Lacuna
Sonja has no memory of the crucial moment in her early childhood that saved her life: the separation from her parents in 1943. The discovery of three silver rings that once belonged to Sonja’s parents triggers the director to begin prompting her about the past. In the emotional journey that follows, you accompany Sonja through skewed memories, elusive images and reimaginations towards one moment of loss and grief during the Second World War. A true story that leads you from Paramaribo to Amsterdam and into a psychiatric facility called Het Apeldoornsche Bosch. Combining conversations with Sonja, mesmerizing 3D modelling, animation and personal footage, Lacuna explores who we are in relation to who we were. Meanwhile you will find truth in imagination, beauty in the unknown and an act of unconditional love.
Directed by Maartje Wegdam & Nienke Huitenga.
A Podium Biarritz production, in co-production with Copper Views Film Productions and Studio Biarritz.
World Premiere at IFFR 2025, 30/01-9/02
In competition at Cannes Immersive 2025, 13/05-24/05
Nominated for a Gouden Kalf at NFF 2025 for Best Digital Cultural Production
The Imaginary Friend
Become an Imaginary Friend! A grieving child struggles to separate reality from fantasy. He creates YOU–his (imaginary) friend–to fight the monsters in his mind. Although you have fun together, he starts to grow disconnected from his surroundings… Are you helping, or just making things worse?
The Imaginary Friend invites you to take part in the vivid imagination of Daniel, a grieving eight-year-old struggling with the line between reality and fantasy.
Become Daniel’s imaginary friend and let him share his world with you. Discover his joys and anxieties, even help him fight his demons head-on. However, as you spend time together, Daniel’s surroundings don’t quite understand. Why is he talking to himself? Is he crazy? When his father intends to fix him, Daniel needs to figure out his feelings before disconnecting from reality completely…
With its unique point of view in storytelling and the latest technical developments in VR, The Imaginary Friend presents an intimate experience unmatched in the VR landscape. Daniel sees, talks and interacts with you, allowing you to form a deeply personal bond with the boy. Through interactive gameplay, you don’t only push the story forward but also actively participate in Daniel’s life.
Written and directed by Steye Hallema.
World Premiere @ la Biennale di Venezia, Venice Immersive 2023
Nominated for a “Gouden Kalf Digitale Cultuur”, Netherlands Film Festival 2023
Please visit theimaginaryfriend.nl for all future events, more behind the scenes, press information and recent updates!
Symbiosis
Winner best creative technology award – IDFA DocLab competition / Immersive non-fiction 2021.
Symbiosis is a performative, multiuser and multisensory VR installation in which the human body will be redesigned. It allows every participant to embody a post-human or even nonhuman reality: a completely symbiotic human-animal or human-technologic relationship. Dutch experience design collective POLYMORF investigates in a speculative way how a more symbiotic exchange of genetic, cultural and technological traits between people and other present or future living entities can increase or change the agency of all. How will such affect future coexistence, legal rights and relationships between humans and all other living entities on a physical, emotional and spiritual level?
Concept, scenario and art direction: Marcel van Brakel
Directed by: Marcel van Brakel and Mark Meeuwenoord
Symbiosis is designed and produced by Polymorf in collaboration with Studio Biarritz.
Floating with Spirits
Two little sisters prepare for the Day of the Dead in the mystic mountains of Mexico, remembering the stories their shaman granny used to tell. A portal opens as the Mazatec community celebrates and we enter the interactive universe of their ancestors and the spirits of nature, each keeping a secret world to be unveiled.
Written and directed by Juanita Onzaga,
a production of Cassette for timescapes (BE).
World Premiere @ la Biennale di Venezia, Venice Immersive 2023
Premiere in NL at the IDFA Doclab November 8-19, 2023, in Amsterdam
Special selection at Cannes Immersive 2025
Please visit FloatingWithSpirits.com for all future events, press information and recent updates!
Future Botanica
What is nature, and how do we, as (Western) humans, relate to it?
The fundamental image of nature constantly clashes with the rapid evolution in knowledge, technology, and ideas about it. FUTURE BOTANICA is an Augmented Reality app that enables users, in collaboration with an AI, to design speculative ecosystems with new nature. These virtual ecosystems are then planted into the existing physical nature, allowing exploration of ideas, expectations, fears, and desires regarding future nature. Users experience that any addition or alteration to an ecosystem affects the functioning of the entire ecosystem. With Future Botanica, we aim to challenge our audience to speculate on the transitions ahead. By collecting and sharing stories and ideas from different people and generations, new perspectives emerge, acting as a time capsule for the future.
