IDFA 2026 Puts a Montreal Debut in Competition

The Amsterdam documentary festival opens with a Myanmar resistance film and puts Carol Nguyen's NFB co-production in its International Competition.

By Andrew Lovesey October 26, 2026 5 min read

Photo: National Film Board of Canada

IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, has completed its 2026 selection: 253 titles from 80 countries for its 39th edition, running Nov. 12 to 22. For Canadian viewers, the headline is in the International Competition, where Montreal filmmaker Carol Nguyen’s first feature, Still Night, Burning House, is one of 13 titles.

The Canadian entry

Still Night, Burning House (La nuit, le brasier) follows Nguyen’s family on their first reunion since the death of her uncle Thach, as they travel to Vietnam and revisit his unexplained death, his medical history and decades of silence. IDFA’s synopsis says he had always hidden his mental illness. The 76-minute film, in English and Vietnamese, is a co-production of Metafilms, PORTAGE Films and the National Film Board of Canada, according to the NFB. The NFB notes that the film includes discussion of suicide and its effects on survivors.

The NFB describes Nguyen as a Montreal-based Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker. Her short No Crying at the Dinner Table premiered at TIFF, IDFA and South by Southwest, where it won the jury prize for short documentary, and her short Nanitic screened at the Berlinale and TIFF. The feature has already played TIFF, the Atlantic International Film Festival, VIFF, the Festival du nouveau cinéma and the Windsor International Film Festival this fall. IDFA says the project came through its own Project Space.

Carol Nguyen's father, Ngọc Nguyễn, looking out at the ocean in Vietnam — In pictures 3

Vietnamese incense sticks being made, in Still Night, Burning House — In pictures 3

Opening night and the competition

IDFA opens with the world premiere of White Tiger Column by Robert Mentov, Dwight Jantzi and Bryan Dickie, which follows a group of recruits through 45 days of training with Myanmar’s resistance movement. It is also in the International Competition and nominated for the festival’s Best First Feature award.

The festival says 12 of the 13 International Competition films are world or international premieres. Other titles include Tala Hadid’s Bardi, about boys in central Morocco learning the equestrian art of Tbourida; Khadim Dai’s Hazara Town, about a Hazara family in Pakistan; Salomé Jashi’s An Incomplete Day in the History of Georgia 10.06.93, built from parliamentary footage; and Elwira Niewiera’s Women and War, about four women in therapy at a Ukrainian mountain chalet.

Envision

The 13-film Envision Competition includes Victor Kossakovsky’s Trillion, Sky Hopinka’s Powwow People, Susana de Sousa Dias’s Fordlândia Panacea and Alejandro Alonso Estrella’s Bahía Honda.

Winners are announced at IDFA’s awards ceremony on Thursday, Nov. 19. The Best First Feature, Best Dutch Film and ReFrame awards each carry a €5,000 prize, according to the festival.

Carol Nguyen’s earlier films

Still Night, Burning House has a forerunner that can be watched now. The NFB‘s press kit calls Nguyen’s 2019 short No Crying at the Dinner Table the feature’s companion piece. In it she interviews her own family; the film’s own description calls it a documentary about “intergenerational trauma, grief, and secrets,” made as a student film when she was 21, with Aziz Zoromba as producer.

The short has its own IDFA history. The NFB says it screened at TIFF, IDFA and South by Southwest, where it won the Jury Prize for Short Documentary, and was named to TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten list. Nguyen hosts it on her Vimeo channel, and the European Film Academy features it in its Vimeo Staff Picks collection with an embedded player. The Vimeo description carries a note that the discussion of trauma may be upsetting for some viewers and links to mental health and crisis hotline resources; the same care applies to the new feature, which follows a family’s first reunion since an uncle’s death.

Her 2022 short Nanitic screened at the Berlinale and TIFF, according to the NFB; its materials do not list a streaming home for it. Nguyen is also developing a fiction feature, selected for the TIFF Writers’ Studio in 2025.

The festival run so far

IDFA is the latest stop on a festival run that has mostly been Canadian. The NFB’s press kit lists 2026 selections at TIFF, where it had its world premiere in the TIFF Docs program, then the Atlantic International Film Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival, the National Competition of the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma and the Windsor International Film Festival. How a film’s premiere status changes as it moves from one festival to the next is explained in What a Festival Premiere Actually Means.

The feature runs 76 minutes, in English and Vietnamese, and is a co-production of Metafilms, Portage Films and the NFB. The producers are Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre of Portage Films and Robert Vroom and Ariel Nasr of the NFB, with executive producers Sylvain Corbeil (Metafilms), Nathalie Cloutier (NFB), Bob Moore (EyeSteelFilm) and Anh Duy Vo Dinh (Spotlight Production).

No theatrical distributor or streaming date has been announced. The NFB says only that the film is “set to launch in 2026.” The NFB does stream about 7,000 works free at nfb.ca, and its fall plans for festival titles are tracked in The NFB’s Fall, Mapped. For Canadian festivals still to come this year, see Festival Season Isn’t Over.

Where to watch

IDFA 2026: Amsterdam, Nov. 12 to 22
Still Night, Burning House: IDFA International Competition; no Canadian release date announced yet
Awards ceremony: Nov. 19
No Crying at the Dinner Table (2019 short): Carol Nguyen’s Vimeo channel · Online · Streaming now