Category: BEST DOCUMENTARY – ARFF Amsterdam 2026

Original Film Title: Taming the Fish

Director’s Name: Ding Jiancheng

Writer’s Name: Ding Jiancheng

Producer: Chunxue Zhang

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes

Film Description:

In the winter of 2001, in the village beside Luyang Lake, the pressures of working in the city and the persistent sense of not belonging finally led Desheng to return home and raise fish in his family’s pond. After getting married and having a child, his life seemed to settle into a peaceful harbor. When I first filmed Desheng, he was 29 years old and his daughter was three. The family lived with Desheng’s parents. I lived with them for several months and felt deeply that their home was full of happiness and contentment.

Twenty-four years later—I returned to film this family again. Desheng is 53 years old. Over the past 24 years, his life has undergone tremendous change. His parents passed away, one after another; his family has fallen apart. His wife has long since divorced him and left the village.
Today, Desheng still tends the fish pond and lives with his now-grown daughter.

“Taming the Fish“ evokes the ancient Chinese legend of “the carp leaping over the Dragon Gate,” in which a Yellow River carp, after leaping over the gate, transforms into a dragon.
But in the human world, isn’t he also a kind of “fish”? Unlike the fish he breeds, he is the one who once tried to leap over his own Dragon Gate—the untamed “fish.” He once left the small square pond of his hometown to swim toward a wider river and sea, only to return to the place where he was born and raised. Was Desheng “tamed” by fate?

Original Film Title: The Three Musketeers of Georgia

Director’s Name: Maxim Artamonov

Writer’s Name: Nora Romanovsky

Producer: Maxim Artamonov

Country of Origin: Switzerland

Country of Filming: Brazil, France, Georgia, Italy, Poland

Language: English, Georgian

Runtime: 50 minutes

Film Description:

“The Three Musketeers” is an inspiring documentary that tells the real-life stories of three incredible women—Irma, Gvantsa, and Nina, whose passion for fencing and indomitable spirit lead them to the Paralympic Games. These women have faced enormous challenges, yet through their love for fencing and each other, they’ve found strength, friendship, and a renewed passion for life.

An unusual form of film is provided using a special application Crewstudio, which allows you to remotely direct high-quality filming of the film’s characters, which they do themselves on their phones. Thus, the symbiosis of live video diaries of the characters filmed on phones and professional filming determines the special style of the film.

Original Film Title: The Forgotten Women

Director’s Name: Ivana Ivkovic

Writer’s Name: Ivana Ivkovic

Producer: Ivana Ivkovic, Matthew Kohnen

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, United States

Language: Bosnian, English

Runtime: 1 hour 18 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

The Forgotten Women follows Bakira – rape camp survivor, activist, and founder of Women Victims of War – as she continues her pursuit of justice decades after the Bosnian war. Narrated by the filmmaker, who first encountered these testimonies as a college student during the conflict, the film revisits survivors, confronts genocide through sexual violence, and bears witness to resilience, memory, and accountability.

Original Film Title: The Hospital that Doesn’t Exist

Director’s Name: Jinhwan Cho

Writer’s Name: Jinhwan Cho, Hojung Seo

Producer: Hojung Seo

Country of Origin: South Korea

Country of Filming: South Korea

Language: Korean

Runtime: 46 minutes 26 seconds

Film Description:

At a prominent university hospital in Seoul, South Korea, 12 doctors stand closest to the fragile boundary between life, illness, and death. As witnesses to the hidden darkness of the world we endure, they become like twelve apostles in an age of darkness — raising human-centered questions about medicine, society, and what it means to care. This film is their video letter to the world.

Original Film Title: I am Druze

Director’s Name: Tobias Haccou

Writer’s Name: Tobias Haccou

Producer: Tobias Haccou

Country of Origin: Netherlands

Country of Filming: Israel, Netherlands, United States

Language: Dutch

Runtime: 50 minutes

Film Description:

When violence erupts in Sweida, Syria, Dutch filmmaker Tobias Haccou follows the story of the Druze community through personal testimony, historical context and the voices of those fighting to be seen. Presented by Alfred van den Heuvel, I Am Druze is a documentary about identity, persecution, survival and the struggle for recognition.

Original Film Title: A poem by 12 year old boys

Director’s Name: XU JIAN SHENG

Writer’s Name: XU JIAN SHENG

Producer: SHEN YUN

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 13 minutes 37 seconds

Film Description:

This is a non-fictional documentary. Although it looks like a staged film, that’s exactly what I want to do – to turn documentaries into films and films into documentaries.
This documentary follows two children from rural China, Li Wanqin and Shi Yingsuo, who are now 18 years old.
In the summer of 2025, we will look back on the poems they wrote when they were 12 years old. By documenting their lives today at the age of 18, we will observe the changes in their personalities over the past seven years.
In order to create a poetic atmosphere on the screen, we did not use traditional documentary filming techniques. Instead, we specially prepared lighting and angles for each shot, allowing the subjects to freely express themselves within the frame, thereby presenting the most authentic and poetic images.
The two protagonists we have chosen each have their own unique characteristics,
We don’t believe that writing poetry can genuinely enhance one’s academic performance, nor do we think it can help them achieve higher scores in China’s unique selection system, the gaokao. Therefore, we chose the protagonist who studies cooking in a vocational college (which is considered a relatively inferior university in China). His life lacks poetic flair, leaving him burdened with societal pressures, and his voice is drowned out by the hustle and bustle of the city.
For the other protagonist, we chose a particularly shy child at the age of 12. At that time, he was introverted and solitary, living in the mountains with no friends around to chat with. At 12, he was not talkative and his only companion was their family’s calf, his sole friend. Now, at 18, he has finished the college entrance examination, but his results are not ideal.
Our camera captured their 18-year-old moment, but beyond the frame, it also documented our (the main creators’) 28-year-old moment.
At 28, we looked at the 18-year-old version of ourselves in the camera and reminisced about our own 12-year-old selves.
At 28, we ran alongside them, 18-year-olds, in the wheat field bathed in the setting sun.
We believe that the significance of images goes beyond merely recording the moment captured,
It also records the present moment of the recorder.

