Selecting films for the 2026 festival

Film entries are considered for IDFA’s competitions, Luminous, Frontlight, Best of Fests, Signed, and Paradocs. Films can also be actively scouted for these sections, which is handled by the program team in collaboration with regionally based associate programmers. In all cases, the films undergo an extensive selection process that starts with all filmmakers sending in an entry form.

The entire selection process is overseen by IDFA’s Artistic Director, Isabel Arrate Fernandez.

Programmers María Campaña Ramia, Joost Daamen, Laura van Halsema, and Ileana Stanculescu collaboratively work on the selections for the International Competition, Envision Competition, Luminous, and Frontlight. For these sections, the four programmers each work with their own team of program advisors to put forward a shortlist of films. Once the films are shortlisted, the programmers collectively curate the selection for the two main competitions, Luminous, and Frontlight.

For short films, programmer Jasper Hokken and associate programmer Makiko Wakai work together with their team of program advisors to make a selection for the IDFA Competition for Short Documentary, as well as the short films for Best of Fests, Signed, Luminous, and Frontlight.

Programmer Joost Daamen is responsible for selecting films for the Paradocs section, taking input from the programmers and program advisors of the other sections.

All programmers are involved in selecting the films for the program sections Best of Fests and Signed, which together make up the bulk of the festival selection.

Finally, entered films are sometimes also considered for IDFA’s thematic Focus Programs. These sections are curated by IDFA’s programmers and include both new and historical films.

María Campaña Ramia holds an MFA in Documentary Filmmaking from the University of Strasbourg. She is a programmer at IDFA and collaborates with Geneva’s FIFDH as a documentary consultant. As a curator, she has worked for MajorDocs (Spain), Ambulante (Mexico), and Encuentros del Otro Cine - EDOC (Ecuador), where she served as Artistic Director for ten years. María has organized festivals and showcases in Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and the United States. She writes for international journals and film publications and evaluates projects for funds and institutions. She lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Joost Daamen is a senior programmer at IDFA. He holds an MA degree in Film Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Since 2005, he has been working for IDFA’s program department. Over the years, he has contributed to and programmed the main (non-)competition programs and Paradocs program, and he has (co-)curated focus programs.

Laura van Halsema has an MA degree in American Studies from the University of Amsterdam. She has been working for IDFA since 2002, where for many years she developed and curated focus programs on several elements of documentary film art. The focuses ranged from the purely artistic aspects of filmmaking to investigations of complex questions relating to individualism, global politics, the role of media, and democracy. As senior programmer, she is part of the selection committee of the main competitions and responsible for the focus programs and talks program.

Ileana Stanculescu is a documentary filmmaker and programmer born in Bucharest, Romania. After studying film dramaturgy at the Konrad Wolf Film University in Germany, she directed the documentary The Bridge, which won the First Appearance Award at IDFA and was shown at major festivals around the world. She went on to produce other creative documentaries, including Village of Socks, Akhmeteli 4, and Noosfera, with nominations and awards from IDFA, Visions du Réel, and other film festivals. Since 2013, Ileana has been the Festival Coordinator and main programmer at CinéDOC-Tbilisi International Documentary Film Festival. She also led film training programs for documentary filmmakers from Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, supporting emerging filmmakers through workshops, mentoring and awards. Ileana has served on juries for festivals like IDFA and One World.

Jasper Hokken is a programmer at IDFA, where he is responsible for IDFA’s Short Documentary Competition and the short film selections for Best of Fests, Signed, Frontlight, and Luminous. Between 2019-2024 he curated the IDFA on Stage program, which presented unique live events that explored the space between documentary cinema, new media, and performing arts. Before that he worked on IDFA’s Music Documentary program and concert series in collaboration with the Melkweg music venue. He holds an MA degree in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam.

Makiko Wakai is New Asian Currents program coordinator of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF), that aims to showcase and bring together emerging filmmakers from across the region. She is programmer, feminist, activist, filmmaker and beer-enthusiast based in Tokyo.

