IDFA Industry Chief: 'Musk' and 'NAZA' Prove Docs Are 'Timely' Again

By Elena Vasquez

Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen, head of industry at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) for almost 20 years, says audiences now demand "timely" documentaries — films that offer "something they feel they have to know." Her comments come as this year's IDFA Forum runs in Amsterdam from Nov. 15 to 18.

Van Nieuwenhuyzen has selected thousands of projects for the Forum, the festival's co-production and co-financing market. She points to the fall festival season as proof of a shift. Alex Gibney's "Musk," Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor's "NAZA" and Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder's "You Can See Everything" dominated the circuit and drew big-screen crowds.

What is driving the documentary boom?

Van Nieuwenhuyzen selected this year's Forum entries before that boom materialized, but she says she sensed momentum already. "'Musk' is such a brilliant example of everything happening in the U.S. with these obscene amounts of money and power," she tells Variety. "I love that people are picking up on it and want to see these kinds of films because it speaks to them, it's timely, it's urgent, and it offers them something they feel they have to know and understand."

She frames the success of these titles as confirmation of the Forum's long-standing curatorial guidelines: films that address burning, often sensitive issues through sharp cinematic vision. She cites "NAZA" as a case in point — a film she calls an "extremely uncomfortable watch" that still brings people to cinemas. "That's what we are looking for, artistic filmmaking showing a curiosity of the filmmakers and daring to bring something to the world that people didn't know yet," she says.

One Forum entry stands out for her: Roxy Rezvany's "Being North Korean." The project deals with womanhood in a country facing a human rights crisis. "It's hybrid, conceptual; it's colorful," she says. "It's a lot of things you don't expect with this content." Her takeaway for selection is blunt: "the unexpected, the things we didn't think about that are out of the box, sometimes very uncomfortable." In her view, documentaries do great work precisely by pushing viewers beyond their comfort zones.

How is the IDFA Forum changing this year?

The Forum has split its project presentations into two categories. Larger-audience pitches will run in the Forum Pitches program; Roundtable Presentations will host smaller groups with longer, more in-depth feedback sessions.

The change follows feedback from filmmakers, producers, funders and broadcasters after last year's edition. "People in the industry, filmmakers, producers, funders, the people in the room, feel that the forum should be an agora," van Nieuwenhuyzen says. "It should be a place for open debate and exploration. In moments where the documentary world is — I don't like to use the word crisis, but there are, of course, obvious difficulties in financing and finding audiences — we need each other."

The new roundtable format is "more time-consuming" because each project gets more space, and van Nieuwenhuyzen is "very curious to hear the responses." The slate is not limited to emerging directors. "A lot of established filmmakers are presenting in roundtables. It's not only early-stage projects," she notes, describing a mix of upcoming filmmakers, development-phase works and long-gestating projects that benefit from in-depth conversations about partnerships and shaping the final film.

What about AI and archival ethics?

AI remains at the forefront of IDFA's talks program, with panels on rights and the ethics of AI usage. One panel is titled "Is AI stealing my work?" Van Nieuwenhuyzen says the idea came from filmmakers who "learned their documentaries were used for AI learning tools and never gave permission."

"It has to do with the fact that we do not have legal frameworks," she adds. "All these contracts didn't take AI into account, so that is one of the issues. People should be informed." Filmmakers, she argues, must be able to choose: "Either they sell it and get money out of it, or they refuse because they don't want that to happen."

The archival question is especially charged, with high-profile titles such as Ava DuVernay's "14th" facing scrutiny for using AI in archival work. Van Nieuwenhuyzen sees both utility and risk. "Archival material is often in a bad shape, and AI as a tool can fill in the missing materials," she says. "But, of course, it is an algorithm. You can totally make something up that was not actually in the original frames, so there is very much an ethical question here."

She extends the warning to preservation itself. "If you use AI to create images, these images will land in our archives and in 10 years no one will know it is AI," she says. "How do we make sure that what we create today is also usable in 10, 15 years?" Her answer — "Time will tell" — sets the agenda for the debates that begin Nov. 15.