Interactive Cinema: games and web documentaries on the big screen
An arthouse film is not the same as an action movie. That's why, besides commercial multiplex cinemas, we also have beautiful film theaters. For digital art, however, we have to deal with app stores, lonely browsers, and commercial platforms. What would an arthouse for indie games and interactive art look like? How is it to play together, instead of alone and online?
That’s what the Interactive Cinema of IDFA DocLab revolves around. Inside the DocLab Exhibition at de Brakke Grond, visitors can freely explore a wide range of games and web documentaries that, in this way, become shared experiences. Think Twitch or co-op gaming: but live, in a shared physical space, where that collective moment makes all the difference.
Nathalie Lawhead (left) and Vitor Freire (right) during DocLab Playroom: Connected Offline
Coded Black (Maisha Wester) is a dark, atmospheric game confronting the history of anti-Black racism across centuries. Individualism in the dead-internet age: an anti-big tech asset flip shovelware r̶a̶n̶t̶ manifesto (Nathalie Lawhead) reflects on how a once-playful internet turned into a closed, cold corporate machine. In A Ü T O / M Ö T O R, rapper Vyle (Albert Johnson) leads us through a virtual Chicago, exploring key landmarks of the city’s hip-hop scene and formative sites from his own life. In Tracing Colombia (Jan Rothuizen), the artist connects his impressions of Colombia with the country’s layered history, a personal dérive in drawings and videos. Unimaginable Red (Monique Grimord, Vitor Freire) reimagines Amsterdam’s red-light district, blending anarchist history and contemporary tensions into something entirely new: a surreal island of pleasure and protest where you’re invited to help maintain a delicate balance.
'MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery' during the DocLab Playroom
Additionally, Matt Romein's performance, MILKMAN Zero: The First Delivery, took place in the Interactive Cinema. Together, the selection shows how interactive documentaries can move beyond a solo-screen experience and take on new dimensions when we explore these together. Stories that unfold differently, depending on how and when we step into them.
The Interactive Cinema is located in the Tuinzaal of de Brakke Grond, as part of the DocLab Exhibition. Open every day from 11:30 to 20:30, closing on Saturday, 22 November at 18:00.
