idfa 2022 - Masters & Best of Fests

Masters

Presenting the latest films by the great documentary auteurs of our time, Masters welcomes the international premieres of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s new music film Personality Crisis: One Night Only and Barbara Kopple’s Gumbo Coalition, as well as the world premiere of Coco Schrijber’s Look What You Made Me Do.

Notably, the selection sees several renowned directors reinventing their cinematic language. Patricio Guzmán breaks from his poetic trilogy to adapt a more direct, political form of filmmaking with My Imaginary Country, on the October 2019 protests in Santiago. Gianfranco Rosi directs his first archive-based film In viaggio, looking to Pope Francis’ travels as a map of the human condition. Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed co-direct a film together for the first time with Music for Black Pigeons, a reflection on aging through jazz music. Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, on the other hand, takes an unprecedented look at a controversial erotic novel through an elaborate casting call.

Other masters remain faithful to their celebrated film languages as they explore subjects of increasing relevance. Among them, Sergei Loznitsa provocatively offers a missing link in history with The Kiev Trial, and Adirley Queirós and Joana Pimenta shine a spotlight on an all-women gang of oil bandits in their explosive hybrid feature Dry Ground Burning. Final titles to be announced.

Best of Fests

The expansive Best of Fests section brings the highlights of the year’s harvest, presenting the best films from Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, Visions du Réel, and CPH:DOX among others.

Ukraine is ever-present in the selection, with several courageous filmmakers delivering urgent perspectives on war, art, and humanity. Simon Lereng Wilmont’s A House Made of Splinters enters into a Ukrainian children’s home near the frontlines, exploring the characters’ sorrows, expectations, and resiliency. In Fragile Memory, Igor Ivanko resurrects the personal stories from behind the Iron Curtain via his grandfather’s old camerawork. In The Hamlet Syndrome, Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski bring together a Ukrainian theater group to recreate the Shakespearean play in dialogue with their own traumatic reality.

Other films travel the world to pursue heartfelt stories rich in song and dance, as in Cesária Évora, Ana Sofia Fonseca’s tribute to the Cape Verde icon, and Bobi Wine: The People’s President, Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo’s shocking portrait of the rising Ugandan pop star-turned-politician. Meanwhile, Beba, the breakout hit by Afro-Latinx New Yorker Rebecca Huntt and Alis by Clare Weiskopf and Nicolás van Hemelryck bring forward their own musicality, electrifying the screen through young women artists and storytellers who defy all expectations.