IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL 2023

The IFI Documentary Festival will be back, September 25th – 29th 2024!

See last year's line-up below.

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: LOST BOYS: BELFAST’S MISSING CHILDREN

World Premiere During the winter of 1969, young boys started to disappear from the streets of Belfast, never to be seen again. By 1974, as the Troubles were reaching a…

Wednesday 27th Sep 2023 18.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: AURORA’S SUNRISE

Irish Premiere Aurora was just 14 years old when she lost everything during the horror of the Armenian genocide of 1915. Two years later, through extraordinary courage and multiple miraculous…

Thursday 28th Sep 2023 18.20

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: YOUR FAT FRIEND + Q&A

Irish Premiere Aubrey Gordon writes anonymously with candour and humour as ‘Your Fat Friend’ about what it means to be a very fat woman in the world. Her searingly honest…

Thursday 28th Sep 2023 20.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: CROWS ARE WHITE

In this disarmingly personal documentary Ahsen Nadeem, who was raised Muslim in Saudi Arabia and came to live in the heart of Cavan at age 10, now finds himself so…

Friday 29th Sep 2023 18.20

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: RIDERS ON THE STORM + Q&A

Irish Premiere When US forces leave Afghanistan, ending the longest war in US history, the Taliban gain ground. Against this tumultuous backdrop, Khaiber Akbarzada is on the verge of becoming…

Friday 29th Sep 2023 20.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: IRISH SHORTS PROGRAMME

From micro-budget student films to lush cinematic odysseys, and with a distinct focus on working class Dublin experience, this year’s programme explores themes of adversity, injustice and identity alongside playful…

Saturday 30th Sep 2023 12.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: MY LOST RUSSIAN MOTHER + Q&A

Irish filmmaker Sam Jones, in his first feature documentary, welcomes the newfound friendship of US citizen Gabe, and follows him to a remote Russian village in search of the mother…

Saturday 30th Sep 2023 15.20

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: IN THE SHADOW OF BEIRUT

From the makers of GAZA (2019), comes a new cinematic odyssey, penetrating deep below the surface of Beirut, a still beautiful, yet deeply troubled city on the brink of financial…

Saturday 30th Sep 2023 18.00

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: HUNGRY HILL + Q&A

Hungry Hill follows the daily struggles of a community of sheep farmers as they negotiate the mountainous terrain of the Beara Peninsula. Farmers Connie and John Doyle work alongside their…

Saturday 30th Sep 2023 18.10

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: CASA SUSANNA

Irish Premiere In the 1950s and ‘60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a modest house in the Catskills region of New York. Known…

Saturday 30th Sep 2023 20.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD

Irish Premiere Estonia’s traditional smoke sauna, inscribed in UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, is an intimate space where women gather to not just cleanse their bodies, but also their…

Sunday 1st Oct 2023 13.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: IFI & AEMI: MAKING DUST

World Premiere Making Dust is a powerful portrait of the demolition of the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas in 2021, the second-largest Catholic Church in Ireland when it was…

Sunday 1st Oct 2023 15.30

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL

Irish Premiere A team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work recording atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters…

Sunday 1st Oct 2023 18.10

IFI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: THE GRACELESS AGE – THE BALLAD OF JOHN MURRY

John Murry was on the cusp of greatness with his highly acclaimed album The Graceless Age (2013) when, addicted to heroin and creatively exhausted, he washed up on Irish shores…

Sunday 1st Oct 2023 20.15