International Documentary Film Amsterdam 2026
IDFA Market Accelerator
The National Directors Division (NDD) of the Directors Guild of Canada is proud to announce selections for the NDD Market Accelerator Delegation at the International Documentary Film Amsterdam 2026 running from November 12 – 17.
Aeyliya Husain
OntarioLife is Beautiful Again (Documentary)
Life is Beautiful Again (working title), is a feature documentary that follows the journey of two rising hip-hop artists, Meryem Saci and Nadine El Roubi. Both women are poised for success, they are at a turning point: talented, motivated, and on the brink of wider recognition but they are pushing against an industry that wants them to be something they’re not.
Shannon Walsh
British ColumbiaHeteros (Documentary)
Across the globe, straight women are opting out of dating men. Playful and archive-driven, HETEROS investigates why heterosexuality just isn’t that into them, and what new intimacies are emerging in its wake.
Producing Partners: Level Ground Productions; Directors: Shannon Walsh & Chase Joynt
Robin McKenna
QuébecMedicine (Documentary)
Two doctors, one bitter medicine. In the Peruvian Amazon, Jacques Mabit treats addiction alongside Indigenous healers; in Vancouver, Gabor Maté, not yet the world’s best-known voice on trauma, risks his medical licence to do the same. An intimate journey into what it really takes to heal.
Producing Partners: Co-directed, written and produced with Mark O’Fearghail
Francine Zuckerman
OntarioAlma Rosé (Documentary)
Based on stories of a woman they never met, two descendants of Auschwitz survivors set out to rediscover Alma Rosé – the celebrated violinist who transformed Auschwitz’s all – female orchestra into a lifeline for more than fifty women. Through survivor testimony, rare archives and innovative animation, the past comes vividly to life, revealing the impossible choices behind one of the Holocaust’s most morally complex stories – and how one woman saved not only dozens of prisoners, but generations that followed.
Producing Partners: Sally Blake, Films à Cinq
Rachel Bower
Nova ScotiaSocial Clones (Documentary)
With its apps, filters and algorithms, the technological gaze pushes us to chase the reflection it curates. Behind the curtain lies a system designed to keep us chasing.
Karen Chapman
OntarioRoots (Documentary)
Roots (tentative title) is an intimate historical investigation into how patriarchal and colonial systems have shaped the violence families inherit.
Producing Partners: Smallaxx Motion Pictures; Ossob Hassan
Cdn Broadcaster: CBC
Carmen Pollard
British ColumbiaAt the Penthouse (Documentary)
As the once-glittering, now-faded Penthouse Cabaret faces its final curtain, a legendary stripper—its dazzling star for 30 years—delves into the club’s scandalous, near-century-long history, confronting her own past and revealing the secrets behind the infamous 1983 murder of its magnetic frontman.
Producing Partners: Lucy McNulty; Strange Company Productions & Diving Bell Films
Sturla Gunnarsson
OntarioBeijing Hostage Book Club (Documentary)
When former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig is arrested in Beijing in retaliation for Canada’s detention of Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou, he becomes a human bargaining chip in a geopolitical confrontation between China, Canada and the United States. After 1,019 days in detention, the crisis ends in a midnight exchange of prisoners and planes—a moment when the old rules fall away and Canada wakes to a changed world.
Producing Partners: Prodco: White Pine Pictures
Cdn Broadcaster: CBC
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