Suhel Banerjee is an Indian filmmaker working at the boundaries of cinematic language. His work moves between documentary and fiction, exploring the contradictions and convergences of myth and history, dreams and reality. He draws on Indian storytelling forms and the drama inherent in its landscapes in an attempt to portray and understand the world around him. Awarded Best First Feature at IDFA, his films have screened at New Directors/New Films at MoMA and Film at Lincoln, New York, and in competition in the International Festivals of Yamagata, Jeonju, Taiwan, Tehran, Vancouver, Montreal, Dharamshala, Kerala among others.

Ela Bittencourt is a writer currently based in Berlin. She writes for Artforum, Frieze, Hyperallergic, and other art and cultural publications, in addition to contributing essays to artist monographs, exhibition and festival catalogues, and working on her own projects. She's also served on numerous juries, presented film programs, led filmmaker and artist talks, and taught in international writing academies. She holds an MFA in writing and an MA in arts management, both from Columbia University, New York.

Kees Brienen is a film programmer, curator, and teacher. Digital moving images and their consequences for our visual language have been the subject of his experimental film programming, exploring various disciplines of art and their relationship with cinema. Over the years he has curated many (special) programs for cinemas, television, museums, and festivals such as IDFA, IFFR, Movies that Matter, Pluk de Nacht, Los Cabos IFF and Cinema Planeta in Mexico. Since 2000, he has been a member of IDFA’s selection committee.

Inadelso Cossa is a film director, producer and DOP, member of the (AMPAS) Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. His first feature-length documentary A Memory in Three Acts made a world premiere at the festival IDFA - International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Inadelso was invited as a jury at IDFA 2018 and Doc Sheffield 2018. His second feature film The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder made a world premiere at Berlinale Forum 2024 and international premiere at CPH: DOX 2024. The film won the Special Jury Prize at Olhar de Cinema – Curitiba International Film Festival 2024, Special Mention at Lima Alterna International Film Festival and Porto Post Doc, Jury Prize at Doc Lisboa International Film Festival 2024.

Hawa Essuman is a film director based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her 2017 feature-length documentary Silas, co-directed with Anjali Neyar, tells the story of Liberian environmental activist Silas Siakor's fight to preserve the country's rainforests from commercial logging. The film won multiple awards, including the Amnesty International Durban Human Rights Award (2018) and the Audience Award for best documentary at the RiverRun International Film Festival (2018). Hawa's first feature film, Soul Boy (2010), also received a series of awards. In addition, Hawa has produced a range of TV programs, commercial films, music videos, and adverts.

Film curator and critic Katarina Hedrén has worked as a curator, co-programmer, and moderator for film festivals and events worldwide, including the European Film Festival in South Africa, Berlinale, Addis Ababa African Film Week, Film Africa UK, Göteborg Film Festival, and FESPACO. She regularly serves as a consultant, advisor, mentor, speaker, and moderator for film festivals, markets, funds, and other industry events across the globe.

Luna Hupperetz is a film curator and PhD researcher at the University of Amsterdam, specialising in critical audiovisual heritage. Her research explores activist documentary cinema, audiovisual re-use practices, and collaborative film archival methodologies. As a curator, she researches and distributes the recently restored anti-colonial film Oema foe Sranan (Women of Suriname, 1978). Following this restoration, she co-produced and co-directed the short film A Battle Restored (2022). Currently, her work focuses on the digitized 16mm materials from the unfinished Unknown Suriname trilogy (Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms, 1973-1978) and the cinematic works of post-independence Surinamese filmmakers. In 2024, she curated a retrospective on militant Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez for IDFA’s Spotlight on Cuba.

Tajana Kosor holds a double major in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from the University of Zagreb. She began her career as a programmer for the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s International Program. She has joined Heretic, a boutique sales agency and production company in early 2022. At Heretic, she leads the company’s festival distribution strategy and works on acquisitions, whilst also contributing to the development of projects in early production stages. Her work bridges curatorial insight with market positioning across departments. In addition, she has served as a program consultant for Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, and regularly contributes film criticism to a range of online and print publications.

Since 2013, Wood Lin has served as the program director of the Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF), and since 2020, as the program advisor of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Additionally, he supervises the research and program division at the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, overseeing responsibilities such as research, publication, film programs, and TIDF. He is also the editor-in-chief of "FILM APPRECIATION," the magazine and he has been honored with the prestigious Golden Tripod Award. The program he curated, "Imaging the Avant-Garde: Taiwan's Film Experiments of the 1960s," has been featured at various international film festivals and institutions. Wood Lin has also served as a juror for esteemed film festivals, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ji.hlava IDFF, Sheffield IDFF, ONE WORLD, RIDM, and more.

