The lineup for the 2026 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is taking shape, with the announcement Tuesday of more than 100 titles joining the roster.

The 39th edition of the world’s largest documentary festival revealed selections across its Signed, Paradocs, Best of Fests, and Short Documentary Competition, and the first projects in its new media DocLab strand. IDFA runs November 12-22 in the Dutch capital, under the artistic direction of Isabel Arrate Fernández.

The Signed section, devoted to celebrating “those with a unique artistic signature, beyond the canon,” abounds with Oscar contenders: Ava DuVernay’s 14th; Michał Marczak’s Closure; Once Upon a Time in Harlem, directed by David Greaves and produced by Liani Greaves, based on material shot by David’s father, William Greaves; My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile, from director Julia Loktev; Sara Dosa’s Time and Water, Luke Lorentzen’s Boatbuilders, and new work from Barbara Kopple (Union Town), Sam Pollard (Tutu), and Victor Kossakovsky (Holy Wood Dust).

The Signed category also includes two prominent shorts: They’re Here, directed by Oscar winner Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller, and The Revolution Against Death, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer.

The Best of Fests section, presenting “the year’s most eye-catching and celebrated films from various festivals from around the world,” boasts almost 60 titles, including more Oscar contenders, among them Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals for a Revolution, The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, directed by Alessandra Sanguinetti, and Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osama.

Paradocs showcases the year’s nonfiction film art, “in which visual artists and filmmakers present their explorations into non-fiction filmmaking,” the festival notes.

“This year’s selection of 16 titles explores the world through bold formal experimentation, genre-bending, and unexpected perspectives. A hedonistic escape to a melting glacier is interrupted by apocalyptic climate change and existential anxiety in Susanne Regina Meures’s Eternity— adapting of Florentina Holzinger’s performance art to the screen. In The Case Against Space, Graeme Arnfield offers a reconstruction of the first “strike” in space, reframing the astronaut hero through a critical lens on capitalism and surveillance. Johann Lurf’s Forever…Forever presents an overwhelming vision of the cosmos in motion, with an ever-accelerating timelapse of the sun’s path filmed over 22 months—to be shown on 70mm in Eye Filmmuseum.”

DFA’s new media program DocLab explores “how emerging technologies and new forms of interaction can expand what documentary can be and how audiences experience it.” Among the first projects unveiled are two participatory works that “turn systems that shape everyday life into audience experiences” for the 2026 Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant: The Love Files by Sanne De Wilde and Samir Veen, that invites audiences to step inside and critically review a “love file” application for a residence permit, and All the Downtime by Ant Hampton, immersing audiences in an algorithm-led distribution center, just as a power outage disrupts the order and gives way for creative disorder. Each receives €10,000 to finalize and present the work at IDFA DocLab.

The 20th anniversary program additionally features new works developed through Shared Realities, including Tamara Shogaolu’s The Invisible Woman, a VR opera that recovers the story of Francisca de Angola, a 17th-century Black woman in Amsterdam, and Polymorf’s Microbiome Restaurant, with two sensory experiences exploring the human body as an ecosystem.

The IDFA Competition for Short Documentary “celebrates the versatility of the form, with 15 films that use creativity and imagination to push the boundaries of short documentary. Together, they form a mosaic of styles, themes, and perspectives, driven by ambitious directors with singular cinematic voices and strong artistic visions.”

IDFA will announce final competition titles and its full selection on Tuesday, October 13.

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