Production
Visitors pile in and out of Pathé Tuschinski between film screenings. Photo by Roger Cremers.
During a year when last-minute COVID-19 measures demanded festival production embrace a flexible approach, the department succeeded—together with hundreds of volunteers—in making big steps forward, by adding new locations outside the city center and implementing a safe and exciting environment in all the venues.
Laura Springer
Production Coordinator at IDFA:
“What I consider a huge success of IDFA 2021 is the fact that we were able to connect, motivate, mobilize both the audience, volunteers, location managers, and tons of other people to help us organize the festival while dealing with the COVID-19 measures. There’s a huge machine behind festival production, with an important role for our approximately 500 volunteers. The pandemic forces us to be creative and based on the learnings of the previous edition, we knew it was important to make our program available to an online audience as well. We were able to successfully set up the hybrid program Live from Tuschinski and bring a live experience with films and Q&As to the homes of our audience.”
Alex de Ronde
Director of Het Ketelhuis cinema: “My view is as follows: The more professional the organization, the more efficient the preparation in the build up towards a collaboration. The fact that the meetings with IDFA are efficient and sweet says a lot about their great way of working. IDFA also took an exemplary attitude with regard to the COVID-19 measures, with rules that were widely noted elsewhere. “
Designer and Craftswoman Mina Abouzahra (left) and freelance journalist and researcher Youssra Oulad Messaoud (right) at IDFA Meets Nour Magazine. Photo by Lin Woldendorp.
Q&A with Nathalie Beckers,
Deputy Director of Podium Mozaïek
With unique programming in Podium Mozaïek, IDFA wants to reach new audiences across the city of Amsterdam. Nathalie Beckers, Deputy Director of the venue, reflects on this dynamic partnership.
How does the collaboration with IDFA positively impact Podium Mozaïek? For me, the added value of the collaboration with IDFA is showing themes that are important to us in a different way: diversity, identity, and cultural differences and similarities. With documentaries and the context programs, selected by us, we are able to tell other stories than we usually do with performing arts.
Have you seen new audiences visit your venue as a result? Especially thanks to IDFA Meets, we are able to reach a whole new audience, with visitors who have never visited IDFA or Podium Mozaïek before. We also notice that these evenings are easily accessible for audiences living close by to our venue, based outside of the city center.
What was one of the IDFA 2021 highlights for you? That would definitely be the IDFA Meets event together with Nour Magazine. In a sold-out theater, the film and the panel discussion afterwards stimulated great connections between different art forms. The documentary, the discussions, the music, and the performances resulted in a real crossover experience. How would you like to collaborate with IDFA in the future? I would very much like to organize more evenings like the IDFA Meets with Nour Magazine outside the festival period, with stories from upcoming creators that appeal to a young audience. This collaboration creates new perspectives about your own identity and background, and it becomes clear that some themes also are relevant outside your own city. You realize that culture is broader and more layered than you have often been taught at home. You can develop yourself again by rediscovering and deepening your roots. By demonstrating and talking about these subjects, they become more visible.
An IDFA volunteer and festival visitor. Photo by Roos Trommelen.
