The veteran director/poet and cultural institution in Denmark, will receive IDFA's Lifetime Achievement Award for his ability to “inspire generations of filmmakers with his strong auteur voice and fearless perspective on reality".

His latest opus I Walk filmed by his son Asger Leth and Tómas Gislason, is a personal film about dealing with old age and the psychological trauma of surviving an earthquake in Haiti. The film is produced by Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær of Danish Documentary, in association with TV2 and support the Danish Film Institute. It will premiere in Denmark in 2020.

While Leth’s filmic testament has a prestigious spot in the main competition at the 32nd IDFA (November 20-December 1st), films from rising filmmakers or focusing on children and youth make up the rest of the Nordic competition slate.

  • The Finnish film Lady Time by Elina Talvensaari, selected for the mid-length competition section, is the director’s first full length documentary after her graduation film Purity of Danger (Critics Choice at Helsinki’s DocPoint 2017). Here Talvensaari sets on a mission to bring back from oblivion the life of Liisa Miettinen who used to live in the home that the director happened to buy. The film which is having its world premiere at IDFA, was produced by Aamu Filmi’s Jussi Rantamäki (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki). 
  • The Danish film I Love You I Miss You I Hope to See You Before I Die by Eva Marie Rødbro is among 12 films running in the First Appearance section. The director has followed Betty, a young mother of two, living below the poverty line and sharing a house with 10 others in suburban Colorado Springs. Rødbro observes the female camaraderie and fleetin moments of joy of these marginalised lives. The film was produced by Julie Friis Walenciak of Paloma Productions, with support from the Danish Film Institute's New Danish Screen.
  • In the short competition section, the 16-minute Swedish film A Legacy of Horses by Jessica Karlsson and Annika Karlsson centres on a father and son’s passion for horses in Dublin’s working class Ballymun neighbourhood.

Meanwhile no less than three Nordic docs have been selected for the Kids & Docs programme out of 12 competing titles:

  • Bird Boy (22’) by Danish director Simon Lereng Wilmont, is the follow up to the acclaimed The Distant Barking of Dogs, IDFA First Appearance winner 2017. The main protagonist is 12 year-old Reshat, a young boy from Azerbaijan who loves pigeons, a passion he shared with his father who passed away a year earlier. The film produced by Toolbox Film, is part of the ‘Kids on the Silk Road’ Series, backed by Nordisk Film & TV Fond. 
  • Karla & Nordahl (19’) by Norway’s Elisabeth Aspeling, tells of Karla (6) and her special bond and relationship with her elder brother Nordahl who suffers from epilepsy and learning difficulties. Nitteberg Film & TV is producing. 
  • Winter Lake (15’) by Finland’s Petteri Saario, centres on Emika (13) and her cousin Antti who decide to go camping in winter. The film is produced by Citizen Jane Productions, in association with Yle and support from the Finnish Film Foundation.

Nordic films in non-competitive sections include Louise Detlefsen and Louise Unmack Kjeldsen’s Fat Front (DK) and Tonje Hessen Schei’s iHumans (NO), screening in ‘Frontlight’; Eva Mulvad’s Love Child (DK), Fredrik Gertten’s Push (SE) Anders Østergaard’s The Winter Journey (DK) screening in the Masters section.

The Best of the Fests has a festive slate of 24 award-winning films such as Toronto Danish hits The Cave by Feras Fayyad, Hunting for Hedonia by Pernille Rose Gronkjær, Nordisk Panorama winner Once Aurora by Norway’s Benjamin Langeland and Stian Servoss, Swedish films Ridge by John Skoog (CPH:DOX award) and Tribeca double winner Scheme Birds by Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin.

Once Aurora, Hunting for Hedonia, Push and Fat Front were supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

The 32nd IDFA will kick-off with Mehrdad Oskouei’s Sunless Shadows, about a group of adolescent girls in a juvenile detention centre in Iran. The film competing as well for Best Feature Length Documentary, is co-produced by Norway’s Indie Film, in association with NRK.

More than 64% of the films in the competition sections are directed by women and 47% of all films screening at IDFA are female-directed, reflecting artistic director Orwa Nyrabia’s ’s commitment to a greater artistic diversity.