IDFA Artistic Director Orwa Nyrabia To Step Down In 2025
Orwa Nyrabia has announced he will step down as Artistic Director of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) this summer.
He announced the decision jointly with the organization in the run-up to the 2024 festival edition from November 14-24, making the upcoming edition the seventh and last under his leadership.
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Syria-born doc professional Nyrabia took up the post of artistic director at IDFA in 2018, replacing the festival’s co-founder and long-time head Ally Derks.
Prior to IDFA, he was a producer under the banner of No Nation Films (originally launched as Proaction Film), alongside wife and producer partner Diana El Jeiroudi. The pair also launched the DOX BOX organization aimed at supporting documentary production in the wider Arab world, which grew out of a festival they once ran back in Syria.
Nyrabia’s arrival at IDFA followed six hectic years, which saw him flee Damascus in 2012, after he fell foul of the Bashar al-Assad regime and was imprisoned in the early days of the Syrian war.
Basing themselves out of Berlin, Nyrabia and El Jeiroudi went on to complete Republic Of Silence, the latter’s personal account of growing up in Syria, as well as seminal works 5 Seasons of Revolution, Silvered Water and Return to Homs capturing the reality of the war from the inside.
IDFA credited Nyrabia and his team with revamping the festival’s film and industry programs and launching new platforms and initiatives that have become mainstays of the festival, such as the Envision Competition, IDFA On Stage, and the Producers Connection.
He also pushed for greater gender parity and expanded global representation in the sector, embedding this drive into all of IDFA’s processes, to reflect the doc world in all its diversity. His tenure also saw the festival weather the pandemic and challenges of the ever-changing documentary landscape.
“I have always seen this great role as an artistic endeavor, as a responsibility much more important and critical than being merely a job. I recognize a natural ending for it coming up; a good moment for starting a new chapter. My decision is one more way of expressing my love to IDFA and its remarkable team,” Nyrabia said in a release announcing his departure.
“Change is necessary, especially when at the right moment. I am proud of what we have accomplished together, as a team, and with the global film community, over the past meaningful and challenging years.”
Nyrabia said he would be returning to the documentary business.
“I will gradually, and happily, return soon to the other side, that of those sending their ideas, films, and funding applications and waiting anxiously, and critically, for answers,” he said.
Marry de Gaay Fortman, Chair of IDFA’s Supervisory Board, thanked Nyrabia for his contribution over the last seven years.
“His influence in the artistic field lifted IDFA and has driven the festival as well as the organization to places we never knew they existed,” she said.
“Orwa’s vision drives the ambition and while his departure saddens us on the one hand, we also want to give him the opportunity to pursue his ambition and discover new paths. After the festival, IDFA will start the search process for a new Artistic Director. We are thankful that Orwa is here in the transition period until the end of his contract on July 1, 2025.”
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