Future Botanica is a Polymorf and Studio Biarritz production
Designed by Polymorf, Marcel van Brakel and Hazal Erturkan
Ik ben een bastaard (I am a Bastard)
Special Mention Dutch Movies Matter Competion @ Movies that Matter 2022 (April 8-16 ), as well as a beautiful 3rd place – as part of the audience award!
Flemish writer and playwright Rashif El Kaoui calls himself a bastard, a half-blood, a mongrel. The talented playwright has lived in his mother’s native Flanders his whole life. His Moroccan father left the scene a long time ago, and although Rashif bears his father’s surname, he knows little about his roots. At home in Flanders, Rashif has been fighting prejudice his whole life, even within his immediate family. In the road movie I am a Bastard (Ik ben een bastaard), Rashif goes in search of answers to soothe his struggles with his bi-cultural identity. Director Ahmet Polat recognises Rashif’s need to free himself and follows him in his journey to find redemption.
Ik ben een bastaard (I am a Bastard) is a ‘road-movie’ style documentary by photographer Ahmet Polat.
Ik ben een bastaard is a coproduction with Dutch public broadcaster NTR (Het Uur van de Wolf).
It was shown on television last April, @ NTR Het Uur van de Wolf / NPO2.
It’s now available online in The Netherlands @ NPO start.
The documentary is part of a larger crossmedia project Wij zijn bastaard (We are Bastard).
Ik ben een bastaard premiered @ Movies that Matter, in competition Dutch Movies Matter and was selected for the Netherlands Film Festival, in competition Short Documentary 2022.
Lesbian Simulator
‘Lesbian Simulator’ is an interactive virtual reality artwork and video game which will prompt users to experience the world from the perspective of a lesbian girl. While this artistic ode to love and sexual preference doesn’t shy away from tackling serious issues as well, such as the discrimination and abuse that lesbians still face today, you can expect an uplifting experience full of joy, humour and a touch of glitter!
Inspired by the personal experiences of Iris van der Meule and those close to her, ‘Lesbian Simulator’ aims to create awareness in a playful manner. Users experience some of the key aspects in the existence of a queer girl such as: coming-out to various people, making new friends, going on a date but also the first time feeling discriminated or even verbally abused. ’Lesbian Simulator’ mirrors the blind spots within our society in relation to the acceptance of lesbians (and indirectly, of queer people in general). It is an ode to love and sexuality, about the exploration of your sexual orientation and about being embraced by the lesbian and queer community. It is a celebration of diversity and inclusivity.
By Iris van der Meule
HOME
Leaving home is hard when you can’t walk. But staying in a place where you don’t have to walk at all is even harder. A mother obsessively cares for her daughter who is sick and unable to walk. Until she discovers that her daughter is only presenting herself to her as incapacitated and pretending to be sick.
Written and directed by Floortje Pols
Bobby Baxter
By Thomas Dudkiewicz & Sergio Gridelli.
Expected release in 2026.
In april, Bobby Baxter traveled to the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and won the SONDR pitch prize at the Brussels Genre Film Market (BIFMARKET).
Deep Soup
DEEP SOUP is a participatory artistic experience challenging the models we have become so accustomed to. Turning the tables on technology and AI, the project aims to make viewers organically reconnect with the world around them. Rewiring perceptions, DEEP SOUP promises a fresh way of seeing things, one where the simplicity and beauty of various movements, mechanics and dynamics prevail.
Guided by posthumanist artists Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters, everybody is welcome to upload their videos to the website deepsoup.io and actively contribute to the training of a physical intelligence model.
The best contributions will make their way into the DEEP SOUP film set to premiere mid November at IDFA. Other contributions will be shared via social media channels prompting us all to rediscover the world around us with a curiosity and open-mind-ness of a child! All contributions will help train the evolving non-human intelligence DEEP SOUP.
Directed by Luna Maurer & Roel Wouters.
A project initiated by Robin Coops.
One Charming Night
One Charming Night is a music film about sensuality, sexuality, and consent in virtual worlds. The film follows a series of characters, each seeking forms of intimacy in their own way, but at times losing sight of themselves and thereby the other, with all the consequences that entails. The film is entirely shot in VRChat.
In a virtual hotel, we are guided by Bellboy Cat, who introduces us to various characters and situations that, like a mosaic, reflect on the search for intimacy within virtual worlds.
Directed by Robin Coops.
