Ukraine at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
In 2023, Ukrainian documentary filmmakers were prominently featured within the International Documentary Film Festival and its industry section, IDFA Forum.
Producer's delegation
The Ukrainian Institute, in collaboration with the Netherlands Film Fund, facilitated the participation of five producers in the festival’s industry segments, aiming to establish connections with Dutch counterparts and seek partners for film co-productions. The producer delegation, selected by the festival’s industry section with the involvement of the Ukrainian Institute, included:
- Olha Beskhmelnytsina, TIMESTAMP project
- Illia Gladshtein, Another Man’s Diary project
- Karina Kostyna, Silent Flood project
- Oleksandra Kravchenko, Fixing the War project
- Anna Palenchuk, MEMO’94 project
Presentations at the IDFA Forum
In addition, teams from eight documentary film projects selected by the festival took part in presentations at the IDFA Forum:
- Red Zone, dir. Iryna Tsilyk, prod. Daria Bassel
- Lights, dir. Mila Teshaeva, Markus Lenz
- Ashes Settling In Layers On The Surface, dir. Zoya Laktionova, prod. Valeria Sochivets, Natalia Libet
- Militantropos (part of the trilogy Days to Forget), dir. Maxym Nakonechny, Yelizaveta Smit, Alina Horlova, Semen Mozgovy, prod. Yevheniy Rachkovsky
- In the Air, dir. Oksana Sigaeva, prod. Oksana Sigaeva, Natalia Pogudina
- Flowers of Ukraine, dir. Adelina Borets, prod. Hlib Lukianets
- Displaced (working title), dir. Olha Zhurba, prod. Daria Bassel
- Сompany of Steel, dir. Yulia Gontaruk, prod. Ivanna Khitsinska, Olexandra Bratyshchenko
The project Militantropos received a special distinction as the best project in the final stage of editing (Forum Award for Best Rough Cut Project). The Polish-Palestinian project Son of the Streets (dir. Mohammed Almughanni), produced by Ukrainian producer Hlib Lukianets, emerged as the winner of the IDFA Forum.
It’s worth noting that for the first time in the festival’s history, the Ukrainian film A Picture to Remember (dir. Olha Chernykh) opened the festival. The festival programme also featured films such as 20 Days in Mariupol (dir. Mstyslav Chernov), which received the NPO IDFA Audience Award, We Will Not Fade Away (dir. Alisa Kovalenko), the co-production of Poland-France-Ukraine In the Rearview (dir. Maciek Hamela) and short film Waking Up in Silence (dir. Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi).
About IDFA
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is one of the leading documentary film festivals in the world, held since 1988. Each year, it showcases around 250 films in its programme, and the event is attended by over 3000 industry representatives. This year, IDFA took place from November 8 to 19.