UPDATED with more details on de Sousa Dias’s IDFA retrospective and her Top 10 list. Previously: 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 the distinction, the prestigious festival will present a retrospective of her work, and she will choose a Top 10 of films by other directors that she views as particularly important.
Two of the films on de Sousa Dias’s Top 10 list — Monangambééé, the 1968 short documentary by Sarah Maldoror and Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989) by Harun Farocki – explore “collective memory and filmmakers rewriting their political narratives,” themes consistent with de Sousa Dias’s own work. During the festival, which runs Nov. 13-23 in the Dutch capital, de Sousa Dias will participate in the centerpiece Talk of the 2025 edition of IDFA. [Scroll for the list of de Sousa Dias’s films that will screen at IDFA as part of her retrospective, as well as more of her Top 10 selections].
“Known for her singular 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 said 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 approach the narration of 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.”
Filmmaker Susana de Sousa Dias
IDFA
Her latest documentary, 2025’s Fordlândia Panacea, constitutes “an excavation of the former company-town founded by Henry Ford in the Amazon rainforest in 1928.” IDFA observes, “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.”
‘Fordlândia Panacea’
Susana de Sousa Dias/IDFA
This will be the first IDFA under the leadership of Isabel Arrate Fernandez, who was appointed artistic director in April to succeed Orwa Nyrabia, artistic director for the previous seven years. IDFA was founded in 1988 and 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 previous, the honor went to Wang Bing. In 2022, Laura Poitras earned that distinction.
In addition to announcing this year’s Guest of Honor, IDFA announced the theme of its Dead Angle program, an innovative multiyear initiative that “looks at the systemic structures that shape our lives—using documentary cinema to reveal what remains outside our direct field of vision.” This year’s Dead Angle will focus on Institutions, “inviting a close examination of how they operate, where they falter, and their role moving forward. Documentary film offers a lens to trace their histories and contradictions—and to reflect on their role in shaping society and the civic structures we collectively sustain today.”
‘How To Build a Library’
Circle and Square Productions
Among confirmed titles for Dead Angle: Institutions are the close studies of democracy and the democratic process. “Frederick Wiseman’s State Legislature (2006) offers an observational portrait of the Idaho Legislature, 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 being 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 is transformed into a center for African literature. In Checks and Balances (2015) by Malek Bensmaïl, we witness the journalists with Algeria’s El Watan newspaper continued fight for press freedom.”
The full selection of Dead Angle: Institutions will be confirmed on Tuesday, October 14.
IDFA’s DocLab
IDFA
IDFA also announced 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 growing desire to disconnect, the impossibility of ever truly logging off, and the inherent 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 (presented 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 well as helping to 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.
Titles of Susana de Sousa Dias’s retrospective:
48 (2009), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Criminal Case 141/53 (2000), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Fordlândia Malaise (2019), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Fordlândia Panacea (2025), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Journey to the Sun (2021), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias, Ansgar Schaefer
Obscure Light (2017), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Post Criminal Case (2025), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Still Life (2005), directed by Susana de Sousa Dias
Partial list of de Sousa Dias’s Top 10 selection (more titles to be announced soon):
As Armas e o Povo (Portugal, 1975), directed by Colectivo dos Trabalhadores da Actividade Cinematográfica
From the Pole to the Equator (Italy/West Germany, 1986), directed by Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci Lucchi
Images of the World and the Inscription of War (West Germany, 1989), directed by Harun Farocki
Monangambééé (France/Angola, 1968), directed by Sarah Maldoror
R 21 aka Restoring Solidarity (Palestine/Belgium/Qatar, 2022), directed by Mohanad Yaqubi
Río Turbio (Argentina, 2020), directed by Tatiana Mazú González
Rosa de Areia (Portugal, 1989), directed by Margarida Cordeiro, António Reis
