Still: Do You Know That I'm With You - Darya Andijan

Among the festival selections is Do You Know That I’m With You* by Darya Andijan, screening in the International Short Film Competition. The Academy Award, BAFTA and BIFA-accredited award will honour the best creative approaches in documentaries under 40 minutes. Produced by the Netherlands Film Academy, Andijan's short documentary brings forgotten stories and fragmented memories from the Uyghur diaspora together through a visually rich and poetic narrative. 

The prestigious International Competition is honouring films that best display strong artistic vision and courageous storytelling with an Academy Award accredited award. Here The Netherlands is represented with The Apologist* by Belgian filmmaker Kristof Bilsen. The film, a co-production with Tangerine Tree, will celebrate its world premiere in Sheffield. Through the ritual of saying sorry, Bilsen explores in a bold journey how apologies redefine history and what happens to us as witnesses to the act of atonement.

Beyond the festival programme, Dutch producers are also prominently present at the MeetMarket, one of the world’s largest documentary markets. Four projects with Dutch involvement have been selected this year, ranging from a Dutch documentary production to ambitious co-productions.

Among them is The Sacrifice* by directors Ruud Lenssen and Sander Selen, produced by Nienke Korthof and Willem Baptist for Tangerine Tree. Set at the edge of a melting world, the documentary follows a seasoned Arctic explorer witnessing the extinction of his beloved North Pole, where the collapse of the landscape becomes inseparable from his own personal decline

International collaboration is also reflected in China Portrait 2, directed by acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Wang Xiao Shuai and co-produced by Jia Zhao (Muyi Film). As China and the world have shifted over the past half-century, the film observes Chinese lives scattered across continents, revealing how identity, memory and belonging quietly transform far from home through everyday gestures and parallel lives shaped by migration.

Climate anxiety and the politics of truth take centre stage in The Forecasters by Hanne Phlypo and Pieter Van Eecke, with Dutch co-production by Nanneke Landman for Scenery. The documentary follows meteorologists worldwide who become reluctant harbingers of doom as extreme weather intensifies.

Meanwhile, Who Kissed Me in the Dark by Indian filmmaker Bipuljit Basu and co-produced by Harmen Jalvingh for Doxy Fixy, unfolds in Kolkata beside a canal eroded by urbanisation and fading biodiversity. There, a terminally ill girl gathers stories of love and coexistence.

A Benelux delegation including Dutch producers Ilja Roomans (Docmakers), Ruby Deelen (100%) and Sasja Opdam (Submarine) will attend the festival and industry programme, further strengthening international connections between the Dutch documentary field and the global industry.

For more information about the festival and programme, visit Sheffield DocFest.

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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund