“It has been a rollercoaster,” reflects Orwa Nyrabia of his seven-year stewardship of International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as artistic director, which came to an end this week.
During his time leading one of the documentary world’s largest festivals, Syrian filmmaker Nyrabia had to navigate the Covid pandemic, which meant online and hybrid editions during various lockdowns in the Netherlands and around the world.
IDFA was then the first major festival to take place after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas in Israel that saw Palestinian militants murder over 1,200 people, two-thirds of them civilians, and kidnap and take hostage a further 200 Israeli civilians and soldiers.
It provoked a military response from Israel that has killed more than 56,000 people, many of them civilians, in Gaza to date, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
IDFA took place just six weeks into the devastating conflict. Activists took to the stage on opening night, holding a sign with the words: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, a contentious phrase considered antisemitic by some, a call for an independent Palestinian state by others.
Festival organisers issued a statement apologising for the “hurtful slogan”, a move that prompted the Palestinian Film Institute to cancel several activities at IDFA and several filmmakers to withdraw their films.
Emerging out of that year’s edition, Nyrabia was highly attuned to the need for major festivals to become better equipped to respond with sensitivity to the world beyond them. At his urging, IDFA hosted a symposium called ‘Finding The Compass’ in the summer of 2024. It brought together Dutch and international festivals and cultural institutions to look inward, and address challenges and shortcomings in everything from funding to inclusivity.
“One of the key problems with institutional work in culture is how institutions get so used to [doing] things,” says Nyrabia now. “With every crisis, we try to wait it out. We imagine that the world can change around us but that we can be patient and make sure it doesn’t affect us.”
Nyrabia is hopeful ‘Finding The Compass’ has prompted lasting change, at least at IDFA. “The questions that came out of that symposium will keep resonating in different forms. There will always be panels, talks and think tanks at IDFA that will build on this and continue the discussion.
“I never think in terms of looking back and regretting things,” he continues, of his personal response to the turbulent events of his tenure. “I am a progressive person. I did not grow up in safety and prosperity. The way I know life is all about shit being thrown at you and you trying to process and think how to deal with it. That’s life as I know it – and I am fine with that.”
He says he saw both the impact of the pandemic and the Israel-Hamas war on the festival as an artistic challenge. “You have a disaster in front of you and you are expected to imagine a way to be meaningful, to add value to society but also to the filmmaking community,” he explains.
Nyrabia is credited with bringing discussions about ethics and politics to the forefront at IDFA. The multi-award-winning No Other Land, co-directed by a Palestinian-Israeli collective comprising Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Ballal and Rachel Szor, was supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund early on.
During his time as artistic director, Nyrabia says he has offered a platform to “filmmakers who feel they are not compatible with the western industry… [and] acting like a bridge between the festival and the market”.
Love letter to Damascus
Nyrabia is now returning to producing at a time when his homeland is undergoing further upheaval following the rapid fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in late 2024.
He is working on a slate of six projects with his partner Diana El Jeiroudi at their Berlin-based production company No Nation Films, which they hope to announce later this year. He is also hoping to direct a film of his own, Damascus Queen Of Hearts , which looks at how dictatorship first became visible on the streets of Damascus.
“It is a declaration of love for the city of Damascus, for its beauty, culture and arts while being paralysed and invaded by the kitsch of dictatorship, of fascism,” Nyrabia explains.
He started working on the film more than 15 years ago but believed the material had been lost forever. To his delight, it has been recently rediscovered.
“It was very strange. Relatives in Damascus had kept a few boxes of our stuff because when we had to leave the country, we had to leave everything. But a few boxes were left and at the bottom of one of those boxes we found the tapes we thought were destroyed by the [Assad] regime years back.”
Nyrabia and El Jeiroudi have plans for many Syrian stories. “One does feel a certain connection and responsibility toward Syria just now,” he reflects. “This is a very sensitive moment [and] certainly, it is a priority to work with Syria, with Syrian filmmakers.”
Legacy
It is now over six months since Nyrabia’s IDFA departure was announced and he has spent the time laying the groundwork for the next edition that will take place from November 13-23, 2025. At the same time, he has made sure “all the strategic decisions are open” so they can be taken by his successor, Isabel Arrate Fernandez.
Nyrabia has also remained heavily involved in the year-round programming at the festival’s new permanent base, the IDFA Vondelpark Pavilion. It has just held a near sell-out retrospective of the documentaries of Agnes Varda.
Arrate Fernandez is an IDFA insider who has worked at the organisation for far longer than Nyrabia himself, having spent many years as executive director of the IDFA Bertha Fund.
“She knows [IDFA] inside out and she has amazing capacities,” says the outgoing director. “People who know Isabel and have dealt with her from around the world in the last two decades appreciate her highly. She is wise, she is capable, and she comes from film.
“Her leading the Fund is key here because her relationship with the organisation comes from the place of support to filmmakers.”
In 2025, the festival budget is expected to be around €8.6m, a slight reduction on previous years, but IDFA remains on a relatively solid financial footing by comparison with many other arts organisations and festivals.
“I am very happy I managed to find some balance between the radical and the pragmatic,” considers Nyrabia of his seven years at the helm. “[IDFA] is done by a bunch of great people. I am proud that I did not hinder their good work.”
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