International Documentary Festival Amsterdam has revealed the 47 projects selected for IDFA Forum 2026, the festival’s prestigious co-production and co-financing market.

The final lineup, culled from almost 900 submissions, “brings together projects in development, production, and near completion, showcased across the Forum Pitches, Roundtable Presentations, Rough Cut Presentations, and IDFA DocLab Forum (new media),” IDFA notes.

Scroll for the full lineup of projects. IDFA Forum runs November 15-18, while the festival itself unfolds from Nov. 12-22.

Some prominent filmmakers will be presenting projects in this year’s Forum: Wang Bing (Jiabiangou); Vitaly Mansky (Odesa.Mama); Rachel Leah Jones (Podium (You Have Three Minutes)); Liang Zhao (Ship of Fools), and Paraguayan director Juanjo Pereira with Examination, his follow up to the highly regarded Under the Flags, the Sun (2025).

Along with Paraguay, projects hail from around the world including Tunisia, Namibia, Myanmar, India, Kyrgyzstan, China, Taiwan, Palestine, the U.S., and Canada among others, “reflecting a broad range of geographies, production contexts, and perspectives,” IDFA observes. “Europe maintains a strong presence in the lineup, comprising major documentary markets (France) and smaller producing nations (Greece, Hungary). Gender balance has been achieved across all the formats, with a commitment to wider diversity beyond parity alone.”

Recognizing how the documentary market has become “increasingly fragmented and harder to navigate,” IDFA is modifying the setup of the Forum “to help projects communicate more clearly the support they need and to foster their meaningful engagement with funders, broadcasters, producers, and other collaborators.”

Under the revised structure, selected projects will be showcased either to a larger audience at the Forum Pitches or in the more intimate setting of the Roundtable Presentations, allowing for more in-depth conversations. “Both formats offer access to the Forum’s one-on-one meetings with industry professionals. Co-production and producer-to-producer meetings also remain central to Forum, with producers now invited to meet with selected projects in search of co-production partners.”

Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, Head of IDFA Industry, said in a statement, “Despite the challenges of the market, both in terms of finance and distribution, we strongly believe that IDFA Forum should provide space for filmmakers who approach their craft with courage and curiosity. We champion works that surprise, reveal, and embrace complexity, and we hope to see all of these projects find audiences, whether on screens, big or small, via headsets, or in immersive installations.”

Forum Pitch and Roundtable Presentations

Twenty-nine projects have been selected for the Forum Pitches and Roundtable Presentations. Mehran Tamadon’s One Step Closer grapples with the consequences of polarization in a French rural community, while Andrew H. Brown’s Wild Goose Days lenses the Indigenous KYUK radio station in Alaska, threatened by government policies. War takes center stage in Roman Bondarchuk and Vadym Ilkov’s mosaic-style Recovery, which reframes Ukraine’s reconstruction as resistance.

Archival filmmaking is present in the selection, with Juanjo Pereira’s Examination, which draws on declassified materials and their reinterpretations to reveal power systems taming a land and jaguars. Meanwhile, Christina D. Bartson’s The Contract of the Century reckons with the legacies of colonialism, zeroing in on the energy megaproject, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

Rough Cut Presentations

Six projects have been selected for this year’s Rough Cut Presentations. Featuring 20-minute excerpts, the presentations offer the buyers, festival representatives, and funders attending both IDFA Forum and Docs for Sale an early look at projects nearing completion. Vikram Singh’s Camels of the Sea offers a distinct take on climate change and endangered ways of living as illegal salt pans threaten India’s rare swimming camels. Facts join fantasy in Josefina Buschmann Mardones’ Artificial Clouds, an AI’s absorbing travelogue through Chile, tracing its ecological footprint. Nikos Pilos and Arsinoi Pilou’s Resisting Residents embeds us in an Athens squatted community, capturing solidarity as a lived practice.

