Submit your film to Docs for Sale

On this page, you can find all information about submitting to Docs for Sale, including entry regulations, eligibility, fees, and other practical info. To submit your film to Docs for Sale, please fill out the entry form in MyIDFA. Be sure to read our regulations carefully before continuing to the entry form. Before submitting, we also encourage you to read about who can attend the market and check out our frequently asked questions.

Please note the submission deadline has now passed.

Docs for Sale is a partner in IDFA Forum's Rough Cut Presentations. Submissions for these projects are handled through the IDFA Forum entry form. More information can be found in the Forum regulations.

Regulations & fees

If your film is selected for Docs for Sale 2023, it will be included in the online catalogue where it will be available to potential buyers in a secure, password-protected environment for one year. During the festival, Docs for Sale hosts screening booths where professionals attending the festival in person can watch the film in the Docs for Sale hub. Films selected for IDFA 2023 are automatically eligible for inclusion in the 2023 catalogue.

The applicant will guarantee to have secured clearance from the copyright holders of any copyrighted materials included in the submitted film and any photographs submitted relating to the film for all purposes for which the material will be used, including screening, promotion during the IDFA festival, press publications, and inclusion in the online IDFA Collection, among other purposes. The applicant will guarantee to hold IDFA harmless from any claims from copyright holders in relation to use of the submitted film by IDFA for the agreed purposes. IDFA reserves the right to disqualify any film with unauthorized inclusion of copyrighted materials.

1. Eligibility

All entries are submitted to a selection procedure.

• Only creative documentaries completed after September 1, 2022 are eligible for Docs for Sale 2023.
• Films must be complete at the time of submission.
• Only English versions will be included in Docs for Sale: either English voice-over and/or English dialogue, or in the original version with English subtitles.
• Innovative and creatives documentaries suitable for theatrical release, festival submission, television broadcast, streaming platforms, and more are eligible to apply.

All documentaries selected for the IDFA festival (finished after September 1, 2022) are invited to be included in Docs for Sale. Please note that IDFA-selected films do need to fill out a separate Docs for Sale entry form in this case.

2. Selection Criteria

Docs for Sale welcomes a wide range of documentary formats, including journalistic or topic-driven television documentary, formatted aesthetics and more.

When considering your finished film for Docs for Sale submission, keep in mind that the film should fulfill one or more of the following criteria:

• The film must be technically good and the form should fit the subject.
• The film will be relevant for the type of professionals that use Docs for Sale, that is: festivals, including those with niche mandates, broadcast and platform buyers catering to very wide as well as to niche audiences, sales agents, distributors etc.
• The film has international appeal and can speak to different territories and audiences.
• The film is innovative, rethinking formats, presenting new ways to tell wide appeal stories.

Please note that the following films do not meet the Docs for Sale criteria:

• Genres such as nature documentaries, travelogues, corporate and informational films are not eligible for selection.
• While the topic of a film does not have to precisely address inclusion as a topic, it should never propagate anti-inclusion.

IDFA reserves the right to accept or reject a submission. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of submissions, Docs for Sale cannot give personal feedback on films.

3. Fees

Below you can find the pricing for Docs for Sale in 2023.

Fees will only be charged for documentaries selected for Docs for Sale.

• Film in Docs for Sale: € 210,- (excl. 21% VAT)*
• Short film in Docs for Sale: € 105, - (excl. 21% VAT)
• IDFA-selected film in Docs for Sale: €80,- (excl. 21%VAT)
• Films presented at IDFA Forum: Free of charge
• Films supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund: Free of charge
• Films that participated in IDFA Project Space: Free of charge

*A 25% fee waiver is available for films where the main producer is from and living in a country on the IDFA Bertha Fund List.

4. Submitting multiple versions

You can submit multiple versions of your documentary for an additional fee. This could include, for instance, a TV version of your feature-length film or an additional episode of your series.

• If selected for Docs for Sale, €27 (excl. 21% VAT) will be added to your invoice per additional version
• A maximum of two additional versions can be accepted

5. Application

In order to submit a documentary to Docs for Sale we need a complete entry, which consists of the following:

• A completely filled out and submitted entry form.
• A downloadable preview link of your film (preferably a password-protected Vimeo link), provided in the entry form.
• The file of your completed film provided through the upload link you will receive shortly after submitting the entry form (once you submit the entry form you will receive an email about how to submit the file). Please follow Vimeo's compression guidelines.
• Film stills (landscape orientation, JPG/JPEG, high resolution, at least 300 DPI or 3 MB)

6. Payment

As soon as your film has been selected for Docs for Sale you will receive an invoice with instructions on how to pay by credit card through a secure internet site. We cannot guarantee your participation until we have received your payment.

Technical specifications for video

• Docs for Sale uses Vimeo as its video platform. Please follow Vimeo's compression guidelines for all video files.
• For films which are not spoken in English, please encode your video using hardcoded English subtitles.

Docs for Sale and Vimeo

IDFA uses Vimeo as the provider of HD-quality streaming video on our website. All video materials are uploaded to a private Vimeo Enterprise account managed by IDFA. Vimeo is a global platform and is used as an industry standard for filmmakers to share and present their work online. Over the past years more than 95% of all submissions to IDFA have allowed full access to content residing on Vimeo already.

This is how we use Vimeo:

• We upload files to our 'private' Enterprise account within a password-protected album that only IDFA has access to.
• All files are set so they cannot be searched and found on Vimeo's public platform.
• There are further settings in place that only allow the video to be viewed on www.idfa.nl, which ensures that all video is domain-restricted to IDFA only.
• Our database checks the MyIDFA account that is logged in on the IDFA site and the video will only appear on the website if this MyIDFA account has rights to view the content.
• Content cannot be commented on, shared or downloaded.

If you have any further questions, please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions or send us an email at docsforsale@idfa.nl.