The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam has added 65 titles to its festival lineup, rolling out the non-competitive programme sections Best of Fests, Masters and Paradocs.
The announcement was made by the organisers of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam on Wednesday.
The 34th edition of IDFA takes place from November 17 to 28 in Amsterdam.
This year’s Best of Fests selection celebrates a year when, despite all challenges, festivals came back with a large slate of exceptional documentary films and cinema
triumphantly returned to the big screen.
The programme section takes a decidedly cinephile turn in 2021, honouring the year’s award winners, critics’ picks and audience favourites.
The 46-film-strong selection includes highlights such as the quietly earth-shattering A Night of Knowing Nothing by Payal Kapadia, winner of the Golden Eye Award at Cannes, and The Velvet Queen, the lush, never-before-seen wildlife film by debut director Marie Amiguet.
Transcendent masterpieces such as Users, the mesmerising exploration of humanity’s future by Natalia Almada, and Taming the Garden, the exquisite slow-cinema feature by Salomé Jashi, find a home in this year’s selection
As today’s auteurs take the documentary canon to new heights, Masters selects sixteen must-see titles from some of the leading filmmakers of our time.
Several entries speak to the growing crossover between filmmakers working in both the fiction and documentary worlds, as seen in Andrea Arnold’s incredible bovine experience Cow and Karim Aïnouz’s Mariner of the Mountains, charting the director’s first trip to his father’s homeland, among other titles.
The non-competitive Paradocs programme returns with the tightest selection seen in years: eight films that push the limits of the documentary form, showcasing some of the year’s best experimental documentary art.
Notable titles include Just a Movement by renowned artist Vincent Meessen, a stunning, complex portrait of Omar Blondin Diop, the Senegalese artist, freedomfighter, and Jean-Luc Godard actor.
The 34th edition of IDFA will be an in-person event, celebrating the art of documentary film from November 17 to 28 in cinemas across Amsterdam.
In accordance with the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and safety
Environment (the RIVM), the festival will feature comprehensive health and safety
measures, prioritising the wellbeing of all attendees.