IDFA DocLab Forum (new media)

The market’s new media strand, IDFA DocLab Forum, presents 12 projects, boasting diverse formats, from an immersive installation to VR, XR, mixed reality, a participatory performance, and an interactive documentary. The projects engage with such resonant themes as digital labor, bodily memory, virtual violence, and collective participation in democracies. Katja Verheul’s Mine Land looks at the remnants of war still unearthed in a Bosnian forest 31 years on. Hyeunjoo Woo and Jiyun Park’s How to Make a Chiffon Cake proposes an intriguing scenario, turning a woman’s invisible domestic work into AI training data. Mark Mushiva and Daniel Chein’s Time Hunter XR: Colonial Protocols also appropriates tech tools for resistance, conjuring a speculative decolonial mission in 1912 Namibia.

Forum Pitch and Roundtable Presentations

• Being North Korean, dir. Roxy Rezvany, prod. Aya Kaido / Besheh Meesheh Films Ltd, Roxy Rezvany (United Kingdom)

• Dr. Hedgehog, dir. Peter Alsted, prod. Birgitte Keseler / Elk Film, Katrine Dolmer / Elk Film (Denmark)

• Examination, dir. Juanjo Pereira, prod. Ivana Urízar / Cine Mío (Paraguay)

• Fur, dir. Joakim Demmer, prod. Thomas Kufus / zero one film GmbH (Germany)

• Game of Replacing Gods, dir. An Chu, prod. Kei Yiu Kathy Wong / In-sight Practice Ltd. (Taiwan)

• How Love Moves, dir. Pallavi Paul, prod. Aman Mann, Shaunak Sen / Kiterabbit Films (India)

• Jiabiangou, dir. Wang Bing, prod. Mao Hui / CS Productions, Sonia Buchman / Gladys Glover Films, Nicolas R. De La Mothe / Gladys Glover Films, Serge Lalou / Les Films d’ici (France, Hong Kong)

• La Linda, dir. Francina Carbonell, prod. Gema Juárez Allen / Gema Films (Argentina, Chile)

• My Father Killed Bourguiba, dir. Fatma Riahi, prod. Dorra Bouchoucha / Nomadis Images, Lina Chaabane / Nomadis Images, Fatma Riahi (Tunisia)

• My Rebel Heart, dir. Ida Kat Balslev, prod. Sidsel Lønvig Siersted (Denmark)

• Near Life, dir. Marta Miskaryan, prod. Alice Hughes / Beehive Films Ltd (United Kingdom)

• Odesa.Mama, dir. Vitaly Mansky, prod. Filip Remunda (Czech Republic, Latvia)

• One Step Closer, dir. Mehran Tamadon, prod. Rebecca Houzel / Petit à petit production, Marianne Romeo / Petit à petit production (France)

• Podium (You Have Three Minutes), dir. Rachel Leah Jones, prod. Rachel Leah Jones / Home Made Docs, Philippe Bellaiche / Home Made Docs (France, Switzerland, Canada)

• Re:collection, dir. Dane Dodds, prod. Antoinette Engel (South Africa, Denmark)

• Recovery, dir. Roman Bondarchuk, Vadym Ilkov, prod. Darya Bassel / Moon Man (Ukraine)

• Ship of Fools, dir. Liang Zhao, prod. Jia Zhao / Muyi Film (Netherlands)

• Shooting Stars, dir. Parsa Ansari, prod. Milad Khosravi / Seven Springs Pictures (Iran)

• Silence Diaries, dir. Daniela Muñoz Barroso, prod. Daniela Muñoz Barroso / Estudio ST, Leila Montero / Estudio ST (Spain, Cuba)

• Sisters in War, dir. Lay Thida, prod. Lay Thida / Lavender Productions, Maya Newell / Closer Productions (Myanmar)

• Sonia – Searching for Balance, dir. Rita Balogh, Peter Akar, prod. Sára László / Campfilm, Marcell Gerő / Campfilm (Hungary)

• Stitch by Stitch, dir. Alina Baitokova, prod. Adilet Karzhoev / Karzhoev Films (Kyrgyzstan)

