IDFA DocLab Program & Competition | IDFA Festival

Nov 12-22, 2026

IDFA DocLab Program & Competition

IDFA DocLab Program & Competition

Marking its 20th edition, IDFA DocLab: Shared Realities looks back on two decades of pioneering interactive and immersive documentary art, while asking: In a world where it has become easier than ever to retreat into realities of our own making, can we still commit to sharing one?

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All the Downtime (Collective Experience)

All the Downtime (Collective Experience)

With a photobook in hand and an accompanying soundtrack, you are guided through a distribution center controlled by algorithms. A power outage creates an unexpected opening for playfulness, humanity, and defiance.

All the Downtime (Individual Experience)

All the Downtime (Individual Experience)

With a photobook in hand and an accompanying soundtrack, you are guided through a distribution center controlled by algorithms. A power outage creates an unexpected opening for playfulness, humanity, and defiance.

Archive Arcade: Natalie’s Trifecta

Archive Arcade: Natalie’s Trifecta

In this VR experience, South African multi-disciplinary artist Natalie Paneng invites you into the three worlds that make up her artistic practice: a virtual gallery, her studio, and the playful dreamworld that fuels her work.

Archive Arcade: Notes on Blindness VR

Archive Arcade: Notes on Blindness VR

Arnaud Colinart, Amaury La Burthe, Peter Middleton, James Spinney

What’s it like to be blind? An enchanting, award-winning interactive VR experience, based on the audio diary of author and theologian John Hull—a journey into a world beyond sight.

Archive Arcade: Thanatorama

Archive Arcade: Thanatorama

Ana Maria de Jésus

Who has never fantasized about attending their own funeral? This dark and lyrical web documentary offers the chance, with an interactive photo story about funeral directors, coffin makers, and masters of ceremonies.

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ESHRAQ

ESHRAQ

Not a game you can complete, but a “cognitive playground” of constant variation, inspired by the Illuminationist philosophy of the 12th-century Persian philosopher Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi.

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The Invisible Woman VR

The Invisible Woman VR

Tamara Shogaolu

The 17th-century free Black woman Francisca de Angola, recorded in Amsterdam’s archives as a troublemaker, is in danger of being forgotten—unless the 21st-century journalist Idil can join her own voice with Francisca’s in this VR opera.

The Invisible Woman: an Opera in the Making

The Invisible Woman: an Opera in the Making

Tamara Shogaolu

A preview of the live version of this multimedia opera about the spiritual connection between the 17th-century free Black woman Francisca de Angola and her 21st-century fellow Amsterdammer Idil. A work in progress, followed by a talk with the makers.

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The Love Files

The Love Files

Sanne De Wilde, Samir Veen

As a visitor to this archive, you are handed a “love file” submitted by a transnational couple, whose relationship you have to assess as part of an application for a residence permit. Is the evidence they have provided credible or not? Why?

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Microbiome Restaurant: Haute Cuisine for the Rectum

Microbiome Restaurant: Haute Cuisine for the Rectum

A surreal gastronomic experience for three. The speculative but scientifically validated rectal menu lets you experience the influence exerted by the ecosystem of microorganisms in our bodies. An installation version is available outside performing hours.

Microbiome Restaurant: Plural Tastings

Microbiome Restaurant: Plural Tastings

Lie in a human-sized petri dish and share a meal with some of the trillions of symbiotic microorganisms living in and on your body in this 6-user VR experience combining robotics, haptics, microscopes and food.

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Orgasmagoria

Orgasmagoria

Dries Verhoeven

Screening continuously at sex theatre Casa Rosso is a film about sexual pleasure in the digital age, created in collaboration with a group of international (cyber)sex workers, porn actors and their friends.

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Palimpsest

Palimpsest

Guillaume Roux, Johan Delétang

Four fictional beings, once part of stories that have long since disappeared, wander through a desolate landscape. In this hybrid game and installation, one player’s actions affect the film watched by everyone else.