Deadline’s Doc Talk Podcast: Fab Five Filmmakers Share Emotion Of Playing IDFA – World’s Largest Documentary Film Festival
By Matthew Carey
November 21, 2023
IDFA – the largest documentary film festival in the world — has just wrapped its 36th edition, and it was a memorable one by every definition. Two hundred and fifty films screened in Amsterdam, representing work from across the globe –the Middle East to Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Europe.
In a special edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we report on the festival from Amsterdam, speaking on the ground with five notable filmmakers, including Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams, who came to IDFA for the European premiere of his new Netflix documentary Stamped From the Beginning, an examination of how racist ideas have permeated American culture.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nicole Newnham tells us how European audiences reacted to her award-winning documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite, about the titular American sex researcher who became a sensation after the publication of her book The Hite Report in the 1970s, and then was virtually driven into exile by a harsh backlash to her findings.
Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly won IDFA’s International Competition prize for Best Director for his world premiere Life Is Beautiful. He joins Doc Talk for a discussion of his film, which revolves around his experience becoming stranded in Norway in 2014 after the border to Gaza, where he lives, was closed during a flareup of hostilities between Hamas and Israel.
Polish filmmaker Maciek Hamela, whose documentary In the Rearview just earned an IDA nomination for Best Documentary Feature, explains how and why he jumped into action after Russia invaded Ukraine, and he began transporting desperate Ukrainians to safety across the Polish border. His film is composed almost entirely of footage shot inside his minivan as young, old and in between recount fleeing for their lives, and reflect on what they left behind.
Spanish filmmaker Juan Palacios tells us about making his world premiere As the Tide Comes In, which played in International Competition. He traveled to a remote island off the coast of Denmark, embedding in mud – literally – to tell the story of life in such a desolate place for a farmer in search of love, and maybe a way out.
A fab five of IDFA filmmakers on the latest edition of Doc Talk, our podcast hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley and Deadline’s Documentary Editor, Matt Carey. Doc Talk is produced by Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios, and presented with support from National Geographic Documentary Films.
Listen to the episode below.