• Super Sila, dir. Mohammed Alshareef, prod. Ala’ Abu Ghoush (Palestine)

• The Contract of the Century, dir. Christina D. Bartson, prod. Elijah Stevens / Space Time Films (United Kingdom, United States)

• The Earth Beneath Our Feet, dir. Jack Wolf, Janvier Murairi, prod. Arne Buettner / Kino Adagio, Quentin Laurent / Les Films de l’oeil sauvage, Quentin Noirfalisse / Dancing Dog Productions SPRL (Germany, France, Belgium)

• The Night I Return, dir. Ehsan Fardjadniya, prod. Pieter van Huystee / Pieter van Huystee Film (Netherlands)

• This Body Is My Final Address, dir. August Joensalo, prod. Emilia Haukka / Aamu Film Company (Finland)

• This Version of Me, dir. Gabrielle Zilkha, prod. Ina Fichman (Canada)

• Wild Goose Days, dir. Andrew H. Brown, prod. Andrew H. Brown, Katie Basile (United States)

Rough Cut Presentations

• Artificial Clouds, dir. Josefina Buschmann Mardones, prod. Daniela Camino / Mimbre Films, Boris Garavini / Les Films Invisibles (Chile, France)

• Camels of the Sea, dir. Vikram Singh, prod. Mandakini Gahlot / Elefant Films (India)

• Moon Is Watching You, dir. Chi Hang MA, prod. Chi Hang MA, Catherine CHAN (Hong Kong)

• My Mother & I, dir. Dilpak Mjaeed, prod. Marwa Tammam / Patchwork Productions (Egypt)

• Oh Heart, Don’t be Afraid, dir. Ana Kvichidze, prod. Avtandil Khorava / Moonbow Productions, Mariam Bitsadze / 17/07 Productions, Ana Kvichidze (Georgia)

• Resisting Residents, dir. Nikos Pilos, Arsinoi Pilou, prod. Dafni Kalafati / Filmiki (Greece)

IDFA DocLab Forum

• Artificial (Body) Intuition, dir. Amit Palgi, prod. Amit Palgi (Netherlands)

• The Atlas of Sound, dir. Siobhan Silén, prod. Annika Hagemann (United Kingdom)

• The Bridge, dir. Brandon Powers, prod. Brandon Powers / Our Time Projects (United States)

• How to Make a Chiffon Cake, dir. Hyeunjoo Woo, Jiyun Park, prod. Ubac Studio (South Korea)

• Just a game?, dir. Jo Sol, prod. Georgina Oliva / Shaktimetta Produccions (Spain)

• Lidscape XR, dir. Sebastian Carrasco, prod. Andrés Piñeros / Scrmbld Studio (Colombia)

• Mine Land, dir. Katja Verheul (Netherlands)

• The Passage, dir. Nicole-Christine Strasser, prod. Sebastian Herbst / Arkanum Pictures (Germany)

• This Pleasant Lady, dir. Victoria Mapplebeck, prod. Victoria Mapplebeck (United Kingdom)

• Time Hunter XR: Colonial Protocols, dir. Mark Mushiva, Daniel Chein, prod. Laura Kloeckner / Seera Films (Germany, Namibia, United States)

• TKHAFSH / تخفش (working title), dir. Noor Abed, Haig Aivazian, prod. AFAC Arab Fund for Art and Culture (Lebanon), with Time Based Editions (Belgium)

• We Walk the Bridge of Worlds, dir. Sara de Gouveia, Inka Kendzia, Zinhle Purity Mkhize, prod. Sara de Gouveia / Lionfish Productions (South Africa)

For decades people have flocked to Abbey Road Studios, home to one of the most famous instruments in the world: Mrs. Mills’ 1905 Steinway Vertegrand. A holdover from the music-hall era, Mills had instrumental hits with this piano in the UK until the ’70s, almost until her death in 1978, aged 59. For some reason, though, music fans are less enthralled by the fact that Mills used it on such ragtime classics as 1969’s “Battle of Britain Medley” as they are by the fact that a band from Liverpool, known as The Beatles, borrowed it for songs such as “Penny Lane”, “With a Little Help from My Friends” and “The Fool on the Hill”.

