Foreword
Photo: IDFA Opening Night: World Premiere of A Picture to Remember
Filmmaking can be a lonely business, we often hear filmmakers say. Developing an idea into a film project and finding answers to creative dilemmas is typically a solitary journey. The search for funding, shooting, and editing is frequently done with a very small team. Making independent films, especially documentary films, requires persistence, patience, and determination. It can take years to complete a film, funding is not always secure, and the creative process is fraught with uncertainty. To top it all off, in many of the countries where the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF) operates, violence, war, and threats to freedom of expression put independent filmmakers and their creative work under immense pressure. It is not surprising, then, that filmmakers sometimes wonder if it is all worth it.
Looking at the harvest of IDFA Bertha Fund-supported films, one thing is clear: yes, it is worth it. Every year, with each new crop of IBF films, we see films that are important, that shed light on never-before-seen stories, that bring different and necessary perspectives, and that push the boundaries of what film can be. What documentaries can be. And once they’re out there, they connect with and find audiences around the world.
2023 was a year in which the IDFA Bertha Fund sought to better serve filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania by expanding its support structures. After strengthening the IBF Classic grants with more funding to more filmmakers and continuing IBF Europe as a minority co-production grant in 2022, the Fund was able to further expand this past year, introducing a number of new activities.
In recent years, more and more IBF-supported films have been selected to premiere at major festivals, but organizing this is an expensive endeavor, and making the most of the opportunity requires financial resources to be able to play the game. At the same time, IBF-supported filmmakers are also organizing themselves, finding alternative ways to show their films in their home countries. In 2023, the Fund began offering small grants to support the distribution and promotion activities of selected films. Additionally, a two-year program was launched in collaboration with the African Real Collective to increase the participation of their grantees at IDFA. In 2023, the first delegation of filmmakers from Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa was invited to participate in IDFA, IDFA Forum, and IDFAcademy.
Additionally, new seeds were sown here in the Netherlands, where IBF films have begun screening more regularly outside the Festival. In November, three IBF-supported films were made available for online viewing via the IDFA website, and as part of IDFA's policy for a more inclusive offering, the films were presented with closed captioning for deaf and hard of hearing visitors. And with the opening of IDFA's own venue, Het Documentaire Paviljoen, IDFA Bertha Fund-supported films will continue having regular screenings—both now and into the future.
This Activity Report provides an overview of all the Fund’s activities in 2023, presenting facts, figures, and the stories behind a selection of supported filmmakers. The ‘In the Spotlight’ articles are at the heart of the Report, taking us behind the scenes of the filmmaking process and into the contexts in which filmmakers work.
There, Our Seeds filmmakers Erhan Arik and Mereym Yavuz set out to tell the story of a family working hard to keep a century-old wheat tradition alive, a project they presented this year at IDFA Forum. In her latest film The Echo, celebrated filmmaker Tatiana Huezo Sánchez reveals documentary filmmaking to be a craft that draws equally on artistic vision, holding space, and knowing how to observe. In her first feature, A Picture to Remember, Olga Chernykh tells the story of war from the perspective of three generations of women. In The Mother of All Lies, Asmae El Moudir explores the different truths in her family and country with the film that won the Best Documentary and Best Director awards at Cannes, going on to win awards at festivals around the world and finally becoming the official Moroccan entry for the Academy Awards. Last but not least, Vuslat Karan and Burcu Melekoglu discuss the making of Blue ID and their attempts to get the film seen in Turkey.
IDFA 2023 opened with Olga Chernykh's A Picture to Remember, a film supported by the Fund with an IBF Classic and IBF Europe grant, and an alumnus of the 2023 IDFA Project Space. Although the festival began with an incident on opening night that left a clear mark on the rest of the week for the Fund, it was a moment not only to connect with the audience, but also to bring the documentary community back together. The Fund took full advantage of this opportunity to reconnect with the industry, to reconnect with IBF-supported filmmakers, and to meet new filmmakers in attendance. In total, twelve films made with Fund support were selected for the festival. In addition to inviting these filmmakers to present their films at the festival, the Fund also invited a selection of IBF-supported filmmakers to participate in IDFA Forum and IDFAcademy.
Looking ahead, the Fund has an important role to play in continuing to support independent filmmakers in the creative development and financing of their projects. Freedom of expression is not a given, and we increasingly see filmmakers facing restrictions and having to consider the safety of their crew and those involved in their films. Wherever possible and within its means, the Fund will support filmmakers who are in urgent need of assistance. This means that the Fund will operate with a degree of flexibility, adapting its advisory and support activities to best assist and guide filmmakers.
We thank all the institutions that make it possible for the Fund to continue its activities, namely: Bertha Foundation, JustFilms / Ford Foundation, Creative Europe Media, Nationale Postcode Lotterij, Netherlands Film Fund, Stichting de Hoorn, and the IDFA Special Friends+. These supporters and partners reinforce us in our mission to continue supporting independent filmmakers in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. We look forward to a new year with renewed and strengthened activities.
— Isabel Arrate Fernandez, Executive Director
Main partner of the IDFA Bertha Fund
Bertha Foundation supports activists, storytellers, and lawyers that are working to bring about social and economic justice, and human rights for all. Envisioning a society in which activists build collective power, stories come from many different voices, and law is used as a tool for justice. By investing in the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Foundation supports the global creative documentary field and films that make a difference.
"At the Bertha Foundation we show up and support those who speak truth to power; who bravely and boldly tackle the complex and difficult issues of holding the line against the corporations and the rightwing. In our second decade of supporting activists; storytellers and human rights work, we are passionate about supporting film makers recognizing films' extraordinary power to not only tell stories but to be drivers of change fostering solidarity amongst those demanding a more just world."
— The Bertha Foundation
Film still: Queendom, dir. Agniia Galdanova