Free associations. Minds freely reeling away. Illumination through film.

These were my first impressions of this year’s IDFA poster campaign. If you missed it on the city’s squares, corners and flags, it’s a simply-designed grey poster with a person’s mind connected to many film reels. Some argue that in its greyness it does not do justice to IDFA and that it’s not catchy enough. To me though, it fits like a glove.

IDFA might be an internationally anticipated festival, but it has a select audience. After all, documentary film is a genre of an acquired taste – or rather mind. To me it is a reality check: a small dosage of awareness of cruelties we might not directly experience, but could (indirectly) easily inflict upon others. Of course, documentary cannot be simplified like that; its evolution has surpassed whatever expectations we had – but hasn’t human development done the same thing?

Again this year we celebrate this particular evolution, by screening the best and worst parts of ourselves as inhabitants of this planet. We might not always like what we see, but doubtlessly we digest it, discuss it and relate it to previous knowledge and experiences. In this final synthesis we create new ways of thinking which eventually result in social progression.

The changes we’ve set in motion are interrelated – now all we need is to sit down and piece the puzzle together.

Lura Limani