IDFA Chief Says $80M 'You Can See Everything' Proves Docs Still Belong in Cinemas

A documentary about Elizabeth Holmes has passed $80 million at the U.S. box office, and IDFA's artistic director thinks that number should change how the industry thinks. "What we are seeing happen at the box office in the U.S. is a buzz," Isabel Arrate Fernandez told Deadline ahead of this year's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, which opens on a Friday the 13th.

The film in question is Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder's "You Can See Everything," now A24's third-biggest domestic release. It arrives in Amsterdam alongside Alex Gibney's "Musk" and, in the broader fall conversation, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor's "NAZA." Together, Fernandez says, they are rewriting the rules documentary distributors have long treated as fixed.

"These films break every pattern that there has been, every framework people were holding onto," she said. "For independent documentary to thrive and continue developing, it's necessary to think outside of that fixed framework and a formatted way of releasing a documentary."

What does the box-office buzz actually change?

Fernandez's argument is partly about running time, partly about audience. "You Can See Everything" runs just under three hours; "Musk" passes the four-hour mark. Yet both are pulling people into cinemas, which contradicts the old assumption that long-form docs belong on streaming platforms.

She also points to a new entry point: Nathan Fielder's comedy fanbase. "There is also a new group of audiences instigated to go to the cinema and watch ['You Can See Everything'] because of Nathan Fielder," she said. "That's already a new opening that is very interesting there. What else would this audience see?"

She's careful with the caveat, though. Holmes and Musk are "exceptions" — U.S. productions with "different budgets, different budgets for publicity and marketing behind it." Still, she said, "it does show that documentaries in the cinema can thrive."

The timing matters for awards season. IDFA has become the key European stop for documentaries chasing Oscar nominations, with studios, streamers and broadcasters hosting receptions for their titles. Whether "You Can See Everything" becomes the first documentary nominated for best picture adds weight to this year's edition.

Fernandez acknowledged that "budgets play a huge role in campaigning," but said independent films with modest publicity budgets are breaking into what she called a once impenetrable bubble. She named "A Fox Under a Pink Moon," "Rehearsals for a Revolution," "Closure" and "Traces" as examples.

"They are adding something that maybe wasn't very visible in this sphere and showing how broad this era of documentary cinema is," she said. "What you want is the pollination between all these different clusters because that's how we move on."

How is IDFA handling AI?

AI is the festival's other big conversation, sharpened by high-profile admissions from the makers of "Musk" and Ava DuVernay's "14th" that they used the technology. IDFA is moving past generalized panels into specifics: how rights holders engage with AI and the political implications of its use in documentary films.

For the first time, the festival has asked every filmmaker in its program whether they used AI, and how. "It's time to start discussing the ethics and how we want to use this," Fernandez said. "It's an ongoing conversation where we don't have the answers. We're learning a lot, and that is key. It's about developing a standard practice, and I think we get there through the community having these conversations and hearing from filmmakers on how they are dealing with it."

What happened with Israel accreditation?

Last year, IDFA denied accreditation to Israeli industry figures from major institutions including the DocAviv Festival, the CoPro market and public broadcaster Kan. Fernandez said then that "organizations from Israel that receive government support were not granted accreditation, though this decision will be reviewed next year."

The festival has now updated its principles and guidelines and evaluates films and guests case by case. "We continue learning. This year we will probably learn more and implement it next year," she said.

"There is never the pretension of holding the truth and knowing exactly how to do it," she continued. "The basis remains that we don't want IDFA to be a platform for governments that are accused or are guilty of violating human rights."

The case-by-case process runs through a selection committee and advisors who ask a set of questions, in her words: "Where is this coming from? What is the relation with the government? Is this an independent production? If it has funding from a certain government, what does that mean? Will we then platform that government?" The same approach governs accreditation, guided by what she called "solidarity, artistic freedom, pluralism."

Officially, no films from Israel appear in this year's program — but only because no filmmaker listed Israel as a country of production. "We do not decide what country is listed as a production country," Fernandez said. "Nationality has never been an issue for us."

The festival is screening two films made in Israel but listed under other countries: Avi Mograbi's "Wild Asparagus" and Anat Even's "Collapse." Fernandez said the choices behind those listings can be political or pragmatic.

"If you look at 'Collapse,' the film starts with a big sign [that says] the film was not funded by any Israeli institutions or money," she said. "That's [Even's] choice. That's a statement she wants to make. It can be a political statement, but it can also be a pragmatic choice because of backlash. Honestly, it's sad, because what we are trying to do with documentary and [what is] at the heart of documentary is telling all these stories and showing those nuances, the complexities."

She saved her sharpest criticism for the public debate around the festival's choices, which she says has flattened into black-and-white judgment. "It's assumptions being put on one thing, one country not being there, and drawing conclusions based on that," she said. "I think that blurs the conversation. That's not a real conversation and doesn't represent what we do in the documentary industry."

How this year's editions of both experiments — the AI disclosure question and the revised Israel guidelines — land in Amsterdam will likely shape what other documentary festivals copy next season.