with them — when they sleep and when they wake up, when they see their children, when they go to work — that makes this genre Of the reports more relevant to a festival like IDFA.

A screening in international competition is the world premiere of a film Rule of stonedirected by Israeli-Canadian director Danae Elon. “Rule of stone “It is an extraordinary film that looks at the history of Jerusalem as a city and architecture as an outlet for colonial power,” Nerabia notes.

He also cites Manuscripts 1957“, directed by Israeli director Ayelet Heller, noting that it is a film “based on documents that were recently revealed from the Israeli archives about a massacre that occurred in 1957, where the residents of a Palestinian village within the borders of Israel were massacred in one day and all the perpetrators were killed.” He was acquitted while after.”

IDFA is also showing the 2003 film Route 181, parts of a journey in Palestine-IsraelIt is a documentary film directed by Palestinian director Michel Khleifi and Israeli director Eyal Sivan, which Nerabia considers “a commentary on simplistic identity politics where we only imagine a struggle between inherited identities.” So people who belong to this heritage fight others who belong to a different heritage. And I think there is another way, a third, that creates a new identity, which is the identity of filmmakers who come together around a moral stance, who come together around making films with a real belief in solidarity with those who are oppressed.

In the “Best of Festivals” section – which is limited to the best documentaries from around the world that have premiered at previous festivals – IDFA will feature an Oscar nominee No other landwinner of the main prize for documentary at the Berlin Film Festival in February. The film, set in a rocky and remote area of ​​the West Bank where Palestinian villagers are subject to an expulsion order from the IDF, is directed by a group of Palestinian and Israeli directors. No other land was supported by a grant from IDFA's Bertha Fund.

“If people watch the great documentaries made by different directors from different backgrounds about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict or Palestine-Israel, I think, at the very least, what happened last year [on October 7^th] “This would not have been a surprise, if it had not been avoided in the first place,” Nirabia commented. “There's a lot to be cynical about what we can do. But I also think that after such a terrible year [of violence] Watching new movies, and even watching old movies, has a different meaning. It becomes a different experience. I hope it helps.”

along with No other landincludes films in the Best Festivals section sugar-cane and flash (Both from National Geographic) War game, Union, Silent state, Saturday QueenMTV Documentaries Black Box Diaries, Agent of happiness From Bhutan and Asif Kapadia 2073.

IDFA's guest of honor this year is Belgian director Johan Grimonprez, the Oscar-nominated director of the film The soundtrack to the coup. The documentary explores an important moment in history in the late 1950s and early 1960s when many African countries gained their independence after long periods of colonial domination. But in the case of Congo, Belgium and the United States were reluctant to cede the country's mineral wealth after the election of Patrice Lumumba as Congo's first democratically elected leader. Belgium, the United States and even the Secretary-General of the United Nations conspired to oust the charismatic African politician.

Nerabia describes Grimonprez as “a distinguished and exceptional art filmmaker who combines artistic sensibilities with language that is truly unique with very serious political and historical research.” And he does this in a very special way. And that's, by and large, what I'd like to see more of in the documentary space.

IDFA runs from November 14 to 24 in the Dutch capital. In the wake of the US presidential election, in which border security has become a major issue, the festival presents a timely section called “Dead Corner: Borders,” a screening of 17 films that address this issue in one way or another. List includes On the borderThe desert city of Agadez, located in Niger, has been “the center of trade routes since time immemorial,” the program notes. “But Agadez is also a place that migrants pass through on their way to Europe.”

guestThe film, directed by Zvika Gregory Portnoy and Zuzana Sulakiwicz, revolves around the border between Poland and Belarus, where Poland has erected a long wall to prevent the entry of refugees, most of whom are Arab. In the film, a Polish family takes in “an exhausted Syrian refugee, 27-year-old Al-Haider… Without a hint of excitement, the camera reads the emotions on the faces of the silent Polish family members and their grateful guest.” “The situation is dangerous and the solution is still far away.”

“I'm very happy that we're doing the side program that we call Dead Angle. This is a multi-year program. “Every year, we'll look at one 'dead angle' through the film,” Nirabia explains. “We decided, 'Okay, let's think about boundaries this year. …these lines that nations put between themselves and die for; there's a kind of absurdity in the idea of ​​borders. I think borders are clearly one of the major questions of history at this moment, like how do we look at the relationships between different groups of people, between different countries and their borders?

Nerabiya continues: “[Dead Angle: Borders] It really became a very moving programme, moving from the idea of ​​a “fortified Europe” closing its borders to the other, to the history of Palestine and Israel and those shifting borders that were created in 1947 but keep moving all the time. Time continues to be contested or remains at the center of the problem.

Neerabia adds that sometimes the thematic elements do not cohere until the festival program is chosen. “Many ideas that when they work [on the program]These are separate ideas, but when they come together you realize that you've been working in some kind of synergy, even if it's not all planned out schematically, but it comes together.