Pathways & Competitions

The InSights Competition presents our major, traditional documentaries and forms the core selection of our program. Science with a capital “W.” The winner receives €1,000, made possible by NTR.

InSights films deepen our understanding of reality through expertly guided stories. These stories shape the dialogue between science and society in an inspiring and accessible way.

Award InSights NTR Audience Award
Jury Audience

Nominated Films

Climate in Therapy
John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office
Green Light
GEN_
Blame
Ice Grave
How Deep Is Your Love
Holy Destructors
Just Our Heart
We Live Here
Elephants & Squirrels
Shifting Baselines
Creatures of the Mind
Future Science
My Word Against Mine

The InLab Competition is home to our most eclectic cinematic experiments, both in form and content. These filmmakers spark our imaginations by emphasizing artistic expression. The winner receives €1,500, made possible by NTR.

This collection of groundbreaking documentaries and fiction films is bold in style and diverse in representation. InLab offers new, provocative ways of thinking about science and encourages us to consider the possibilities of the medium. Only Dutch premieres are eligible.

Award InLab International Jury Award
Jury 4 (international) film professionals

Nominated films

Frantz Fanon
Nimuendajú
Little, Big, and Far
The Big Everything
Messengers
Lost for Words
Wider Than the Sky
Leibniz – Chronicle of a Lost Painting

Anupama Srinivasan 

Anupama Srinivisan is a filmmaker, film educator and curator based in Delhi, India. She did her BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and went on to study filmmaking at the FTII, Pune. She has been making documentaries for over two decades, and her work has been screened at various film festivals including Sundance, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, IDFA, Thessaloniki, Busan, Sheffield, MAMI, Kosovo, DOC NYC, Three Continents Nantes, Cinema Centenary Festival, Yamagata, FIPA Biarritz, Sydney, Film Southasia Kathmandu among others. FLICKERING LIGHTS, the feature documentary that she co-directed, shot and edited received the Best Cinematography Award at IDFA international competition 2023. NOCTURNES that she co-directed and co-edited, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024 where it received the Special Jury Award for Craft. Anupama is one of the recipients of the Chicken & Egg Award 2025. She was the Festival Director of the IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival for three years (2013-15), and of the Peace Builders International Film Festival in 2016. 

Maria Stuut

Maria Stuut is a Dutch artist and filmmaker, she’s graduated from KASK & Conservatorium Ghent. Her works include short films, installations, and performances. With a background in natural sciences (Bèta-Gamma at the University of Amsterdam), her work focuses on the unexpected links between natural ecosystems and human society. Combining imagination with scientific research, she dances with microscopic animals, explores an impossible love story with a dinosaur and continuously fails at becoming a dune. (Photo: © Nine Louvel)

Ondřej Kazík

Ondrej is an AV media & film curator and former program director of AFO, where he currently oversees the international competition. With a background in Cultural Anthropology and Film Studies, he brings expertise in festival programming, documentary distribution, and international co-productions. Based in Berlin, he lectures at Palacky University on distribution and festival studies. He serves as an expert evaluator for the Czech Audiovisual Fund. His curatorial focus spans documentary storytelling and science communication through film and other media.

Teun Bousema

Prof. dr. Teun Bousema has a diploma in Biomedical Sciences with specialisations in epidemiology and infectious diseases. After fieldwork in Mbita, western Kenya, he completed his PhD thesis on the effects of drugs and immunity on the transmission of P. falciparum in 2007 (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands). Subsequently, he worked in Moshi, Tanzania, as post-doctoral epidemiologist on several research and capacity building projects. In 2008, Teun joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and is now honorary professor at this institute. Since 2012, he is a member of Radboud Institute for Health Sciences and works on the biology and epidemiology of malaria transmission.

The InShort Competition emphasizes the short and medium-length film format. Compact windows on scientific research and the phenomena around us.

Award InShort Student Jury Award
Jury 4 (international) students

Nominated films

Varia
STARS
The Day the Sun Stopped Shining
The World Behind Words
Cows
Lloyd Wong, Unfinished
Murmurations
Girls Are Made to Make Love
It’s Different for Girls
Taboo: The Unspoken Truth
Psychonauts
Orchids: Darwin’s Conundrum

Melisa Yilmaz

I’m Melisa Yilmaz, born and living in the Netherlands. I am an International Social Work student and an actor. Next to that, I love watching movies, singing, painting, and writing. Short films are especially interesting to me because a movie doesn’t have to be long to have a big impact, sometimes simplicity is the most powerful, while the limited time can also be a creative challenge. I’m curious about how science will be translated into film (and vice versa), and I’m looking forward to being surprised, exploring ambiguity, and learning how to share my thoughts and feelings more clearly and critically as a student juror at InScience 2026.

Sumi Im

I am Sumi Im from South Korea, currently based in the Netherlands, and studying New Media and Digital Culture, focusing on how audiovisual content, platforms, and online environments are entangled with sociotechnical infrastructures. I studied cinema in Korea and Spain, and I have participated in several film festivals as a critique workshop mentor, a programming team intern, and of course as an audience member. What draws me to film festivals is the immediacy. Watching becomes a shared conversation, where audiences can respond to what a film argues and where it takes them. I especially enjoy short films for their boldness and density, and for the way they leave room for imagination and subjective interpretation, and I am excited to deepen my critical perspective and exchange thoughts with others as a student juror at InScience 2026.

Antonis Lappas

My name is Antonis Lappas and I’m a Media student in Amsterdam, currently doing my second degree. I’ve always loved cinema and film festivals, and over the years I’ve volunteered at several of them, as well as doing an internship with the program department at IDFA, and I also host the film club at Rialto VU in Amsterdam. I’m especially drawn to short films because they can be bold, surprising, and say a lot in a short amount of time. Being part of the student jury at InScience 2026, I’m looking forward to watching films that take creative risks, learning more about how science can be communicated through cinema, and improving my analytical skills by discussing and evaluating films together with the festival’s (creative) team.

Marta Ločmele

I’m Marta. I’m a humanities scientist currently completing a Master’s in Film & Photographic Studies at Leiden University. I’m joining this program to put my training in visual and film analysis into practice and to engage with how cinema communicates ideas across disciplines, including science. Perhaps this is also a step toward becoming a film critic one day. 🙂