The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tickets. Visitors to the festival have increased from 65,000 in 2000 to 285,000 in 2018.
Klaartje Quirijns is a Dutch film and television director and producer. In The Netherlands she worked as a documentary director and producer for the public stations VPRO, IKON and NPS.
Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist who has been an outspoken critic of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump.
Femen is a radical feminist activist group whose goal is to protect women's rights. The organization became internationally known for organizing controversial topless protests against sex tourism, religious institutions, sexism, homophobia, and other social, national, and international topics. Founded in Ukraine, the group is now based in France. Femen describes its ideology as being "sextremism, atheism and feminism".
Michael Obert is a German book author and journalist who has been compared with the likes of Bruce Chatwin, Jon Krakauer and Ryszard Kapuściński. His debut movie Song from the Forest was honored with the Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2013. In 2016 Song from the Forest was considered for the 88th Academy Awards.
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in August 2011, it has had a membership of approximately 11 women. The group staged unauthorized, provocative guerrilla gigs in public places. These performances were filmed as music videos and posted on the internet. The group's lyrical themes included feminism, LGBT rights, opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his policies, and Putin's links to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Julia Ioffe is a Russian-born American journalist. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Republic, Politico, and The Atlantic. Ioffe has appeared on television programs on MSNBC, CBS, PBS, and other news channels as a Russia expert. She is the Washington correspondent for the website Puck.
Nadya Tolokonnikova is a Russian musician, conceptual artist, and political activist. She is a founding member of the feminist group Pussy Riot, and has a history of political activism with the street art group Voina.
Maria Vladimirovna "Masha" Alyokhina is a Russian political activist. She is a member of the anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot.
Petra Costa is a Brazilian filmmaker and actress. She has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2018.
Pyotr Yurievich Verzilov is a Russian-Canadian artist and activist who came to prominence as the unofficial spokesperson of the band Pussy Riot when he was arrested and jailed by the Russian state in 2012. Verzilov was married to Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova.
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is a 2013 documentary film by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin. The film follows the court cases on the Russian feminist/anti-Putinist punk-rock protest group Pussy Riot. Directed by Lerner and Pozdorovkin, the film featured publicly available footage of the court proceedings and interviews with the families of the band members, but no interviews with the band members themselves.
Bellingcat is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014. Bellingcat publishes the findings of both professional and citizen journalist investigations into war zones, human rights abuses, and the criminal underworld. The site's contributors also publish guides to their techniques, as well as case studies.
WG Film is a Swedish production company that produces national and international documentaries. The company is located in Malmö and was founded in 1994 by documentary filmmaker Lars Westman and journalist Fredrik Gertten.
Boris Gerrets (1948–2020) was a Dutch film director, film writer and editor based in Berlin, Germany. He was born into a Bulgarian-German family in Amsterdam and was raised in The Netherlands, Spain, Sierra Leone and Germany.
Something Better to Come is a Danish-Polish documentary film about children living on a garbage dump near Moscow directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak and produced by Sigrid Dyekjær of Danish Documentary – one of the world's key players in creative documentary film production. Something Better to Come won the Special Jury Award at the world's biggest documentary festival – IDFA, where the film had premiered.
Melanie Bonajo (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, Dutch artist, filmmaker, feminist, sexological bodyworker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and animal rights activist. Through their videos, performances, photographs and installations, Mel examines current conundrums of co-existence in a crippling capitalistic systems, and address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world.
Mediazona is a Russian independent media outlet focused on Anti Putinist opposition that were founded by Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who are also co-founders of the protest group and band Pussy Riot. The outlet's editor-in-chief is Russian political journalist Sergey Smirnov.
Here One Day is a 2012 documentary film on the life and suicide of Nina Leichter, the wife of politician Franz S. Leichter. It was directed by their daughter, Kathy Leichter.
Antoine Viviani is a french filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Paris.
