Q&A: 5 Houses
Twenty years after he left his hometown in the south of Brazil, a filmmaker returns. His portraits of five local people reawaken painful memories. A bitter yet tender look at the past.
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Watch filmmaker Q&As on demand
As a special bonus for our guests, we're making available approximately a hundred filmmaker Q&As to watch on demand. These short, moderated conversations took place with filmmakers right after their screenings. All content is available online and on demand until December 6. Log in to MyIDFA to access the videos. Stay tuned as more Q&As get added to this page.
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Q&A: Acasă, My Home
A filmic portrait of a large Romanian family going though turbulent times. After 20 years of living in nature near Bucharest, they must return to modern, urban society—and all its problems.
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Q&A: Anny
For sixteen years Czech film veteran Helena Třeštíková followed Anny, who at the age of 46 took up sex work alongside her job as a restroom attendant. Always a smile, always a cigarette. In just one hour, we watch her life slip by.
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Q&A: The Art of Living in Danger
Iranian women have lived in fear for decades, with no legal protection against domestic violence. Filmmaker Mina Keshavarz follows a group of activists fighting for change, intertwined with the story of her own family.
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Q&A: Bitter Love
An extraordinarily intimate, observational portrait of passengers on a river cruise—full of drama, poetry, vulnerability, humor, and melancholy music. As Russian landscapes peacefully glide by, both young and old struggle with love.
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Q&A: Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
In a dark neighborhood bar on the outskirts of Las Vegas, the regulars drop by one final time to seek refuge in alcohol and in each other. This cinéma vérité-style ode to the American dive bar evokes unexpected feelings of nostalgia.
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Q&A: Bulletproof
A provocative look at the industry surrounding U.S. school shootings. Restrained images of bullet-proof school furniture, shooting courses, and evacuation drills provide space to reflect on responses to gun violence in the United States.
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Q&A: Burnt. Land of Fire
All the senses are engaged in this meticulously composed landscape film about the depopulation of the southern Italian countryside. The deafening chirping of crickets fills the otherwise deserted, barren fields. The emptiness is almost palpable.
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Q&A: To Calm the Pig Inside
Filipino filmmaker Joanna Vasquez Arong looks back at the devastation that Typhoon Haiyan wreaked in her country. In just 19 minutes she tells a remarkably sensitive, personal and rich story.
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Q&A: Cause of Death
A timeless and universal phenomenon: violence against women. This rhythmic montage of women’s bodies from archive footage and animation accompanied by a spoken lament produces an experience that is almost hypnotic.
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Q&A: Corporate Accountability
A haunting minimalist account of how major national and international companies were actively involved in serious human rights violations under the military dictatorship of Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
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Q&A: Dope Is Death - IDFA Meets Patta
Combining controversial political activism with the struggle for civil rights in 1970s America, Mutulu Shakur stood up for people living in poverty in New York’s South Bronx and was at the forefront of acupuncture treatment for drug addiction.
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Q&A: The Earth Is Blue as an Orange
With bombs falling all around their home in Ukraine, Anna and her four children manage to keep the chaos of war at bay by making a film about their experiences.
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Q&A: Everything Will Not Be Fine
The Chernobyl disaster caused Adrian’s near blindness in one eye. To give his life meaning, he makes a film about other people affected by this event. Falling in love with one of them changes everything, in this moving, candid journey of discovery.
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Q&A: The Filmmaker's House
In protest against sensationalism in the documentary industry, Marc Isaacs makes a film in his own home. Blending fact and fiction, he explores the theme of hospitality and indirectly asks questions about authorship.
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Q&A: The First Woman
After six years in a psychiatric institution, Eva will soon move on to assisted living, the next step to a “normal” life. And then she has another dream: to reunite with the son she hasn’t been in contact with for ten years.
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Q&A: The Foundation Pit
This hard-hitting, found-footage film shows Russian citizens voicing their concerns and rage about Putin’s rule. Combined in this way, the clips constitute a powerful protest against a government that appears to have forgotten about its citizens.
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Q&A: The Game
Soccer refereeing is a demanding sport: you’ve got to run for 90 minutes, always be alert, and make tough decisions in a heaving stadium. A roller coaster ride packed with drama and excitement, filmed from the perspective of referee Fedayi San.
