International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced its full list of selected Forum projects, with the gathering set to unspool in the Dutch capital from 8-19 November. On this occasion, its co-production and co-financing market has expanded to take in a total of 64 projects, including seven helmed by Ukrainian filmmakers.

As usual, the 2023 Forum, running from 12-15 November, will welcome creative teams, industry reps and observers to attend the Producers Connection, Forum Pitch, DocLab Forum and Rough Cut Presentations.

This year, the Rough Cut Presentations will take place over the course of two days (12-13 November), whilst the Forum Pitches will unfold from 13-14 November, and the Producers Connection event on 13 November.

Zooming in on the projects, this year’s Forum Pitch presents 20 titles from notable filmmakers, such as Aboozar Amini’s Kabul, Year Zero (Netherlands/Afghanistan), Asmae El Moudir’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me (Morocco) and Michael Madsen’s Architecture as Invention (Denmark/Sweden). Besides this, a contingent of emerging directors and producers will also pitch their projects. Among them are Daniel Nils Roberts’ Final Cut for Real-produced EatenFish (Norway), which traces the future outlook for a cartoonist who has fled his country, and Zoya Laktionova’s debut feature, Ashes Settling in Layers on the Surface (Ukraine), which uses “diaries and photographs to tell the stories of her own and other Ukrainian families whose homes have been destroyed by Russia’s full-scale invasion”.

Meanwhile, 13 projects at early stages have been selected for the Producers Connection, the Forum’s section for fostering international co-productions. Some of the selected titles include Rati Oneli’s El Dorado (Georgia), telling a story of seeking riches in ancient caves in the face of environmental devastation, and Arya Amber Lalloo’s A Girl and a Gun (South Africa), which surveys personal and colonial archives while striving for liberation from the image.

Next, the Rough Cut Presentations will host 11 projects, including five Ukrainian ones (four of which have previously received support from the IDFA Bertha Fund). Highlights in this strand are Flowers of Ukraine by Adelina Borets (Poland/Ukraine), which centres on “one woman’s battle to protect her lush green home from the full-scale invasion of Ukraine”, and To Use a Mountain by Casey Carter (USA), which tells “rural American stories of environmental ruin and eco-political activism in six candidate sites for nuclear dumping grounds”.

Finally, the IDFA DocLab Forum will introduce 20 new-media projects at all stages of development and production. “The selection includes experimental and playful projects tackling the subject of algorithms, gestures of love and digital doubles. Next to a wide range of creative teams and subjects, the selection presents formats including VR, AR, games, mixed media, installations and audio projects,” explains the festival’s official press release. Some of the standouts in this section are Nicolas Blies and Stéphane Hueber-Blies’ Here Lies My Heart (Luxembourg), Francisca Silva’s Knowing Your Nature (Chile), Baff Akoto’s Collateral Echoes (UK) and Laura A Dima’s Future Affair (Netherlands).

“Next to presenting this year’s outstanding slate of projects, we are excited to be expanding our capacity to showcase and adapt to the needs of filmmakers. We received a record number of Rough Cut submissions this year, over a third more than in previous years, which we took as a clear sign that filmmakers and producers are in need of support in their process. That is why this edition of Forum has extended its Rough Cut Presentations to show crucial projects from Ukraine that need to be seen and which deserve the widest possible audience,” commented Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, head of IDFA Industry.

Here is the list of the 64 Forum projects:

Forum Pitch

All Rivers Spill Their Secrets (to the Sea) - Jeanie Finlay
Producers: I Am Charlie Ltd (UK), Glimmer Films Ltd (UK)

The Amazing Tale of the Peace River Meteorite – Yoav Shamir
Producers: Yoav Shamir Films (Israel), Intuitive Pictures Inc (Canada)

Architecture as Invention - Michael Madsen
Producers: Paloma Productions (Denmark), Auto Images (Sweden), Fruitmarket (Germany)

Ashes Settling in Layers on the Surface - Zoya Laktionova
Producers: 2Brave Productions (Ukraine), Cinéphage Productions (France), Petra Pan Films (Slovenia)

Casting My Mom - Rongfei Guo
Producer: CKF Pictures (China)

The Death of Death – Justin Pemberton
Producers: The Docufactory (New Zealand), Munchkin Films Ltd (New Zealand)

Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me - Asmae El Moudir
Producer: InsightFILMS (Morocco)

EatenFish – Daniel Nils Roberts
Producer: Final Cut For Real Norway (Norway)

Fire, Water, Earth, Air – Phie Ambo, Ewa Cederstam, Rógvi Rasmusen, Janne Lindgren
Producer: Tambo Film (Denmark)

A Hole in the Wall – Arjun Talwar
Producers: UNI-SOLO Studio (Poland), Inselfilm Produktion (Germany)

Issa’s House – Tomer Heymann
Producers: Heymann Brothers Films (Israel), Les films du Poisson (France), Ahmad Amro (Palestine)

Kabul, Year Zero – Aboozar Amini
Producers: Silk Road Film Salon (Netherlands), Chromosom (Germany), Seesaw Pictures (South Korea)

Lights – Mila Teshaieva, Markus Lenz
Producer: Wildfilms (Germany)

The Long Cuban Night – Sergio Fernández Borrás
Producer: Casatarantula (Colombia)

Our Seeds – Erhan Arik
Producer: Horovel Films (Turkey)

The Photographer – Francisco Bello
Producers: What's Up Films (France), Katherine Harper (USA)

La Pietà - Pepe Andreu, Rafa Molés
Producers: SUICAfilms (Spain), Axfilms ehf (Iceland), Studio Nominum (Lithuania)

Shadows of the Forest - Akash Basumatari, Shrutiman Deori
Producer: Raintree Films (India)

