The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced that Portuguese filmmaker Susana de Sousa Dias will be the Guest of Honor for its 2025 edition.
Susana De Sousa Dias: IDFA’s 2025 Guest of Honor
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has named Portuguese filmmaker, curator, and academic Susana de Sousa Dias as its 2025 Guest of Honor. As part of this honor, the prestigious festival will showcase a retrospective of her work, and she will select a Top 10 list of films by other directors that she considers particularly significant.
Top Films by Susana de Sousa Dias
Two films on de Sousa Dias’s Top 10 list are Monangambé, a 1968 short documentary by Sarah Maldoror, and Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989) by Harun Farocki. Both explore themes of collective memory and filmmakers rewriting political narratives, which resonate with de Sousa Dias’s own work. During the festival, running from Nov. 13-23 in Amsterdam, she will participate in the centerpiece Talk of the 2025 edition of IDFA.
Artistic Approach and Recognition
“Known for her unique approach to archival images and cinematic form, de Sousa Dias has built an internationally acclaimed body of work that interrogates dictatorship, colonial legacies, and the fragile terrain of memory,” IDFA stated in a release. “By creating space for distance and reflection, her work prompts us to question how political histories are told through film and how we narrate the past. Rather than using archival footage as mere illustration, she reframes these images of power to reveal erased histories of violence and resistance to authority.”
Upcoming Documentary: Fordlândia Panacea
Her latest documentary, Fordlândia Panacea, set for release in 2025, is described as “an excavation of the former company-town founded by Henry Ford in the Amazon rainforest in 1928.” IDFA notes, “Her signature style emerged with Still Life (2005), an archival meditation on the Portuguese fascist regime Estado Novo, Europe’s longest-running dictatorship. International recognition followed with 48 (2009), which juxtaposes the regime’s photographs of political prisoners with testimonies decades later, revealing the violence embedded in every image.”
Leadership Changes at IDFA
This will be the first IDFA under the leadership of Isabel Arrate Fernandez, who was appointed artistic director in April, succeeding Orwa Nyrabia, who held the position for seven years. Founded in 1988, IDFA has grown to become the largest documentary festival in the world. Last year, Johan Grimonprez was named the festival’s Guest of Honor; the year prior, the honor went to Wang Bing. In 2022, Laura Poitras received this distinction.
Dead Angle Program Announcement
In addition to announcing this year’s Guest of Honor, IDFA revealed the theme of its Dead Angle program, an innovative multiyear initiative that examines the systemic structures shaping our lives using documentary cinema to reveal what remains outside our direct field of vision. This year’s focus will be on Institutions, inviting a close examination of their operations, shortcomings, and future roles. Documentary film offers a lens to trace their histories and contradictions and reflect on their role in shaping society and the civic structures we collectively sustain today.
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Confirmed Titles for Dead Angle: Institutions
Among the confirmed titles for Dead Angle: Institutions are close studies of democracy and the democratic process. “Frederick Wiseman’s State Legislature (2006) offers an observational portrait of the Idaho State Senate, capturing the slow, deliberate unfolding of lawmaking. Several titles extend our perspective beyond the Western scope, examining the afterlives of colonial institutions and the ways they are contested and reclaimed,” IDFA notes. “In How to Build a Library (2025) by Maia Lekow and Christopher King, we follow the renovation of a former colonial library in Nairobi as it transforms into a center for African literature. In Checks and Balances (2015) by Malek Bensmaïl, we witness journalists from Algeria’s El Watan newspaper continuing their fight for press freedom.”
The full selection of Dead Angle: Institutions will be confirmed on October 15.
IDFA DocLab Announcement
IDFA also shared details of the 19th edition of its new media program, IDFA DocLab: “This year’s theme, Off the Internet, explores the paradox of our time: a world perpetually connected through technology, at risk of disconnection by the same tools. The program grapples with the desire to disconnect, the impossibility of truly logging off, and the privilege of stepping offline. With Off the Internet, DocLab turns to interactive and immersive art in search of new forms of presence and connection. The first announced titles include several physical and collective immersive experiences, including the world premieres of Nothing to See Here by Celine Daemen and Handle with Care by Ontroerend Goed (in collaboration with de Brakke Grond).
The full program selection of IDFA DocLab will be announced in October. IDFA annually hosts many world premieres and helps define the Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature through its curated selections. The final competition titles and full program will be announced on Tuesday, October 14. General ticket sales begin on October 29.
