Amsterdam, 2 September 2025 – Becoming Led Zeppelin, a music documentary that holds the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend across IMAX theaters worldwide and is the most watched documentary of 2025 across all platforms, will be screened as a special event as part of the IBC Conference in Amsterdam (September 12-14). The film was distributed across Europe earlier this year by Sony Pictures Classics in partnership with Piece of Magic Entertainment.

An IBC Conference session, titled How Becoming Led Zeppelin was Created, will be held on Saturday, September 13 at 11.30 am CEST in the Auditorium Complex of the RAI Amsterdam. Becoming Led Zeppelin director Bernard MacMahon and sound supervisor Nicholas Bergh will fly in from Los Angeles for an in depth talk for the first time on the mechanics of creating the hit film and will reveal how a vast archive of 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, 2” video, tape, disc and stills were transferred and sculpted into a cohesive whole for the record-breaking IMAX release.

Later, Saturday, September 13 at 7 pm CEST, the IBC special event screening of Becoming Led Zeppelin and exclusive Q&A with MacMahon and Bergh will take place at the newly completed Cinema The Pulse, scheduled to officially open in October 2025.

MacMahon’s experiential cinematic odyssey reveals the origins of the iconic group and their meteoric rise in just one year against all the odds. It is the first documentary film Led Zeppelin have ever agreed to appear in.

Becoming Led Zeppelin has received universal acclaim with Variety hailing it as “one of the modern era’s great rock docs”, The Guardian describing it as “an extraordinary slice of rock history in documentary form”, Tom Morello praising the film as “amazing”, Thurston Moore championing it as “a brilliant film” and The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson labelling as “the greatest music documentary I’ve ever seen.”

MacMahon commented: “Bringing Becoming Led Zeppelin to Amsterdam for a special screening with the IBC is a real honor. Led Zeppelin only played Amsterdam twice during their career, once right in the middle of the period we cover in the film, so being able to give the Dutch audience a chance to see them again in their prime is extremely exciting.”

Jo Mayer, IBC’s Head of Marketing, added: “IBC is the perfect home for a screening of this phenomenal documentary. So many of the media and entertainment technology companies present at the conference had a hand in making this film and it will be a thrill to see it on the screen. We are excited to bring this film and the Q&A and the morning panel session with Bernard and Nick to our conference attendees.”

Cinema The Pulse concluded: “We are incredibly happy that we can showcase Becoming Led Zeppelin in our cinema on the big screen, an experience no film or music lover should miss!”

Tickets for the special screening and Q&A can be purchased via Cinema The Pulse here.

To register for the IBC2025 Conference, you can click here.

ENDS

Biographies

Bernard MacMahon is an Irish/British filmmaker, most recently directing Becoming Led Zeppelin, a music documentary that holds the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend across IMAX theaters worldwide and is currently the highest-grossing documentary of 2025. He was mentored by Robert Redford and Albert Maysles and gained international acclaim with the American Epic (2017) film series, which chronicles the origins of American roots music and the revolutionary impact of early sound recording technology. American Epic has been lauded as one of the greatest music documentaries ever made. It is being taught in the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and was honored by Library of Congress and The American Folklife Center. MacMahon has been recognized for his groundbreaking approach to documentary filmmaking, blending historical research, rare archival footage, and innovative audiovisual storytelling. His work has earned multiple prestigious awards, including audience honors at major film festivals, Emmy, BAFTA, and Grammy nominations and wins.

Nicholas Bergh has been working in the field of sound recording and restoration for nearly 30 years. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA where he specialized in the history of recording technology and sound archiving. During this time, he was also working as a sound restoration engineer and was fortunate to be mentored by engineers who worked in the earliest decades of optical sound, disc, and magnetic technologies. In 2003, Nicholas started Endpoint Audio Labs in order to focus on improving the quality of sound transfers before restoration. Endpoint has become known for both unique transfer technologies as well as using historical research to inform transfer and restoration decisions. Bergh preserved some of the most precious studio and public archive sound elements in the world - Titanic (1997), Oklahoma! (1995), My Fair Lady (1964), and The Sound of Music (1965). Important cultural projects include Native American wax cylinders, WWII Marine combat wire recordings, and the original lacquer discs of the Hindenburg crash. He also provides sound supervision and sound mixing to modern film documentaries that are using historical material. Nicholas collaborated with director Bernard MacMahon on the award-winning series AMERICAN EPIC (2017), which helped showcase the role of early sound technology in understanding early blues and country recordings.

Cinema The Pulse is the newest cinema in Amsterdam’s Zuidas, where film and reality meet. Expect classics, arthouse films, and Hollywood hits. Our six modern screening rooms are already fully in use, and while we finish the final details behind the scenes, you can already enjoy films in a comfortable and atmospheric setting.

Piece of Magic Entertainment (POM), established in 2017, is a worldwide theatrical distributor specializing in prestige documentaries, feature films, anime, live gaming events, and world-class concerts. POM is always pushing the boundaries of what is possible and delivering cinematic experiences to audiences around the world.

Notable releases include award-winning box office sensations OCEAN with David Attenborough and the iconic Godzilla Minus One, as well as hit music documentaries such as Becoming Led Zeppelin, and groundbreaking Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense.

From offices in Amsterdam, POM can release in a handful of territories or branch out much wider a reach of thousands of screens across 60+ countries.

About IBC

Delivering innovation and empowering people, IBC is where the future of the global Media and Entertainment industry is defined and actioned. Energising the market, enabling content everywhere and inspiring new conversations, IBC brings the creative, technology and business communities together to collaborate, learn and unlock new opportunities.

At IBC2025, exhibitors and speakers from around the globe will showcase game-changing innovations and tackle the media sector’s most pressing trends and issues – changing perceptions and meeting the needs of the world-leading broadcasters, content owners, rights holders, service providers and others attending the four-day conference and trade show. With a focus on inclusivity, IBC propels change – driving thought leadership, sparking discussion, shifting expectations, accelerating creativity and enabling real business outcomes.

IBC’s mission is to empower our 250,000-strong global community to explore new opportunities, build knowledge, and play an active role in the technological transformation and broader change sweeping the industry worldwide.

For further information, please visit: https://show.ibc.org/