IDFA DocLab competitions unveiled

With ten titles, the IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction boldly expands the horizons of the documentary genre, pushing immersive media beyond conventional boundaries. Across VR, live theater performances, fulldome experiences, and multisensory works, the selection explores how immersive art can alter the way we encounter reality—offering unexpected perspectives and opening up new possibilities for agency and resistance. 

Several artists use immersive experiences to bring audiences into close, embodied encounters with realities that may otherwise feel distant. Other works deal with the corporeal and the body, from digitally altering our perception of ourselves and inviting our microbiomes to a feast, to examining grief through magnifying the decomposition of a loved one’s body—turning grief and death into a profound reflection on how humans are but a part of a larger ecosystem. 

The nine-title IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling expands the possibilities of documentary through digital art, games, interactive installations, and live performance. With artists from across disciplines bringing traditional forms into dialogue with new media, the selection showcases a new wave of cross-disciplinary experimentation. 

Several works confront the digital systems shaping contemporary life, subverting algorithms and finding room for human error and agency. Other works invite audiences into interactive open worlds, adapting game and world-building technologies to create participatory experiences that radically depart from everyday reality. Elsewhere, artists explore the ever-evolving relationship between the physical and digital, investigating how technology fundamentally shapes our experience of intimacy, desire, and connection. 

The full selection of IDFA DocLab is now complete