Abbey Road — long seen as the spiritual home of The Beatles, who practically lived there during their comparatively short-lived recording career — was the scene of a fan event held by Disney+ earlier this week to launch the home-ent debut of a new documentary starring The Beatles’ most famous protégés. Titled Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, the film hits streaming with added extras pulled from hours of footage, from Cardiff to South Korea and beyond, including the songs “Half the World Away” and “Do You Know What I Mean?”

Though brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher were absent, the film’s two directors —Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace — were present with writer Steven Knight, more on whom later. Like the band’s 2025 reunion tour, which this 2hr-plus film documents, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger debuted to high demand, taking taken £2.66 million at the UK and Irish box office during its opening weekend, making over £4 million gross since its premiere less than a month ago, comfortably taking the number one spot for a doc.

Inevitably, the film begins late 2024 with the media’s incredulity that a band that had famously — and famously acrimoniously — imploded moments before going onstage at a French rock festival in 2009 were announcing a reunion tour for the following year. It soon transpires, however, that whatever had fueled the Gallagher brothers’ feud is now water under the bridge, and instead of looking for drama onstage, Southern and Lovelace train their eyes and ears on the millions of people all over the world who battled dynamic pricing to see a band that many thought had hit its peak in the ’90s.

Said Knight, “The whole point of doing the thing was to explore why this music, these words, and the poetry of these words have this effect on so many different people around the world, to the point where it makes them emotional, where they feel as if the songs are about their lives. You see that unfailingly happen every single time, no matter what you do, no matter how you put it together — somehow those songs have that effect on people. So, [the film] is about the power of the music, but also about the fact that they are bulletproof, somehow, as a band.”

The financial success of the doc suggests that it came as solace to the many who failed to score tickets or simply couldn’t afford them. “It’s been so amazing to see the reaction to it,” said Southern. “We lived it for 18 months from the rehearsals, through the tour, through a year of editing it. And then you get a bit snow-blind. You watch this thing over and over again, and you get too concerned with details. But then to be in a cinema, and see people walk out crying, it’s so validating. We knew that it was in there, but the way that this film has been received has been beyond what we could have imagined, but then always so obvious — because people love Oasis, and this whole tour meant so much to them — that all we had to do was point a camera at it and show it back to people.”

Knight, who wrote the film’s framing structure and interviewed the band at length, explained that part of the appeal of the project was that the results were far from expected. “Noel said that when they announced the tour, they didn’t realize what the response would be. They were completely overwhelmed by the demand for tickets. And so, it became quite obvious that it wasn’t just the original fans, it was a whole new generation, probably two generations of people who wanted them. So, the question was to find out why people had developed such a relationship with this music, which had not been advertised or marketed for 16 years. That’s why we wanted to find people around the world who had personal connections with it. But it’s Dylan and Will who crafted this, who put the cameras on the people in the audience and did the whole architecture of it, saying, ‘Look at this. This is the real story. Look what’s happening out there.’”

Lovelace duly shared the credit with the many sound recordists and cinematographers, including Oscar winner Lol Crawley, who captured the images seen in the film. “We had a team of brilliant camera people and sound people all over the world,” he recalled, “and as Steven said, we knew we wanted the film to be as much about the fans as the band, but we didn’t quite know what that really meant until we got to [the first show at] Cardiff and realized what this music actually meant to people. And so, our team of camera people, we threw them into the crowd. We wanted them to be as close to the fans as you could get, search out people who might have been seeing the band for the first ever time and find the kind of stories that were unfolding in the audience.”

