Expanding the field: the DocLab Industry Track

[DocLab Industry Track is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA]

Designed as both a living lab and an industry network, the DocLab Industry Track connects independent artists, creative technologists, and cultural institutions across disciplines to explore new forms of non-fiction storytelling. The DocLab Industry Track is built around three core components: the DocLab Forum, the R&D Summit, and the DocLab Playrooms.

While each field has its own pipelines and characteristics, the challenges and opportunities they face often intersect. Insights from one discipline can lead to innovative solutions in another, but knowledge gaps hinder progress and cause repeated mistakes. "The DocLab Industry Track embraces a more interdisciplinary strategy, moving beyond siloed perspectives tied to specific media or disciplines," explains Caspar Sonnen, Head of New Media at IDFA. "The activities are aimed at sharing new media expertise and resources, reaching audiences more sustainably, and collaborating more effectively, which will benefit traditional and emerging disciplines at the same time."

"The DocLab Industry Track is a dedicated space to cater to the needs of all projects and filmmakers," explains Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, Head of Industry at IDFA. "It’s also about sharing knowledge and information across sectors, exemplified by the R&D Summit." The R&D Summit is a one-day, invite-only gathering that brings together the Dutch industry with international professionals shaping the immersive field. Artists, studios, technologists, researchers, and institutional representatives meet to share insights, discuss emerging trends, and examine the challenges of developing new immersive storytelling formats, encouraging collaboration across artistic and industry boundaries.

The DocLab Forum serves as IDFA’s co-production and co-financing market for immersive and interactive documentary works. Open to projects at any stage, it welcomes a broad range of non-fiction forms, from web experiences and digital art to VR/AR/MR installations, fulldome films, and live performances. By connecting creators with potential partners and funders, the Forum supports the development of new work and contributes directly to IDFA’s wider new media program. "The new DocLab Industry Track makes the navigation for professionals easier," says Carla Navarro, IDFA DocLab Forum Producer. "It informs and guides an industry mindset, allowing us to create a more consolidated program together."

The newest addition to the program is the DocLab Playrooms, after three successful pilots of the format in 2024. The DocLab Playrooms complete the industry track with a series of hands-on events where artists and audiences engage directly with emerging technologies in practice. Each Playroom focuses on a specific theme and takes an experimental, open format that encourages participants to explore, prototype, and exchange ideas in an informal setting. Sonnen: "Another hybridity is that in regular industry events, audience and industry are quite strictly separated. But in the DocLab Playrooms, the audience and professionals interact before a project is premiered."

In addition to the three core components of the DocLab Industry Track, there's also an Industry Talk on distribution: Headsets and beyond – New strategies in XR distribution. While audiences are crying out for new experiences, and artists continue to innovate with XR documentary storytelling, we need to understand how we create better distribution models that bring these artists and audiences together.

The Industry Talk illustrates the interdisciplinary strategy of the DocLab Industry Track. Van Nieuwenhuijzen: "The industry track is by no means intended to create separate worlds between new media and film. It also serves as an open invitation to blend people from the film community to make an exchange with the interactive and immersive fields."

Sonnen adds: "Meanwhile, it's also a move towards a more independent European immersive culture, where we strengthen the ties and the networks between European artists, technologists, producers, venues, and decision-makers across different disciplines, making ourselves less vulnerable to the whims of what’s happening on a worldwide scale. So the DocLab Industry Track not only strengthens projects in their development, it also strengthens the sector as a whole."