IDFA x De Balie

On October 7, 2023, Israeli filmmaker Anet Even lost her home and friends in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Now, she returns to document what remains there—destroyed homes and the stench of death—and what is happening on the other side of the barrier that has stood there since the 1990s. A genocide is

Six years ago, friends Inza and Kader from Ivory Coast risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean. Kader, an optimistic man of action, now has a residence permit and a job in Italy. Inza, nicknamed Bourgeois, traveled on to France, where he lives undocumented with little prospect of being granted asylum. According to Kader, Inza is

A cry for help reaches filmmaker Rati Tsiteladze one day in 2017. It comes from Adelina, a young trans woman who has been locked up in her parents’ home in a Georgian village for the past eleven years. In Austria, which Adelina chooses as a place of refuge, she is left to fend for herself

Scenes of protests being brutally suppressed and testimonies from people persecuted for political reasons paint a compelling picture of the ruthlessness with which Aleksandr Lukashenko’s dictatorial regime in Belarus suppresses dissent. Belarus has endured daily repression for 30 years under the regime of dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko. In Letters from the Silenced Country, a man says,

For ten years, this coming-of-age documentary follows Gabin, a sensitive teenager growing up in the French countryside. Between the expectations of his hardworking parents and his own dreams, he gradually finds his own path. Gabin doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps. He has no desire to be a butcher; he wants to work

As a professor at Columbia University, virtuoso pianist and incisive critic Edward Said operated at the very heart of the academic world. Yet from his birth in Jerusalem in 1935 to his death in New York in 2003, the Palestinian-American thinker remained a rootless outsider. No one deconstructed the Western gaze on the Middle East

The bond between a father and son is at the heart of this sensitive exploration of a troubled family history. The son, a filmmaker, visits his father in Hong Kong to lift the lid on a personal tragedy. From Taiwan, where he is studying film, Ray Kamhei Chan video-calls his father in Hong Kong. It

During this screening Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon will be followed by No Man’s Air Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon“Migra! Migra! … ICE!” someone cries out in Spanish. Whistles are blown as burly masked men get out of cars and chase a young Latin American man through the streets, manhandle him to the ground and handcuff him.

After his childhood friend Vaguinho commits suicide, Rodolpho decides to devote a novel to his rebellious friend. Vaguinho was a leading figure in the punk movement of the farming community where they grew up, amid plantations drenched in pesticides. The lush green hills surrounding the Brazilian town of Morro Grande look idyllic, but local farmers

Every week, Bobby drives from Vienna to Salzburg and back, chatting with an assortment of ride-share passengers about family, friendship, migration, war, and death. This blend of documentary and road movie paints a portrait of contemporary Europe—and of Bobby. Almost every week, 72-year-old Bobby makes the three-hour trip from his home in Vienna to a

In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, childhood ends abruptly. Zahra and Zalgai, both twelve, are still enjoying their youth for now, with a children’s circus as their playground and refuge. But when they turn fourteen, everything will change. Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, seen through the eyes of two young people. Twelve-year-old Zahra is full of life and energy, but because

Essay film about the non-Western oil-producing states that joined forces in 1960 to form the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The album Rhymes and Songs for OPEC, released to mark the organization’s 20th anniversary, serves as the guiding thread. An Incomplete Calendar by filmmaker, artist, and researcher Sanaz Sohrabi is the final instalment

Decades after the execution of poet and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, oil extraction still ravages Nigeria. His friend and comrade Nnimmo Bassey inspires a new generation of poets to fight repression and environmental destruction caused by oil companies. The execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 sparked protests by human rights organizations around the world. The Nigerian

A captivating account of the power of civil resistance. In May 2021, hundreds of residents of an ordinary neighborhood in Glasgow rise up in protest when immigration officers threaten to remove two of their neighbors. In May 2021, hundreds of residents of a neighborhood in Glasgow rise up in protest when two of their neighbors

Amid the bombardments in Gaza, journalist and new father Osama documents the daily devastation with his camera and smartphone. People try to preserve their resilience and hope as they search the rubble for food and solace. Armed with a press vest, phone, and camera, the journalist and brand-new father Osama documents everyday devastation in Gaza.

Among the snow-covered peaks of southwestern Iran, 13-year-old Samaneh risks being forced into marriage to settle her father’s blood debt. A hunt for seven rare golden-winged partridges may be her last chance at freedom and a future of her own. Against the snowy peaks of the mountains of southwestern Iran, the girl in a turquoise

A filmmaker with Cape Verdean roots films his mother in the home where, after more than 40 years of marriage, she will now live alone. As she sorts through her belongings, painful memories sometimes surface, but also liberating new insights. After more than forty years in a relationship, the filmmaker’s mother, a Cape Verdean woman

Ten years after her acclaimed 2016 documentary 13th, Ava DuVernay views the long historical arc from Jim Crow to Donald Trump through the lens of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Anyone born in the United States is a US citizen and entitled to equal protection under the law—that is one of the promises