Nour Ouayda is a filmmaker and film programmer. She explores the multiple relationships between image, text, voice, and sound, through filmmaking, film programming, research and writing. Between 2018 and 2023, she worked at Metropolis Cinema Association where she developed the Cinematheque Beirut project. She is part of the editorial team of the Montreal-based film journal Hors Champ and a member of the artist collective The Camelia Committee. She also teaches film programming in Beirut.

Belgrade-born and Zagreb-based Vladan Petkovic is a film journalist, critic and festival programmer. His programming experience includes ZagrebDox, Rab Film Festival, Eastern Neighbours Film Festival, Cinema City Novi Sad, FeKK Ljubljana, Kratkofil Banjaluka, and Belgrade Short & Documentary Film Festival. He is also the industry talks editor at IDFA, a correspondent for Screen International, senior writer for Cineuropa, film critic for Documentary Magazine, and head of studies of the GoCritic! training program for emerging film critics.

Luis F. Raguá is a program advisor at Cinemateca de Bogotá and programmer at Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International and Alternativa Film Festival. He holds a MA in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam, a MA in Anthropology from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), and has led and participated in curating and preservation projects at Museo Reina Sofía (Spain), Eye Filmmuseum and LI-MA Institute for Media Art (Netherlands), the Spanish Film Showcase (Colombia), among others. Formerly program coordinator at the Bogota International Film Festival (BIFF), he has been a jury at festivals like FICCI and MIDBO, awards like the Golden Globes and Premios Gabo, and various open calls in Colombia.

A graduate of Anthropology (1997) and Urban Arts studies (2020), Lulu Ratna is an Indonesian short film activist based in Jakarta who programs, promotes, and distributes Indonesian short films. She has been working as a film festival organizer since 1999 and now is a lecturer on film festival management with an annual international student film festival UCIFEST - UMN Animation & Film Festival as her students' practice. She has been part of the IDFA Program Advisor Team since 2021.

Céline Roustan is a film curator, with almost a decade of experience. Senior programmer at the website Short of the Week, she also programs short films at the Palm Springs ShortFest and SXSW where she also programs features. She has previously programmed for the Dublin International Film Festival, SFFILM, and currently contributes to the programs of the Cannes Official Short Film Competition, TIFF ShortCuts, Aspen ShortsFest.

Ana Siqueira is a Brazilian film curator, translator and researcher. Head of program at FestCurtasBH - Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival (2013-14 and since 2017), she was previously a programmer at Cine Humberto Mauro film theater and other Brazilian film festivals, such as forumdoc.bh and Mostra Tiradentes. As a PhD researcher at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG - Brazil), she explores linguistic differences within films, discussing notions such as colonialism, equivocation, opacity and hospitality. She has been a program advisor for IDFA since 2022.

Sarah Teixeira St-Cyr is a Portuguese/Canadian curator, researcher, and community organizer from Montreal, currently based in the Netherlands. She graduated in Journalism and Film Studies, where her thesis focused on the aesthetics of melancholy in postcolonial cinema. Her work sits at the intersection of film, art, and social justice, with a focus on politically engaged and community-driven practices. She has been involved with Cinema Politica, the PFFA, Sheffield DocFest, and a range of grassroots initiatives aimed at building collective spaces for critical dialogue and socially engaged film culture. 

Jelte Zonneveld is a writer, programmer and creative producer based in Rotterdam. He graduated with a specialization in documentary research and development from the MA in Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Since then, he has worked as a (freelance) editor/researcher, programmer and (impact) producer for various broadcasters, festivals and production companies. He was creative producer for multiple projects at mint film office in Rotterdam and an independent producer for several (short) documentaries. At IDFA he worked as a producer of the Industry program, IDFA Forum and as an editor for the Doc Talks program; since 2017 he has been a program advisor. Currently, he is finishing his Creative Writing studies, and advising for NPO-fund, Netherlands Film Fund, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, a.o.