Up until the festival's 33rd edition in 2020, IDFA presented the IDFA Competition for Dutch Documentary. Below, you can look back on the selection from the competition's last year: eight world premieres from both emerging filmmakers and masters of documentary cinema. Together, the selection reveals sincere, curious, and humanist views between the filmmakers and their subjects, whether close to home or across the world. See the jury members.
Selected for the Dutch competition 2020
Can you still be full of lust for life when you’re over 100? Absolutely! Despite declining health, the loss of loved ones, and concerns about the future of the world, the centenarians in this documentary portrait are eager for each new day.
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After years spent in institutions and prison, 27-year-old Bruce is looking for a way back into society. With the help of his aunt and best friend he learns, for the first time, to reflect on his habits, behavior, and feelings.
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Funeral director Anita is tasked with ensuring that the many cultures in the Bijlmer suburb of Amsterdam can all find their place at a proposed new funeral home. But the more she learns, the more she doubts her mission.
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A stirring and hopeful musical story about building bridges with music. DJ Robert Soko, who came to fame with his Balkan Beats, embraces musical influences from newcomers in multicultural Europe.
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The stories of three Israeli mothers mourning their sons who died during military service. Using semen collected shortly after their sons’ deaths, they hope to have them live on in a posthumous grandchild.
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The passage of time is spellbinding in this cinematic tour de force about the Wadden Sea. A film that inhales and exhales along with the tides as it explores the fragile relationship between man and nature.
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Congolese plantation workers set a new precedent: they successfully co-opt the concept of the “white cube” gallery space as a means to stop the commercial exploitation of their land by multinationals such as Unilever.
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