IDFA 2022 - Co-Curated Watch List with Wouter Jansen

[November 07, 2022] In this episode, I am joined with Wouter Jansen from Square Eyes ahead of his travels to IDFA to review the festival program.  IDFA is one of the largest documentary events, and their extensive programming is energizing for the international documentary film community. But it can also be overwhelming with over 250 titles and only ten days. So, before boarding our flights, Wouter joined me to go through each section of the program and co-curated a watch list to help guide our festival experience. 

Square Eyes is a sales and distribution company based in Vienna that specializes in helping outstanding non-mainstream films find the audience and recognition they deserve. With Square Eyes, Wouter represents bold, author-driven features and shorts, and collaborates closely with the filmmakers to devise bespoke festival distribution and sales strategies. He has a very focused catalog of films that have premiered at prestigious festivals and winning multiple awards over the last few years like main prizes at Cannes, TIFF, Berlin, Locarno and Clermont-Ferrand. 

This year, he will be at IDFA representing two titles, ANHEIL69 by Theo Montoya, which made its premiere in the Critics Week section of the Venice Film Festival and EUROPE by Philip Scheffner which premiered at the Berlinale Forum section earlier this year.

WOUTER JANSEN, SQUARE EYES

Wouter Jansen is the founder of the sales and festival distribution company Square Eyes. He worked as the head of programming at the Go Short - International Film Festival during the first 10 editions. In 2013 he started Some Shorts, which changed to Square Eyes in 2019, which specializes in having outstanding non-mainstream films find the audience and recognition they deserve. With Square Eyes, Wouter represents bold, author-driven features and shorts, and collaborates closely with the filmmakers to devise bespoke festival distribution and sales strategies. This has resulted in a small catalogue of films premiering at prestigious festivals and winning multiple awards over the last few years like main prizes at Cannes, TIFF, Berlin, Locarno and Clermont-Ferrand. 

Wouter has been giving lectures at schools like Le Fresnoy, HEAD Geneva and Netherlands Film Academy and is an expert for Locarno Open Doors and First Cut Lab. He has moderated as well as lead workshops at festivals like IDFA, True/False, Winterthur, VIS Vienna Shorts and others. He is a Berlinale Talents alumni.

CHRISTINA ZACHARIADES, DOCS IN ORBIT

Christina is a researcher, filmmaker and editor of Docs in Orbit where she leads the curation of content. 

Christina holds an M.A. from the University of Texas in Austin, and an M.A. in Documentary Filmmaking from DocNomads where she studied at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, Lusófona University in Lisbon, and the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest.

She participated in an artist residency at UnionDocs in 2020 where she engaged in political media production to provide aid for social movements. In 2021, she was invited to share her experience in the intersection of new media and film criticism at the Berlinale Press Talents in Sarajevo. Christina is also a programming associate and part of the screening committee at the Camden International Film Festival.

SQUARE EYES x DOCS IN ORBIT Watch List for IDFA 2022

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

ENVISION COMPETITION

SHORT DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

DOCLAB COMPETITION FOR IMMERSIVE NON-FICTION

IDFA ON STAGE

BEST OF FESTS

PARADOCS

LAURA POITRAS + TOP 10

ADDITIONAL FILMS IN OTHER SECTIONS