Southern summarized the attitude succinctly. “I think our ethos was, in a way, that the most important member of Oasis is the crowd. The band, as charismatic as they are, stand still; the emotion is happening out there amongst the crowd. So, the question was, how do we convey what this band means to people? And we did it by training the camera on those people in the crowd and seeing the immense emotional effect that they were having. I mean, it sounds crazy, but making this film brought me back to some core human values that living in London and grinding at work every day makes you forget. Like, being kind is a good thing. Forgiveness is a good thing. Remembering how short life is is a good thing. I cried during the edit of this film, I cried during the filming of this film, and I cried watching it with an audience. It was really special.”

At this point, we may note that throughout the gestation of the Oasis project, Knight has been busy with the small matter of Bond 26, the first in the franchise to be made since Daniel Craig quit and without any input from the Broccoli family. So, what can Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger tell us about how that might be going? Well, quite a lot, actually. Like many of Knight’s fiction projects — notably Peaky Blinders — the film is a working-class underdog story with strong undertones of allegiance and duty. Knight also wrote and directed the single-set drama Locke, in which Tom Hardy plays a construction foreman forced to confess an infidelity to his wife and sons, suggesting that his Bond is likely to be a man of his word, and perhaps more blue-collar that previously shown.

The intriguing part, however, is the Oasis film’s use of international footage, taking in more countries than the average Bond movie. Knight said that he and the directors wanted the film to have a particular message “at a time of division and all the bollocks that’s going on”; that message being that “in every different place in the world with loads of different sorts of people and different backgrounds, the reaction and the effect of the songs is the same. It’s always the same with everybody. All these people are the same.” Quite how that credo jives with the now-controversial Cold War conspiracies, exoticism and colonial mindset of Ian Fleming’s original novels will be interesting to see…

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger streams exclusively on Disney+ from Friday 9 October with previously unseen footage

The short films featuring stars reading from the titles shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize have landed.

The stars reading this year are Lewis Gribben (Black Mirror), Kathryn Hunter (Black Doves), Paterson Joseph (Wonka), Himesh Patel (The Odyssey), Maxine Peake (I Swear) and Savannah Steyn (House of the Dragon). Director and choreographer Holly Blakey directs the six two-minute films, the second time she has helmed Booker shorts.

Patel reads from Luke Kennard’s ‘Black Bag’ and Hunter from ‘The End of Everything’ by M. John Harrison.

Joseph’s short is a reading from ‘The Disappearers’ by Marlon James, who is a previous Booker Prize winner and early favorite for the 2026 prize.

Steyn reads from ‘May We Feed the King’ by Rebecca Perry, Peake reads from ‘The Things We Never Say’ by Elizabeth Strout. Gribben’s excerpt is from ‘John of John’ by Douglas Stuart.

The Booker Prize is the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction. Since 2022, its organizers have recruited stars from the worlds of film, TV and music to read excerpts from the shortlisted tomes. They have gone on to generate big numbers on YouTube and social media; the Booker Prize 2025 and International Booker Prize 2026 films have a combined 132M views.

“This year we wanted to push the visual language somewhere new, shooting much of it outside and finding something looser, more textural and alive in the process,” Blakey said. “It was less about narrativizing the books for me, more about searching for the feelings they leave you with – fear, humour, the great voids between us, or something altogether more existential.”

“Every year, the short films we make of extracts from the Booker Prizes shortlists draw more and more readers to the books,” added Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation. “It’s also a fantastic opportunity for us to work with a range of creative people in an art form adjacent to literature, and this latest set of films is our most ambitious yet.”

The films are produced for the Booker Prize Foundation by Park Pictures.

There is a strong link between Booker titles and film and TV. Adaptations of previous winners or shortlisted books include The Remains of the Day, Atonement, Normal People, The Handmaid’s Tale, Wolf Hall and Life of Pi.

Last year’s winning book was ‘Flesh’ by David Szalay. He told Deadline a film adaptation is in the cards, with Conclave banner House Productions handling the adaptation.

Check out Patel’s short above. The other five are available on Booker’s YouTube channel.