Microbiome Restaurant
Predominantly in Western societies, we see ourselves as solitary entities, characterized by a unique intelligence that seems to separate us from nature. We envision the body as a unit governed by a central brain and consciousness, aiming for greater autonomy, influence, and mastery over our environment. In reality, humans are complex ecosystems. Our bodies are the result of ancient symbiotic relationships between various bacteria, making us Holobionts that host trillions of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and more. These microbial inhabitants outnumber human cells ten times and possess more genetic material than our own. They are not mere passengers but integral to our development, immune function, hormonal regulation, healing processes, and even our behavior and cognition.
The traditional view of human autonomy and control is challenged by our deep biological interconnectedness. Our thoughts, actions, and decisions are influenced by a myriad of microbial interactions within us. The gut-brain axis exemplifies this, where microbes can directly affect our emotions, motivations, and health. For instance, certain gut bacteria produce neurotransmitters that impact our stress levels and decision-making processes, underscoring that our actions are the result of a complex interplay between human and microbial cells. This makes the act of eating a profound interaction with our environment, exposing our bodies to external influences that can be both nourishing and harmful.
Microbiome Restaurant introduces new ways of bodily gastronomy, expanding the taste palette for the ecology of lifeforms we call the human body. It’s designed as a performative, multisensory and hybrid XR experience served in three different XR dining restaurants. Each restaurant provides a unique XR experience and is designed as an interactive stand-alone artwork addressing novel ways of dining and sharing challenging new perspectives on the human body as an intertwined ecology of lifeforms. All the projects are conceptualized based on the most recent scientific findings on the human body.
Production details:
Microbiome Restaurant is a Polymorf and Studio Biarritz production. And the artistic concept of the collaboration between Marcel van Brakel and researcher and interaction designer Hazal Ertürkan.
Palimpsest
Through the use of immersivity and interactivity, Palimpsest embarks participants on a perilous odyssey following four forgotten stories, adrift in a symbolic LIMBO OF THE IMAGINATION, in their desperate bid to elude commodification or annihilation at the hands of Western hegemonism.
Created by Johan Delétang & Guillaume Roux
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Improv Music Collective DNA? AND?
The power of the imagination is arguably the greatest during youth, and Oslo-based collective DNA? AND? bring this notion into play in the most remarkable fashion. Comprised of special needs children and a revolving cast of adult musicians, DNA? AND?’s infectious exchange between carefree improvisation and stark repetition elicits some of the most original music ever produced, impulsive, unfiltered and free.
A VR music improvisation performance.
A 3 – 5 track music album in VR.
In collaboration with Le Guess Who? festival, Tivoli Vredenburg, DNA?AND?, Oslo, Norway and ITHACA by French Touch Factory.
CREATING A VR MUSIC IMPROVISATION EXPERIENCE / Crowd funding
The project ‘Improv Music Collective DNA? AND?‘ will let users immerse in a 3 song live performance / VR music album of the collective that doesn’t often travel due to their special needs. We want to create an immersive music VR experience, using cutting-edge VR recording techniques. We want their exceptional, improvisational performances to tour the world.
Crowdfund campaign: VR MUSIC IMPROVISATION EXPERIENCE.
Amasonic
Amasonic is a 30 min XR experience where the user can experience different human and non-human perspectives on the Amazon River gathered by local communities and scientists, while exploring the installation users compose a sonification, translating their interaction and co-existence to the Amazon River.
A Studio Biarritz and Polymorf production
Created by Maria Cecilia Oliveira & Marcel van Brakel
Hellfighter, a Modern Odyssey
Hellfighter, a Modern Odyssey is a feverish road movie in which reality meets delusion and myth.
Created by Yvonne van Ulden and Onias Landveld.
Josephine Baker AR
Josephine Baker AR is a collective installation. Based on original drawings created in Virtual Reality, the experience invites the audience to move through an augmented reality fresco to discover Josephine Baker’s extraordinary life.
Dancer, French resistance fighter, defender of civil rights in America, sexually liberated, loved, betrayed and on the stage until her death. This Augmented Reality experience tells Josephine Baker’s extraordinary life in a virtual fresco. In a space filled with illustrations drawn with Quill, a VR illustration tool, complemented with real objects and a rich soundscape, the audience is free to move through the installation – virtual and real – to immerse itself in the life of the first Black icon.
Written and directed by Benjamin Hoguet.
Illustrations by Guillaume Deloizon.
A production of Seppia Interactive (FR).
Fereshteh's Beauty Salon
In Fereshteh’s beauty salon / سالن فرشتھ , three generations of women recount their acts of small resistance in Iran during 44 years of Islamic dictatorship. In the nail salon, their nails are treated. Through their stories and their nails, they tell of their resistance, strength, and determination. They do so with humor and lightness. In doing so, they show how an accumulation of small acts can greatly impact individual and collective freedom.