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New work from filmmakers Maite Alberdi (“The Mole Agent”), Filip Remunda (“Czech Journal”) and Anette Ostrø (“Hotel Cæsar”) are among the 22 documentary projects that have been selected for the 30th edition of the IDFA Pitch Forum, which will run concurrent to the 35th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, running Nov. 9 – 20.
The doc festival’s IDFA Forum is an industry-focused co-financing and co-production market that will host 60 titles across its four sections, including the IDFA Pitch category. The Forum allows filmmakers and producers to present their projects — all at various stages of production and development — before buyers, curator and decision-makers from the worlds of public and private broadcasting, streaming, and international film festivals.
The IDFA Pitch Forum is the market’s flagship category. Alberdi’s “The Eternal Memory” is a meditation on love and memory that observes a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s over a four-year period. Remunda will be presenting “Love Exposed,” about an aging photographer and his filmmaker daughter who struggle to form a healthier relationship, while Ostrø will be at the Pitch Forum with “The Golden Swan,” about the kidnapping of her brother.
Another highly anticipated doc in the Pitch selection is Orban Wallace’s “Robin,” about the journey of filmmaker Peter Whitehead and the discovery of a lost biopic by his late daughter Robin Whitehead, who died of an overdose while filming Pete Doherty.
Martín Benchimol’s “El Castillo,” about a domestic worker who inherits a crumbling mansion from a former employer and hovers on the verge of emancipation with her daughter, is among the six titles being showcased at the IDFA Forum’s rough-cut section — the market slot for projects nearing completion.
In its sophomore year, the Forum’s The Producers Connection will include 12 documentary projects — in development or at an early stage of production — seeking international co-production partners. Notable global titles include Zaradasht Ahmed’s “The Lions on the River Tigris,” a verité project on the healing and resilience of Mosul in Northern Iraq after years of ISIS rule, and Samir’s new essayistic project “The Miraculous Transformation of the Working Class into Foreigners,” which explores why the workers of yesteryear are now called foreigners.
The IDFA DocLab Forum will expand this year into a two-day event that showcases 20 interactive and XR titles. Projects include Dov Heichmer’s “The Chaos Simulator,” an immersive smash room of glass and smoke that transforms flying rubble into new worlds, and Glen Neath and David Rosenberg’s “Totem,” a spatial audio piece in which audience members role-play as mysterious party guests.
A large contingent of this year’s selected projects focus on the ongoing war in Ukraine. Alisa Kovalenko’s “Frontline,” a Pitch project, is an experimental video diary of life on the Ukrainian frontline. At the DocLab Forum, Ondřej Moravec and Volodymyr Kolbasa’s mixed reality project “Fresh Memories” transforms an ordinary apartment into a soon-to-be-invaded place in Ukraine.
Wars worldwide are also subjects of several docus heading to the Forum. Maryam Ebrahimi will pitch “The Phantom Pain of Rojava,” about the present-day status of the Kurdish resistance and the women’s revolution in Rojava. At the Producers Connection, Mariam Al-Dhubhani’s “Let’s Play Soldiers” tackles the ongoing Yemeni war through the eyes of a former child soldier who tries to protect his brothers from the same fate.
The 30th anniversary of IDFA Forum takes place in person in Amsterdam’s Felix Meritis Nov. 12 – 16.
