International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

IDFA

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2024
Awards Selection About

Best Film (International Competition)

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Maciej J. Drygas
Trains
Trains opens with a quote from Franz Kafka: “There is plenty of hope. An infinite amount of hope. But not for us.”…

Best Directing (International Competition)

Auberi Edler
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Auberi Edler
An American Pastoral
It’s 2023, and in a small conservative town in Pennsylvania an intense cultural and ideological battle is raging…

Best Editing (International Competition)

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Maciej J. Drygas
Trains
Trains opens with a quote from Franz Kafka: “There is plenty of hope. An infinite amount of hope. But not for us.”…

Best Cinematography (International Competition)

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Zvika Gregory Portnoy
The Guest
In 2021, the border area between Poland and Belarus became a forbidden zone, three kilometers wide, where refugees found…

Best Film (Envision Competition)

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Miguel Coyula
Chronicles of the Absurd
In Cuba, artists have to be recognized by one of the state-sponsored art institutions that ensure their work complies…

Best Directing (Envision Competition)

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Massimo D'Anolfi, Martina Parenti
Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries
Divided into three acts on animals, plants, and stones, this docu-encyclopedia explores life's essential elements…

Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Envision Competition)

Omar Mismar
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Omar Mismar
A Frown Gone Mad
Botox, Revolax, Sculptra, Hyaron, Juvederm: all sorts of products—perhaps not all entirely legal—sell like hot cakes…

Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Envision Competition)

Yo-Hen So
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Yo-Hen So
Park
Asri and Hasan, two Indonesian students in Taiwan, meet in a park in the evenings. They talk about what has happened…

IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction

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Lisa Schamlé
Me, a Depiction
In an intimate space it can feel slightly uncomfortable, voyeuristic even, to watch Lisa Schamlé draped as a living…

The DocLab Special Mention for Immersive Non-Fiction

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Alaa Al Minawi
The Liminal
There is a wall. Just a simple wall, it seems—a partition. But if you listen carefully, you can hear voices. An entire…

IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling

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Pegah Tabassinejad
Entropic Fields of Displacement
Wandering around is associated with freedom, but not all wanderers experience this to the same extent. Social and…

DocLab Special Mention for Digital Storytelling

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Emeline Courcier
Burn from Absence
In this video installation, which can also be experienced in a fulldome version premiering at IDFA, French-Vietnamese…

Best Short Documentary

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Theo Panagopoulos
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing
Theo Panagopoulos (who has a Greek father, a Lebanese-born mother and Palestinian grandparents) lives and works in…

Special Mention in the IDFA Competition for Short Documentary

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Rebecca Blöcher, Frederic Schuld
Mama Micra
The mother of animation director Rebecca Blöcher didn’t want to live an ordinary life. She wanted “something…

Best Youth Documentary (13+)

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Eefje Blankevoort, Lara Aerts
Everything Will Be Alright
Samrawit was just eight years old when she decided to flee Eritrea on her own—leaving behind her parents and younger…

Special Mention in the IDFA Competition for Youth Documentary (13+)

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Mélody Boulissière
Simply Divine
In 1939 a young Romanian woman met a soldier. Love blossomed, but the man was sent to the front. They continued to write…

Best Youth Documentary (9-12)

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Poorva Bhat
What's the Film About?
During a camping weekend, Indian filmmaker Poorva Bhat tries to find the right way to discuss consent with her two…

Special Mention in the IDFA Competition for Youth Documentary (9-12)

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Martijn Blekendaal
The Invisible Ones
Filmmaker Martijn Blekendaal thinks there should be a superhero for invisible children: kids who need to be invisible…

Best First Feature

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Suhel Banerjee
CycleMahesh
When a lockdown is announced in India, 22-year-old Mahesh finds himself stranded and decides to travel home on a rickety…

Best Dutch Film

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Luuk Bouwman
The Propagandist
Drawing on previously unpublished interviews, journals, family footage and propaganda films, The Propagandist tracks the…

Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award

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Farahnaz Sharifi
My Stolen Planet
My Stolen Planet is a diary-style narrative by Farah, an Iranian filmmaker. Born during the Islamic revolution in Iran…

Beeld & Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award special mention

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Radu Jude, Christian Ferencz-Flatz
Eight Postcards From Utopia
Opt ilustrate din lumea ideală is a found-footage documentary assembled exclusively out of post-socialist Romanian…

FIPRESCI Award

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Najiba Noori
Writing Hawa
Afghan documentary maker Najiba Noori offers not only a loving and intimate portrait of her mother Hawa, but also shows…

IDFA NPO Doc Audience Award

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Basel Adra and 3 co-directors
No Other Land
Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta on the West Bank, has been fighting the mass expulsion of…