IBF Classic Selection 2023
Film still: Women of My Life, dir. Zahraa Ghandour
Supporting documentary films worldwide
IBF Classic offers development, production and post-production support to filmmakers from and living in the IBF regions.
Of four of the selected projects in 2023 no details can be published as they must remain completely anonymous. To begin to understand why, we invite you to read this article on IDFA's website.
Selection IBF Classic – Development
Dir. Janaina Wagner Brazil, Portugal
Owner of one of the highest feminicide rates in Brazil, the tiny town of Barcelos exists lost amidst the idyllic landscape of Amazonas forest. The Bag of the Night unveils the presence of the ghosts who inhabit this piece of land.
Dir. Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren Ecuador, Italy
My name is Ricardo. I was born with Treacher Collins Syndrome. For 24 years I've struggled to pronounce the letter R, making verbal expression difficult, causing me to suppress my voice. This documentary essay is an intimate journey in search of my voice’s identity and the effort to liberate it.
Dir. Moise Togo Senegal, France, Tunisia, Cameroon
Ghost Ship follows the intertwined stories of Senegalese families left behind and Tunisian volunteers who search for the remains of migrants lost at sea. Together, they navigate the complexities of guilt, grief, and hope, trying to find meaning amidst the challenges of illegal migration.
Dir. Anonymous Afghanistan
Years after his classmates were massacred at his school in Pakistan, director D.K. records the lives of Machid, who attends the same school, and Khatima, who works in the cemetery where the dead students are buried.
Dir. Hideki Nakazaki Peru
In 1927, a Japanese immigrant founded the first photographic studio on the northern Peruvian coast. Ninety-one years later, hundreds of images are still buried in the studio's archive. Its workers investigate the memory of their images, revealing the traces that the past inherited in each one of them, as a process of assimilation and preparation for the end of a lived cycle.
Dir. Carolina Arias Ortiz Costa Rica
In the 1970s, nurses and doctors travelled the mountains of Costa Rica to the sound of the mysticism and poetry of my grandfather Doctor Ortiz. Together they built the innovative public health programme "hospital without walls". Digging into my grandfather's character, the memories compose a figure as luminous as he is dark. How to integrate the memory of my macho patriarch grandfather with the image of the revolutionary doctor?
Dir. Karim Kassem Lebanon
An artist travels to a village outside Beirut after having a precognitive dream that brings her back from living abroad.
Dir. Akash Basumatari, Shrutiman Deori India
Set in the enchanting village of Garbhanga in the North-Eastern hills of India, Shadows of the Forest captures the journeys of four young people grappling with their place in a changing world, as their future is threatened by eviction from their ancestral homes in the forest.
Dir. Soheila Golestani Iran
Fariba's daughter is in prison for making a film about mandatory hijab. Fariba is looking for a way to free her, but she doesn't even know where to look.Kamal (Fariba's brother) finds her after many years and calls her every day. These calls make both of them review the past.
Selection IBF Classic – Production & Post-production
Dir. Ketevan Vashagashvili Georgia, Bulgaria
When raising a kid as a homeless single mother in Tbilisi becomes too hard, Jana decides to work as a surrogate for foreigners, in order to give her daughter the life she herself never had.
Dir. Martín Boulocq Saavedra Bolivia, Argentina
Locals Miguel and Marcos participate in an American horror movie filming in a sub-Andean forest, with bodybuilder Miguel playing the monster and peasant Marcos offering his bulls as they navigate a strange world alien to them. This film explores the neocolonial relationship between Bolivia and the USA.
Dir. Adelina Borets Ukraine, Poland
Natalia lives harmoniously in her green paradise, surrounded by the cement jungle in Kyiv. She defends her queendom against real estate developers, but the true battle begins with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Dir. Ana Kvichidze Georgia
Dachi is a queer boy from a religious place in Georgia, oppressed by the society, and his own family, he finds an old witch, taught and empowered with her magic spells he begins to change reality.
Dir. Fan Jian China
Six years after her divorce, Yu Xiuhua — China’s most famous disabled poet — starts a new relationship and finds herself embroiled in a spiral of domestic violence, online controversy and creative struggles.
Dir. Rita Toledo, Isabel Joffily Brazil
Scientific research indicates a correlation between long exposure to pesticide and depression cases. Armed with this knowledge, Rodolpho, a young novelist, returns to the rural farming town where he was born to investigate suicides in the community.
Dir. Ilya Povolotsky Russia
October 2022. Old mud baths in the south of Russia, where life seems to be undisturbed by war. But look closer —and its many faces are sipping though every surface. Meanwhile, the timeless machine keeps consuming its patients, drugging them, sinking them into the thick squelching substance..
Dir. Erhan Arık Turkey, Germany
In northeastern Turkey, a farming couple — who are still keeping a 1,500-year-old ancestral seed alive — face the fact that they cannot leave the fate of the seed in the hands of their children.
Dir. Hussein Al-asadi Iraq
Fatima, a nomadic woman, fights to keep her beloved buffaloes alive in Iraq’s dying marshes. She refuses to leave and abandon her independent way of life, but at what cost?
Dir. Alejandro Alonso Estrella Cuba, United States, France
Pitufo, a young Cuban shipbreaker, dreams of escaping the remote bay where he spends his days between metal and fire. In search of his freedom, he embarks on a labyrinthine journey to the swamps of Southwest Florida. An uncanny territory where he must face his deepest fears.
Dir. Dongnan Chen China
Qinghua, a Yi ethnic teen, sets out on a road trip with her two besties to find a skirt for her menarche ceremony.
Dir. Zahraa Ghandour Iraq, Sweden
Born in the home of a Baghdad midwife, actor and director Zahraa witnessed violence against women from early on. In a dreamy journey today she interrogates the past in search of a lost girl, confronts lifelong inner fears while shadowing other women to imagine a better future.
The Selection Committee
1st IBF Classic selection round: Qutaiba Barhamji - Filmmaker and editor María Campaña Ramia - Programmer, IDFA Salomé Jashi - Filmmaker Adrian Kawaley-Lathan - Creative Director, Bertha Foundation Isabel Arrate Fernandez - Deputy Director, IDFA; Executive Director, IDFA Bertha Fund
2nd IBF Classic selection round: Ayman El Amir - Director and producer, Felucca Films Gitte Hansen - Producer and film consultant Heejung Oh - Producer, Seesaw Pictures Jorge Caballero Ramos - Director and Producer, Gusano Films Isabel Arrate Fernandez - Deputy Director, IDFA; Executive Director, IDFA Bertha Fund