Orwa Nyrabia: Last News

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.S. director-producer Laura Poitras, who won an Oscar and an Emmy with Edward Snowden film “Citizenfour,” and recently took the Golden Lion at Venice with opioid epidemic pic “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” will be the Guest of Honor at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The 35th edition of the festival takes place from Nov. 9 to 20. Poitras will be honored at IDFA with the Retrospective and Top 10 programs, in which she curates 10 films. The Top 10 program includes reflections on political imprisonment (“Hunger” by Steve McQueen; “This Is Not a Film” by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb), incarceration and psychiatry (Frederick Wiseman’s “Titicut Follies”), and genocide (Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah”). As part of the Top 10, Poitras will be in conversation with several of her selected filmmakers during the festival’s public talks program.

A panel of international figures joined forces today at the Venice Festival to pledge their support for filmmakers suffering oppression, harassment and imprisonment around the world.

The Venice Film Festival has announced two new initiatives in collaboration with The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk to support and raise awareness about directors, filmmakers, and artists who have been arrested or imprisoned around the world during the past year.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Film Festival is launching two initiatives to support directors, filmmakers and artists who have been arrested or imprisoned around the world during the past year. In tandem with the International Coalition Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR), a panel will be held on Sept. 3 at the Palazzo del Casinò press conference room titled: “Filmmakers Under Attack:Taking Stock, Taking Action.” Panelists will include fest chiefs Alberto Barbera (Venice);  Vanja Kalurdjercic (Rotterdam); Orwa Nyrabia (Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival); Turkish producer Nadir Öperli; European Film Academy president Mike Downey and an unspecified Iranian director. 

The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR), the Amsterdam-based body set up in 2019 to support cinema professionals in danger, has posted an open letter addressing the recent crackdown on Iran’s filmmaking community.

The International Coalition For Filmmakers At Risk (ICFR) has demanded “an end to a growing environment of fear and insecurity” in Iran after two documentary creators were arrested then released on bail, preventing them from travelling or working.

Jennie Punter Last week Darya Bassel, the curator of Docudays UA’s industry platform, returned to her home in Kyiv and found herself smiling “like a crazy person” to be back at work and resuming something of a daily routine. “I’m still sitting 12 hours a day with my laptop,” she said during Slava Ukraini, an early morning session that kicked off Day 2 of Hot Docs’ Industry LIVE conference.“There are just some additional tasks on my to-do list,” she continued.

Marta Balaga Amsterdam’s documentary festival IDFA’s 34th edition wrapped on Sunday as an in-person event, having weathered the partial lockdown in the Netherlands. Variety speaks to artistic director Orwa Nyrabia about this year’s edition.He says of documentary filmmakers: “I prefer to spend my life with this bunch.

Damon Wise Taking to the stage of the eerily quiet Tuschinski cinema in Amsterdam—just after the sad news of the death of Italian documentary filmmaker Valentina Pedicini, at the age of 42, had been made public—Gianfranco Rosi, Guest of Honor at documentary festival IDFA, put on a brave face as he settled down for his masterclass with the festival’s artistic director Orwa Nyrabia.Rosi’s latest film “Notturno,” a mosaic of war stories from the Middle East, was lucky to premiere to a live and present audience at the Venice Film Festival in September, before Italy returned to lock down.