Son of the Street – Mohammed Almughanni
Producers: Gaza Films (Palestine), Gogol Foundation (Poland)

Undisclosed project
Producer: Antipode Films (Norway)

Producers Connection

Babchenko Time – Denis Sneguirev
Producers: Arturo Mio (France), Miyu Productions (France)

Before the Fire - Angel Giovanni Hoyos
Producers: Septima Films (Colombia), Gusano Films (Spain)

Compadre Fannie – Ivan Mora Manzano
Producer: La República Invisible (Ecuador)

El Dorado – Rati Oneli
Producer: Office of Film Architecture (Georgia)

A Girl and a Gun - Arya Amber Lalloo
Producer: Opia Films (South Africa)

Hope against Hope – Mina Keshavarz
Producers: MinDoc Film Production (Iran), Ici et Là Productions (France)

Kongo Is Burning – Arnold Aganze
Producer: Stone Age Pictures (DR Congo)

Manifested Belonging – Darragh Amelia, Jesse Gerard Mpango
Producers: Ajabu Ajabu (Tanzania), Gertrude Malizana (Canada), Cece Mlay (Canada)

Mrs. Escobar – Nicolas Entel
Producers: Red Creek (USA), Ventana-Film GmbH (Germany), Andrea Cipelli (Argentina)

Queens Ballroom – Siyi Chen, Hansen Lin
Producer: Queens Disco Production (USA), Hansen Lin (USA)

Red Zone – Iryna Tsilyk
Producers: Moon Man (Ukraine), a_BAHN (Luxembourg)

Untitled Mary Kathryn Nagle project – Sky Hopinka
Producers: Louverture Films (USA), The New Yorker Studios (USA)

Velvet Generation – Ivana Hucikova
Producers: Nutprodukcia (Slovakia), Super Film (Czech Republic)

Rough Cut Presentations

Coexistence, My Ass! – Amber Fares
Producers: My Treez Production (USA), Rachel Leah Jones (USA)

Company of Steel – Yuliia Hontaruk
Producers: Babylon’13 (Ukraine), VFS Films (Latvia), Silverart (Slovakia)

Displaced – Olha Zhurba
Producers: Moon Man (Ukraine), Final Cut for Real (Denmark), We Have a Plan (Sweden)

Flowers of Ukraine – Adelina Borets
Producers: Gogol Film (Poland), Natalia Grzegorzek (Poland)

Hakuchu Munayta – Augusto Zegarra
Producer: Estudio Alaska 88 (Peru)

Land of Sar - Petra Seliškar
Producers: Petra Pan Films (Slovenia), Cinéphage Productions (France), PPFP MACEDONIA (North Macedonia)

Militantropos – Maksym Nakonechnyi, Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozgovyi
Producers: Tabor (Ukraine), Mischief Films (Austria), Les Valseurs (France)

Pax Neerlandica – Daan Veldhuizen
Producer: Witfilm (Netherlands)

There Was, There Was Not – Emily Mkrtichian
Producers: Emily Mkrtichian (Armenia), Brock Williams (USA)

To Use a Mountain – Casey Carter
Producer: Colleen Cassingham (USA)

Up in the Air – Oksana Syhareva
Producers: Hypermarket Film (Czech Republic), FILM KOLEKTIV (Ukraine), Baltic Productions (Lithuania)

DocLab Forum

275 Million Births and Deaths – Azam Masoumzadeh
Producer: Cassette for Timescapes (Belgium)

A Body to Live In – Angelo Madsen Minax
Producer: Lyle Ravi Kash (USA)

The Algorithm – Lujain Ibrahim
Producer: Alia ElKattan (Egypt/Jordan)

Ancestors – Hanna M Haaslahti
Producers: High Road Stories (Germany), Art & Essai (Canada), Poike Productio (Finland)

Here Lies My Heart – Nicolas Blies, Stéphane Hueber-Blies
Producers: a_BAHN (Luxembourg), Lucid Realities (France), PHI Studio (Canada)

Celestial Twins - El Bardo Gaming VR Project - Niles Atallah
Producers: Quijote Films (Chile), El Espino Films (Chile)

Collateral Echoes – Baff Akoto
Producer: Recurring Dreams (UK)

Drift - Nienke Huitenga, Hay Kranen, Lieven Heeremans
Producer: Studio ZZZAP (Netherlands)

Eddie and I – Maya Shekel
Producer: Moosh Studio (Israel)

Future Affair – Laura A Dima
Producers: Laura A Dima (Netherlands), University of Technology Hamburg (Germany)

Geopoetics – Hannah Papacek Harper
Producer: Rétroviseur Productions (France)

Image Frequency Modulation – Ethel-Ruth Tawe
Producers: Anthony Dike (Nigeria), Elisha Tawe (Nigeria)

Kene Connections – Rodolfo Arrascue
Producer: Casaluz Films (Peru)

Knowing Your Nature – Francisca Silva
Producers: Galgo Storytelling (Chile), Atlas V (France)

Panel Program – Botond Tabai, Peter Becz
Producer: Random Error Studio (Hungary)

Paradise Lost – Yolanda Markopoulou
Producers: Polyplanity Production (Greece), Graal SA (Greece), The Piranesi Experience (Italy)

Radio Luxembourg – The Station that Changed the World – Dominique Santana
Producers: Samsa Film (Luxembourg), Centre National de l'Audiovisuel (Luxembourg), C2DH - University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Helios Design Labs (Canada)

Shall We Stick Together AR – imuiui (Yebin Lee)
Producer: Giioii (South Korea)

Turbulence – Ben Joseph Andrews, Emma Roberts
Producers: Ben Joseph Andrews (Australia), Emma Roberts (Australia)

Underground Shelter – Sjors Swierstra
Producers: Scopic (Netherlands), Ivanna Khitsinska (Ukraine)