New Media

Our call for festival entries is now closed, the deadline was July 2 2024. 

Every year from March until July we invite artists to send in their XR and new media projects, live performances, and other interdisciplinary documentary artworks to be considered for IDFA. For the IDFA on Stage section, we welcome entries from worldwide creators of live performances that bridge the realms of film, digital media, new tech, and performing arts. For the IDFA DocLab competitions and exhibition programs, we welcome immersive and interactive projects that use new media and emerging technology to tell stories and reflect on reality. This includes a wide range of formats such as immersive narratives, spatial creations, web-based experiences, digital art, games, audio narratives, physical installations, and artworks that leverage AI and other advanced technologies.

For linear film entries, please refer to IDFA’s general entry page.

Artists looking for co-producers, creative input, and financing possibilities are invited to enter their projects (in all stages of development and financing) to the IDFA DocLab Forum this call is open until August 1.

IDFA DocLab has become a key international platform for new talent, artistic innovation, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Meanwhile, new developments in immersive technology—like virtual reality, as well as AR and AI—have introduced explosive new opportunities. But as new immersive consumer devices are being introduced to the masses, key questions still exist around how to successfully live up to the true potential of immersive media.

In 2018, IDFA DocLab launched an R&D Progam in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Open Documentary Lab), among other partners, to expand the festival into a living lab for artistic experimentation, research, and development across disciplines. Currently in it's sixth year, the program focusses on specific research questions that arise from developments in the field.

An integral component of the research program is the R&D Summit, a think tank event for experts from all corners of the interactive and immersive storytelling industry to explore next steps in developing the medium. The program presents information gained from research, case studies, prototypes, and demos of interactive and immersive storytelling experiments in progress, and cross-sector expert meetings.

For a recap of the previous two years of the R&D Summit check out the following articles:

2022 Highlights from the IDFA DocLab R&D Summit Creative Exchange
2021 Creative Exchange: The IDFA DocLab R&D Summit 2021 in retrospect

For over 15 years, IDFA Forum has given space to documentary projects in the field of new media. Building on this momentum in 2019, IDFA introduced a new, complete cross-media market called IDFA DocLab Forum, where the projects presented can find their way to new partnerships, receive in-depth feedback, and explore new ways to move forward. The DocLab Forum is open to all sorts of non-fiction artworks in all production and financing stages that use emerging media to represent reality, including web experiences, multimedia journalism, digital art, games, audio experiences, immersive experiences (such as VR/AR/MR, social VR and fulldome films), physical installations, live performances, and immersive theater.

Read more about IDFA Forum and how you can participate here.

Sign up for IDFA's new media mailing to explore additional opportunities for engagement.