IDFA boss Orwa Nyrabia promises “Instant Classics” at the Doc Festival

The 37^Th The edition of the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival is in full swing, having opened with the world premiere of a film that could be called part non-fiction, part fiction, part real and part artificial.

About a hero The main role is Werner Herzog, or an AI facsimile thereof, and he uses a famous saying of his as a starting point: The German filmmaker once said: “A computer will not make a film as good as mine in 4,500 years.” As a test, director Piotr Winiewicz worked with machine learning engineers to task the artificial intelligence with writing a script based on Herzog’s film work (Herzog allowed the endeavor).

The result is a story about a possible suicide or murder of a man in a German industrial city who worked at a company that developed a mysterious “infinity machine.” A minor character has a passionate affair with a toaster (I’m not sure what that says about Werner Herzog or the “spirit” of the AI).

About a hero is one of a dozen bakery films in the IDFA international competition, almost all of them world premieres. In total, the festival presents 254 documentaries and 27 new media projects.

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

This is Nyrabias 7^Th and last year he directed the festival. Earlier this month, he announced he would step down in July 2025.

“Don’t be sad,” Nyrabia tells Deadline. “If you trust me, trust me in this regard 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 my own.”

Nyrabia, a Syrian native, succeeded IDFA co-founder and long-time festival director Ally Derks in 2018. He has had to deal with the pandemic during his time in office and faced one of his biggest challenges last year when protests against Israel’s invasion of Gaza broke out at the festival after October 7^Th Hamas’s sneak attack on Israel. IDFA could have played it safe this year and avoided content from this part of the world, but in fact the 2024 program is full of films from Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. Among them is Eyes of Gazaa “hellish portrait” that follows “three Palestinian journalists in northern Gaza who are forced to risk their lives while trying to do their jobs,” as the IDFA program writes.

“This is a film, in my opinion, the first to be released on the Al Jazeera network’s newly created OTT platform called Al Jazeera 360,” notes Nyrabia. “This film is particularly interesting because it is, in a sense, a report aimed at these three journalists on the ground in Gaza. By staying with them – when they sleep and when they wake up, when they see their children and when they go to work – in a way it makes this kind of reportage a little more relevant to a festival like IDFA.”

Screening in the International Competition is the world premiere of Rule made of stoneThe film was directed by Israeli-Canadian filmmaker Danae Elon. “Rule made of stone is an extraordinary film that deals with the history of Jerusalem as a city and architecture as a means of asserting colonial power,” states Nyrabia.

He also quotes The 1957 transcriptsdirected by Israeli filmmaker Ayelet Heller, points out that it is a film “based on recently released documents from Israeli archives about a 1957 massacre in which the residents of a Palestinian village within Israel’s borders “We were massacred in one day, and all the perpetrators were later acquitted.”

IDFA is also showing the 2003 film Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israela documentary by Palestinian filmmaker Michel Khleifi and Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan, which Nyrabia sees “as a commentary on simplistic identity politics, in which we imagine conflict only between inherited identities.” So people who belong to this heritage fight against the others, who belong to a different heritage. And I think there is another way, a third way, that creates a new identity, which is the identity of filmmakers who come together around an ethical position, around filmmaking with a real belief in solidarity with the oppressed meet.”

In the “Best of Fests” section – limited to top documentaries from around the world that premiered at previous festivals – IDFA highlights Oscar contenders No other countryWinner of the main prize for documentary film 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 Israeli forces, is made by a collective of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers. No other country was supported by a grant from IDFA’s Bertha Fund.

“If people have seen the great documentaries from different filmmakers from different backgrounds about this story of the Arab-Israeli conflict or Palestine-Israel, I think what happened last year (on October 7) is to say the least^Th) wouldn’t have been a surprise if it hadn’t been avoided in the first place,” comments Nyrabia. “There are so many reasons to be cynical about what we can do. But I also think that after all this terrible year (of violence), watching new films, even the old films, takes on a different meaning. It will be a different experience. And I hope it helps.”

Together with No other countryFilms in the “Best of Fests” section include: Sugarcane And Flash (both from National Geographic), war game, union, State of silence, Sabbath QueenMTV documentaries’ Black box diary, Agent of happiness from Bhutan and Asif Kapadia 2073.

This year’s IDFA guest of honor is the Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, director of the Oscar candidate film Soundtrack to a coup. The documentary examines a key moment in history in the late 1950s and early ’60s, when many African countries gained independence after long periods of colonial rule. But in the case of Congo, Belgium and the United States were reluctant to cede the country’s natural resources after Patrice Lumumba was elected as Congo’s first democratically elected leader. Belgium, the USA and even the UN Secretary General conspired to overthrow the charismatic pan-African politician.

Nyrabia describes Grimonprez as an “outstanding, extraordinary arthouse filmmaker who combines truly unique artistic sensibilities and language with very serious political, historical research.” He does this in a very special way. That’s largely what I’d like to see more of in documentary film.”

The IDFA will take place in the Dutch capital from November 14th to 24th. In the wake of the US presidential election, in which border security became a central issue, the festival is offering a timely section entitled “Dead Angle: Borders,” a presentation of 17 films that address the issue in one way or another touch. The board contains At the borderis set in the desert town of Agadez in Niger, which has “always been a hub of trade routes,” as the show puts it. “But Agadez is also a place that migrants pass through on their way to Europe.”

The guestThe film by Zvika Gregory Portnoy and Zuzanna Solakiewicz revolves around the border between Poland and Belarus, where Poland has built a long wall to keep out mainly Arab refugees. In the film, a Polish family “takes in an exhausted Syrian refugee, 27-year-old Alhyder…Without a hint of sensationalism, the camera reads the emotions on the faces of the silent Polish family members and their grateful guest.” The situation is serious and a solution stay out of reach.”

“I’m very happy that we’re doing the side program we call Dead Angle. It is a multi-year program. Every year we will illuminate a “blind spot” through film,” explains Nyrabia. “We decided: OK, this year let’s think about borders… those lines that nations draw between themselves and die for; There is a certain absurdity to the idea of ​​boundaries. I think borders are clearly one of the main questions in history right now, like how do we look at the relationships between different groups of people, between different countries and their borders?”

Nyrabia continues: “(Dead Angle: Borders) has really become a very insightful program, ranging from the idea of ​​a ‘Fortress Europe’ closing its borders against each other, to the history of Palestine-Israel and this moving border.” that was created in 1947 but continues to move forward and continues to be contested or remains at the center of the problem.”

Sometimes thematic elements only come together after the festival program has been selected, Nyrabia adds. “A lot of ideas, when you’re working (on the program), are separate ideas, but when they come together you realize that you worked in a kind of synergy, even though not everything was planned schematically, but it comes together.”