The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam runs from 14 to 24, November.

The Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival IDFA is one of the key festivals in the documentary film industry. Each year, it attracts over 250,000 viewers, including over 3,000 guests. The programme is filled with short, medium and full-length documentaries from all over the world.

This year, the festival will highlight our School screening films, one by our lecturer and others by our students and graduates. Here they are:

* International Competition *
International premiere

TRAINS
screenplay and direction: Maciej Drygas (directing lecturer)
editing: Rafał Listopad (editing lecturer)
music: Paweł Szymański
producer: Vita Żelakeviciute
production: Drygas Film Production
co-production: Polish Television, Era Film

A train compartment is a place where a person is temporarily torn out of the context of everyday existence. For a few hours or a few days, they are in a new society, and their life goes on according to the time marked by the timetable. There is something beautiful, and magical about a train journey, but often also very painful. Sometimes the journey is accompanied by hope, or - there is no hope at all. The joy of travel becomes a curse, and tears of joy mix with the pain of despair. Trains is an original, reflective journey through the 20th century composed exclusively of archive materials. A beautiful and bitter image without words, accompanied by a sophisticated sound design with music by Paweł Szymański.

See the trailer vimeo.com
Film profile at festival website festival.idfa.nl/en/film

* Luminous *
international premiere

BLOODLINE
screenplay and direction: Wojciech Węglarz (cinematography student)
cinematography: Wojciech Węglarz, Jonasz Mularz (cinematography student), Radosław Moszczak
editing: Zuza Grabowska (editing student) 
production: Studio Munka

On the border of Poland and Belarus - in the oldest forest in Europe - a steel wall is being built to stop the waves of refugees coming into the European Union. During a manhunt for migrants, a separated herd of bison is searching for a safe heaven.

Film profile at festival website festival.idfa.nl/en/film/Bloodline

LIFT LADY
screenplay and direction: Marcin Modzelewski (editing graduate) cinematography: Jakub Urbański (cinematography graduate)
editing: Marcin Sołtysik (editing graduate)
music: Tymoteusz Karaś-Tęcza
sound: Nicolas de la Vega
production: Munk Studio 
executive producer: Anderegande Studio

This is a story about the everyday life of Mzia – a supervisor of a paid lift in a Brutalist-style apartment block at the Nutsubidze Plato housing estate in Tbilisi. The surrealism of the urban complex is mixed here with the grotesqueness of everyday life and the vices of the inhabitants, drawing a tragicomic image of contemporary Georgia. The introspective story of the lift operator, a former war sniper, reveals to the viewer a microcosm of neighbourly relations forgotten by the West.

See the trailer vimeo.com
Film profile at festival website festival.idfa.nl/en/film

This section also includes the Italian-Austrian co-production PERSONALE, directed by Carmen Trocker, with cinematography by Małgorzata Szyłak, our cinematography graduate and PhD student at the Doctoral School.

Film profile at festival website: festival.idfa.nl/en/film

During the closed screening of the Industry section, participants will see the animated film HEADPRICKLES directed by Katarzyna Miechowicz.

Congratulations and fingers crossed!

1 – festival poster
2-4 – stills from the film TRAINS5-6 - stills from the film BLOODLINE7-8 – stills from the film LIFT LADY