Original Film Title: SKIRITES THE ELITE FORCE OF KING LEONIDAS

Director’s Name: SPIROS GEORGE FREN

Writer’s Name: IFIGENIA CHARITOPOULOU

Producer: HELLENIC TV

Country of Origin: Greece

Country of Filming: Greece

Language: English

Runtime: 40 minutes

Film Description:

‘SKIRITES, THE ELITE FORCE OF KING LEONIDAS” is a historical, dramatised documentary film, which explores the role of the Skirites, a special military force of the Spartans.

Progenitors of today’s commandos, the Skirites had special training and were assigned difficult, secret missions. The film uncovers a possible major reversal in the story of the greatest battle in ancient history, the battle of Thermopylae. Based on historic documents and testimonies lost in time, just before the final collision, King Leonidas, orders his trustworthy Skirites to murder King Xerxes, an action which could immediately terminate the invasion and therefore change the history course.

The project has been filmed in all the actual places where the historic facts took place, by greek actors and associates and has been endorsed by a notable scientific team which substantiates the historic truth.

The handmade costumes and armors, specially created for the film, are exact copies of the anciet ones. Also, the original soundtrack was composed based on ancient greek music rhytmes.

Original Film Title: The Last Message

Director’s Name: Andrii Voloshyn, Oleksii Liebiediev

Writer’s Name: Marharyta Vlasova

Producer: Andrii Samerkhanov

Country of Origin: Ukraine

Country of Filming: Ukraine

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes 19 seconds

Film Description:

After the death of her 21-year-old cousin in Ukraine, American-Ukrainian singer Kelsie Kimberlin travels there to find answers and discovers that every Ukrainian has a similar story, yet they all face their loss with dignity and resilience.

Original Film Title: NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN !

Director’s Name: Sergio Mario Illuminato

Writer’s Name: Sergio Mario Illuminato

Producer: Sergio Mario Illuminato

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Italy

Language: Italian

Runtime: 52 minutes

Film Description:

Along the coastal landscape of Augusta, between a former salt pan now turned natural reserve and the industrial and military harbor area, the sea constantly changes shape: flamingos, wrecks, iron, naval arsenals, shipyards.

A floating dry dock of the Italian Navy — 152 meters long, weighing 6,000 tons — sank under circumstances that were never fully clarified. After years underwater, it is acquired through a public procedure by the Noé Shipyard, which decides to attempt its recovery using only its own resources. The deadline is fixed: 37 days to bring it back to the surface and move it out of the military area.

When the GO53 is taken over, the structure is already severely compromised: damaged compartments, widespread breaches, unstable internal volumes, corroded metal. On the seabed, the dock has found a new form of equilibrium. Every intervention required to save it also risks causing its collapse.

The film enters this operation as it unfolds. No talking-head interviews, no external explanations. Only bodies, sounds, pressure, waiting.

Underwater, divers work with almost no visibility, navigating by touch inside a structure that can shift behavior at any moment. Above the surface, every variation is calculated in real time: weight, pressure, balance, operational sequences that must continue to hold while everything is changing.

When the pumps begin operating, the GO53 reacts. Water is expelled, the dock rises, stalls, gives way. Water rushes back in. Every advance produces new instability.

The most critical moment arrives when the dock, partially resurfaced and structurally fragile, is secured to be moved out of the military area. The risk of it breaking apart under its own weight becomes real. From that point on, there is no possibility of turning back.

When access to the interior becomes possible again, the space appears transformed: algae, mollusks, and sediment have occupied the submerged surfaces. The sea did not destroy. It inhabited.

Original Film Title: The Man Behind The Humanitarian

Director’s Name: Safiah Fatima Rosslyn, Cedric Jun Xian Choo

Writer’s Name: Safiah Fatima Rosslyn

Producer: Safiah Fatima Rosslyn

Country of Origin: Singapore

Country of Filming: Singapore

Language: English

Runtime: 31 minutes 58 seconds

Film Description:

Mr. Gilbert Goh is one of the most prominent humanitarians in current-day Singapore. From helping the homeless in Singapore to his years-long work in the Middle East, he has touched hearts and soothed them.
His dedication has earned him a feature in Catherine Khoo’s book, “100 Fabulous People”.
But does anyone truly know the man behind the humanitarian?
For the first time ever, Mr. Gilbert Goh bares all in this documentary. Following a day in his life, he shares about his troubled childhood, divorce, and finding hope amidst the rubble.