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Q&A: Geographies of Freedom
A compilation of archival footage and images of the current landscape on Curaçao lays bare the painful historical relationship between the oil refineries of Dutch multinational Shell and the inhabitants of the Netherlands Antilles.
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Q&A: Green Bank Pastoral
In sleepy Green Bank there’s a huge radio telescope, which means Wi-Fi is officially prohibited. The offline village attracts a colorful procession of electro-hypersensitive people who hope to find the Wi-Fi-free paradise they have been searching for.
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Q&A: Heaven Beneath My Feet
Heartbreaking stories from Lebanon, where divorced mothers have to fight for years just to see their children. Filmmaker Sandra Madi follows three women in their struggle for justice—and for motherhood.
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Q&A: Hello Grandma
The intimate record of a family’s life in lockdown. Filmmaker Kamila Chojnacka lives with her toddler and husband in their small home. News reports and telephone conversations with her grandmother form fragile connections to the outside world.
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Q&A: Hey! Teachers!
The idealistic approach of two young teachers is put to the test in a provincialRussian town. Beneath their students’ typical adolescent behavior, there is also deep-rooted conservatism. Russia as we rarely see it.
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Q&A: Here We Move, Here We Groove
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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Q&A: Hotel Astoria
Memories of the renowned Hotel Astoria in Leipzig in the days of the GDR are brought to life in a mix of archive footage and animation. Although the Stasi were always watching, former staff and guests also remember this place with nostalgia.
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Q&A: Il mio corpo
Fact and fiction blur in this sensitive film about a young scrap metal collector and an African boat refugee living in Sicily. Their lives turn out to be more similar than they might have imagined.
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Q&A: A Little Bit of Paradise
Beautiful details of the everyday life of a Silesian family in a remote corner of Poland. Living on the outskirts of the city, their world is inextricably linked with the nature around them.
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Q&A: Long Live Love
Rosemarie, age 15, already survived cancer twice. Now she’s recovered and wants to get on with life—school, friends, love, parties. Her young mother hasn’t yet come to terms with her fear of losing her child. A search to establish a new relationship.
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Q&A: Lost Kids on the Beach
The director embarks on a personal quest in Romania to portray the generation born shortly after the fall of the country’s dictator Ceausescu—and the beginning of a new, post-communist era.
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Q&A: Lost on Arrival
After retiring, a man wants to return to the Caribbean island where he lived during his working life. However, advancing dementia ruins his idyllic plans. He moves there but never really arrives.
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Q&A: Love, It Was Not
A reconstruction of the extraordinary history of a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz and the SS officer who fell in love with her. Interviews, diary excerpts, and archive footage tell the story from multiple perspectives.
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The suicide bombing on the Brussels subway on March 22, 2016 leaves Sabine in a coma for three months. When she wakes up, there is a black hole in her memory. Her search for explanations is beautifully depicted in this collage of images and sound.
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Q&A: Mission: Hebron
A revealing account by young Israeli ex-soldiers of their mission in Hebron. Their rare, candid testimonies paint a shocking picture of the oppression of Palestinian civilians, humiliation, and needless violence. How do they feel about it now?
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Q&A: Mutts
Atmospheric shots accompanied by spot-on sound design capture the daily life of hundreds of stray dogs in a Moroccan shelter. With resignation they unknowingly wait to be adopted.
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Q&A: Nenad
As an emigrant, Mladen Bundalo still feels drawn to his native country, no matter how much Bosnia and Herzegovina has changed. As he follows the life of Nenad, who is also about to emigrate, he explains his dilemmas with poetic precision.
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Q&A: Please Hold the Line
A beautifully filmed allegory about communication and connection, told from the perspective of telecom engineers and their customers. Modern means of communication offer a window on the world, but also reveal what people are missing.
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Q&A: Purple Sea
A boat sinks off the coast of Lesbos with Syrian artist Amel Alzakout onboard. She shoots dizzying footage from the water: dangling legs and almost nothing to cling onto. An utterly gripping experience.
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Q&A: O arrais do mar
A poetic portrait of nighttime activities on the Portuguese coast. A fishing net is hauled in, while further along people search out sexual encounters. The images are dark, with brief flashes of activity—like a nocturnal radiography of a territory.
