Belgian artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, whose latest documentary Soundtrack To a Coup D’Etat is expected to be an Oscar contender, has been named Guest of Honor at the upcoming International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.
The honor recognizes a distinguished career that includes Blue Orchids, and his debut feature film, the 1997 documentary dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. IDFA, which runs from Nov. 14-24, will be highlighting the filmmaker’s “uncompromising approach to challenging narratives and reinterpreting historical events through a critical, contemporary lens,” the festival said in a statement.
“Grimonprez first gained international acclaim with his 1997 film dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, which examined the history of airplane hijackings and the media’s role in shaping public perception,” IDFA noted in a release. “His most recent award-winning film, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, unravels the decolonization of Congo, using jazz as a smokescreen and means of protest in the examination of the international context behind the 1961 murder of Congo’s prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Other films screening will be Double Take (2009), Shadow World (2016), Blue Orchids (2017) and more. With this retrospective, IDFA invites audiences to discover and reflect on Grimonprez’s singular exploration into the development of present-day media, from how world crises are represented to our own relationships to these platforms and technologies.”
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Grimonprez will take part in an extensive discussion of his work, the centerpiece Talk of this year’s IDFA. As part of the honor, he will select 10 documentaries to be shown at IDFA.
In addition to today’s Guest of Honor announcement, IDFA revealed programming details for the festival’s 37th edition, including new curated program Dead Angle, the dedicated Spotlight on Cuba, alongside live cinema section IDFA on Stage and new media program IDFA DocLab.. The final competition titles and full program will be announced on Tuesday, October 15, during the IDFA 2024 press conference — available to stream online at idfa.nl.
Below are details on the program announcements:
Dead Angle: Borders
This edition, IDFA introduces the multi-year curated program Dead Angle. The program presents an ongoing exploration into our blind spots, both past and present—using documentary cinema as a torch to illuminate the dark corners of our awareness. This year’s program delves into the complex symbolism of borders, exploring them not just as physical barriers, but as profound metaphors for identity, community, and the human condition.
Among confirmed titles is The Great Wall by Tadhg O’Sullivan, an essay film that maps the borders around Europe in light of the migration crisis, based on a short story by Franz Kafka. In Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel by Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan, the Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers travel along the 1967 partition lines that divided Palestine, exploring how people evoke the frontiers that separate them from their neighbors. By reflecting on how documentary filmmakers approach these simple yet complex territorial perimeters, the program will invite the audiences and artists to engage in meaningful discussion and nurture critical awareness. The complete list of selected titles will be confirmed on October 15; these are the titles announced so far:
- Would You Have Sex with an Arab?, directed by Yolande Zauberman
- Respite, directed by Harun Farocki
- Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel, directed by Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan
- Black Harvest, directed by Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson
- Infiltrators, directed by Khaled Jarrar
- There Are So Many Things Still to Say, directed by Omar Amiralay
- Jakub, directed by Jana Ševčíková
- The Great Wall, directed by Tadhg O’Sullivan
- The Diary of a Sky, directed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Spotlight on Cuba
In a dedicated program of nineteen films, Spotlight on Cuba will invite audiences and industry to revisit the complex political history of Cuba. With a retrospective of the pioneering Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez, next to a special curation of films made by students of the EICTV (The International Film and TV School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba), the program will explore the paradoxes of our perception of Cuba as both revolutionary utopia and dystopia. The program also offers a glimpse into the ways these students exercise artistic freedom in one of the world’s most distinguished film schools. The nineteen titles that make up the program have been announced:
- Guanabacoa: Crónicas de mi familia, directed by Sara Gómez
- Isla, directed by Marcos Pimentel
- Los viejos heraldos, directed by Luis Alejandro Yero
- Isla del Tesoro, directed by Sara Gómez
- Los niños lobo, directed by Otávio Almeida
- Y… temenos sabor, directed by Sara Gómez
- Si no puedo bailar, esta no es mi revolución, directed by Lillah Halla
- Sobre horas extras y trabajo voluntario, directed by Sara Gómez
- La despedida, directed by Alejandro Alonso Estrella
- La bonita, directed by María del Mar Rosario
- De bateyes, directed by Sara Gómez
- Abecé, directed by Diana Montero
- Una isla para Miguel, directed by Sara Gómez
- Iré a Santiago, directed by Sara Gómez
- El árbol, directed by Roya Eshraghi Safaifard
- El enemigo, directed by Matias Aldemar
- De cierta manera, directed by Sara Gómez
- Indicios, del inscrito, directed by Rafael Ramírez
- Mi aporte, directed by Sara Gómez
IDFA on Stage
With its most collaborative edition to date, the IDFA on Stage selection presents its boundary- breaking and interdisciplinary program of live cinema events. Bridging film, new media, and the performing arts, highlights include two projects presented together with IDFA DocLab—the innovative performance Thanks for Being Here by Belgian theater group Ontroerend Goed, presented together with De Brakke Grond, and live performance Drinking Brecht by New York and Istanbul-based artist Sister Sylvester that puts microbiology into the mix. The full program IDFA on Stage program will be announced in October.
IDFA DocLab
The 18th edition of IDFA’s pioneering new media program, IDFA DocLab, confirms the first titles set to premiere at an immersive documentary art exhibition, this year presented at De Brakke Grond, ARTIS-Planetarium, and the newly added location, Droog. These first announced titles are the works of the four winners of the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant, ranging from augmented reality apps to immersive installations. The full IDFA DocLab program selection will be announced in October.
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