Special Friend+

As a Special Friend+ and involved documentary connoisseur, you support a specific goal because you have a special interest in it. With your annual gift of € 2.500, - you support IDFA in a special and personal way. You can support three goals as a Special Friend+.

1. IDFA Education
2. IDFA Bertha Fund
3. IDFA Innovation & New media

1. IDFA Education

Help children learn to watch documentaries during IDFA and in the classroom

Children broaden their minds through films. Documentaries teach them to empathize with others and to look critically. During IDFA's educational program, schoolchildren watch documentaries together – often for the first time - about topics such as fake news, children's rights, the impact of social media or living in a modern ‘composed’ family.

Your contribution is used to expand and improve our student program. The program includes teaching material, IDFA School screenings and DocSchool Online, with specially selected documentaries for children that can be viewed in the classroom. There are now 1,500 teachers and 25,000 students who enthusiastically use our educational programs.

With your support we can reach more children, engage in conversation with them and teach them to form and express their opinions.

If you support IDFA Education you will receive, in addition to the basic privileges of the Special Friend+, also:

• Invitation for a meeting with Meike Statema and Marije Veenstra, head and employee Education IDFA, about film education using film clips.
• 4 tickets for the IDFA Junior Day on the last Sunday of IDFA.
• The annual IDFA Education Newsletter in which we focus on the developments in our education programs.

2. IDFA Bertha Fund

Support the production of independent and urgent documentaries from non-Western countries

Not everywhere in the world it is easy for filmmakers to make documentaries. Besides a lack of funding, censorship in non-Western countries is often a hindrance and human rights are at stake, making it sometimes even dangerous to expose important issues through documentaries.

The promotion of an independent film culture in these countries is therefore of great importance to IDFA.

With your support to the IDFA Bertha Fund you help create and spread powerful and urgent stories from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in their own country and beyond.

The fund currently supports 30 documentaries every year, while there are 700 applications. With your support we can enable more films with important stories which will open at IDFA. That way important stories are heard in their own country and in the rest of the world, and thanks to documentary and debate we ensure connection.

Your contribution is greatly appreciated and therefore, if you support the IDFA Bertha Fund, you will receive, in addition to the basic privileges of the Special Friend+, also:

• Access to a meeting with Isabel Arrate Fernandez (director IDFA Bertha Fund) and one of the IDFA board members where we look at film clips from non-western makers and have a discussion with each other.
• An invitation for 2 people for the opening of a film supported by the fund during IDFA.
• Once a year an IDFA Bertha Fund Newsletter with which you can follow the developments of the filmmakers.

The IDFA Bertha Fund started in 1997 and has supported filmmakers who have been nominated for major prizes with their films, such as Sonita (2016, IDFA Audience Award), Five Broken Cameras (2011, IDFA Audience Award, Emmy Award, Oscar nomination) and Of Fathers and Sons (2017, Grand Jury Prize Sundance, Oscar nomination).

3. IDFA Innovation & New media

Support research, innovation and experiment of new media makers

Since 2007 IDFA has been investigating the effects of the digital revolution on the documentary genre. IDFA's DocLab has grown into one of the world's most important meeting places for digital storytelling, virtual reality and interactive documentary. Every year, DocLab initiates new collaborations between artists, supports the development of new works and investigates new display forms.

This research is costly and requires extra funding to be and continue to be groundbreaking. With your contribution you help new media makers from all over the world to show their innovative work during IDFA. This allows the audience to see, hear, feel and explore for themselves what new developments there are at the interface between documentary and new media.

Your support for IDFA's DocLab is greatly appreciated and therefore you receive in addition to the basic privileges of the Special Friend+, also:

• An invitation for 2 people for the opening night of DocLab in de Brakke Grond on the first Thursday during IDFA.
• Guided tour for 4 people through DocLab Expo, a unique platform for interactive documentaries, groundbreaking installations and other works in which different (media) disciplines come together.
• The annual IDFA Innovation & New Media Newsletter in which the progress of research and the developments surrounding DocLab programs are featured.

Privileges Special Friend+

As a thank you for your support, you receive various privileges, depending on which goal you support as Special Friend+. See above for the privileges associated with the individual goals. All Special Friends+ receive in addition:

• A Special Friends Festival Pass with free access to 20 screenings during the festival
• Invitations to all Special Friends screenings in Soho House's high-end cinema
• An invitation to the Special Friends Dinner in October during which the festival directors discuss the highlights of the festival using film clips.
• Free last-minute seating during the festival
• Exclusive access to the festive opening in Carré
• Access to two special pre-premieres in Tuschinski (May and September).
• Priority booking at ticket sales.
• The program guide.

Advantageous gift

A gift to IDFA is 125% deductible for taxes thanks to the Gift Law. Moreover, a donation threshold for the deductible amount does not apply to a regular donation that is set for five years. For example, if you fall into the high tax bracket, with a monthly donation of € 2500,- , your tax benefit is € 1277, - per month, which means your net donation amounts to € 1223,- . In the middle scale the net amount is € 1428,-. The government is responsible for the policy regarding tax deductibility and determines whether this will remain so in the future.

Want to become Special Friend+?

For more information or applications contact Marloes Janssen: marloes@idfa.nl or +31 (0)6 29 52 89 41. You can also fill out this form (in Dutch).