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Q&A: Once Upon a Time in Venezuela
A Venezuelan fishing community on Lake Maracaibo struggles with the decline brought about by oil pollution, political division, and neglect—a situation that reflects the deplorable state of the country as a whole.
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Q&A: Option Zero
A lesser known Cuban escape route to the United States runs via the rainforests of Guyana and Colombia to Central America. This poignant portrait follows a group of Cubans for whom living in their native country is no longer an option.
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Q&A: Ouvertures
In the streets of Port-au-Prince, a group of young Haitian actors pay tribute to the 18th-century revolutionary Toussaint Louverture. They reflect on theatrical texts with themes such as colonialism, racism, and identity.
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Q&A: The Perfect Picture
Filmmaker Hala El Kouch creates a therapy session setting to confront her parents about a traumatic event. Photos of a happy family accompany a conversation that takes an unexpected turn. Has permanent damage been done to the perfect picture?
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Q&A: The Postcard
Finding an old picture postcard of a mountain village marks the start of an existential journey for director Asmae El Moudir. She explores life in Zawia, Morocco, where her mother was born.
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Q&A: Rebel Objects
A personal film in which filmmaker Carolina Arias Ortiz returns to Costa Rica, the land of her youth. Research into the mysterious ancient stone spheres found here offer her a new perspective on her cultural and personal identity, and on death.
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Q&A: Rumba Rules
Enjoyably rough-edged glimpse into the music scene of Kinshasa, where dancers and singers alike work up a sweat so every show’s a blast. Here, music is a connecting force generated by creativity and raw energy.
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Q&A: Same/Different/Both/Neither
During lockdown, two girlfriends exchange video letters between São Paulo and Los Angeles. They experiment with image, text, and sound, sharing poetic inspirations and everyday realities.
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Q&A: Stray
The stray dogs Zeytin, Nazar and Kartal the puppy trot calmly from one favorite place to another in Istanbul. The camera follows them at snout level as they join forces with other urban outcasts.
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Q&A: Their Algeria
After 62 years of marriage, Aïcha and Mabrouk decide to separate. Their granddaughter Lina is stunned. In this movie she explores her family history to try to understand her grandparents better. What is it like to live in France as an Algerian?
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Q&A: Things We Dare Not Do
The village of El Roblito on a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean seems to be mainly inhabited by children. We see the machismo of the adult world only in passing in this subtle yet compelling coming-of-age story filtered through children’s eyes.
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Q&A: This Rain Will Never Stop
While navigating the human toll of armed conflict, war refugee and Red Cross volunteer Andriy tries to secure a sustainable future. A striking cinematographic account of the devastating impact of war.
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Q&A: Ugoku Tokai - Moving City
A young man’s essayistic exploration of Tokyo’s varied rhythms. Guided by his musings and a map, we search the downtown streets, the suburbs, and the surrounding countryside for answers to life’s questions.
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Q&A: Ultimina
More than 80 years after her birth in Tuscany farming country, Ultimina looks back on a tough life in which men have always been the boss. But that hasn’t quelled her energy and rebellious nature one bit.
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Q&A: Unforgivable
Geovanny became a gang member and a murderer when he was 12. In prison, he joined an evangelical church that lavished God’s forgiveness on him. However, one sin is unforgivable for both the gang and the church: Geovanny is gay.
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Q&A: Vivos
Six dead, 43 missing, no convictions: that’s the final tally of the 2014 attack on a group of buses in Mexico packed with students. Ai Weiwei’s record of the broken lives of the families they left behind is an indictment of a corrupt narco-state.
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Q&A: A Way Home
Filmmaker Karima Saïdi’s mother has Alzheimer’s. Now, they turn their thoughts back in time together, for one last time. A poetic portrait of a complex mother-daughter relationship, renewed acquaintance, and a loving farewell.
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Q&A: Welcome to Chechnya
Russian activists take unimaginable risks to smuggle persecuted LGBTQ+ people out of Chechnya. In this chilling documentary thriller, David France films the most dangerous moments of their escapes.
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Q&A: Ziyara
A personal pilgrimage through Morocco, once home to 300,000 Jews. Long after their departure, their traces can still be seen in Jewish shrines, synagogues, neighborhoods, and cemeteries, which today are lovingly maintained by the locals.
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