At the beginning of the year, Selin Murat left her role as markets manager at IDFA to become executive director of the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF). She stepped into big shoes, succeeding Isabel Arrate Fernandez, one of the fund’s founders and its executive director for an impressive 23 years. Fernandez, meanwhile, moved into the role of IDFA’s artistic director while also continuing as deputy director part-time to oversee strategic filmmaker support activities.
Speaking with Variety ahead of her first Dutch festival in her new position, Murat reflected on the appeal of becoming a funder for the first time after more than 15 years as a producer and industry programmer. “I was in the industry working with filmmakers, producers, professionals, and funders who were all trying to do the same thing, which is to make independent documentary films together,” she says. Transitioning into her new responsibilities, Murat admits the first few months were “like being underwater.” “This year, we did four rounds of funding, so I spent a lot of time reading and inviting selection committee members.”
Beyond the demanding workload, Murat points to major challenges facing the industry. Documentary filmmakers continue to struggle to make a living from their work, all while the medium becomes even more vital in times of sociopolitical unrest. “Documentary filmmaking is consistently in crisis,” Murat explains. “Many filmmakers are working under really hard conditions, whether financially or because of conflict, war, oppression, and threats to freedom of speech. We are in this beautiful niche part of the overall film industry, the most valiant in a way.”
She adds, “I’ve been in the industry my whole life and sustainability has always been difficult. Every decade brings a new challenge. It’s been all the more amazing to be where I am, because I get to work closely with filmmakers and we can work for solutions together. Then, on top of that, we as a fund can at least give straight financial support.”
Supporting filmmakers in crisis regions is a clear priority for the IBF. In recent years, the fund has launched special initiatives for Ukrainian and Palestinian filmmakers, in line with its mission to strengthen independent, author-driven documentary filmmaking in regions where access to funding and distribution is structurally challenging. Today, the IBF supports projects across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania.
Murat emphasizes that independent documentaries from places like Ukraine, Palestine, Congo, and Sudan defy “easy consumption.” According to her, these are films “made over a long period of time with a lot of thought, bringing out the complexity of the human experience with narrative sovereignty.” She believes such works are exactly “why everyone should be watching independent documentaries.”
Given the urgent need for support, how does the IBF decide which projects to fund? “The selection committees ask: What is the mandate of the fund? What am I looking for? We try as much as possible to think about artistry,” says Murat. “Some funds are about impact, some are specifically about sociopolitical issues. For the moment, the mandate of the IBF is to support independent filmmakers making films from their own perspective. That’s what we try to stick to when making decisions.”
With her first year at IBF soon ending, Murat is reflecting on her main goals for the fund. One key objective is to support not only filmmakers and projects, but also to help build the structures and sustainable communities that surround them. She recalls a conversation with a founder of the Palestine Film Fund, who said they could use funding for “knowledge sharing, so we can have another entity set itself up sustainably in the future.”
“I would love to keep doing that in all the regions that we serve,” Murat explains. “Projects will always be really important—it’s always going to be about the independent filmmaker—but also the idea of fostering a healthy community. At IBF, we are three people; we can’t know how all the communities function. We don’t know what is most important in a local community or territory and don’t speak all the languages of the countries we support.”
Looking ahead, Murat hopes for sustainable connections with local, independent, like-minded communities doing the work on the ground. “If we can support that,” she says, “that would be really cool.”
https://variety.com/2025/film/festivals/idfa-bertha-fund-head-supporting-ukraine-palestine-1236580808/