Darkroom work-in-progress selection for 2026 revealed

Darkroom offers a platform for the international industry to access exclusive previews of recently or nearly completed films seeking completion or gap funding, sales agents and festival selections. 10 feature works-in-progress will be screened in 2026, all presented during CineMart running Sunday 1 to Wednesday 4 February during IFFR 2026.

Each project has either an attached Rotterdam Lab graduate producer or received previous support from CineMart or the Hubert Bals Fund.

Additionally, this year’s immersive media projects will be presented under Lightroom: IFFR’s new industry platform for immersive storytelling. Lightroom brings together all XR, VR and interactive projects previously presented across CineMart and Darkroom, creating one unified space for immersive work.

Read more about it in our CineMart announcement.

Darkroom selection 2026

Scroll further down to read more details about the selection

Amor es el monstruo, dir. Neto Villalobos Brenes, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, Chile
Produced by: La Sucia Centroamericana, Cine Infinito, Expansiva Cine, Clara Films

Get Up Stand Up, dir. Mari Sanders, Netherlands, Greece
Produced by: The Film Kitchen, Neda Film

Làstima, dir. Mario Piredda, Italy, Switzerland
Produced by: Articolture and DOK MOBILE

LFD Hope, dir. Joshua Loftin, United Kingdom, Hungary
Produced by: Sea Fox Films, Lorenz Films, Gallivant Film, Good Kids Productions

Marina, dir. Laís Santos Araújo and Pethrus Tibúrcio, Brazil
Produced by: Aguda Cinema, Carnaval Filmes 

Sea, Star, Woman, dir. Jeunghae Yim, France, Korea
Produced by: 5à7 Films, Seesaw Pictures

Sugar, dir. Amira Duynhouwer, Netherlands, Belgium
Produced by: Studio Ruba, Mirage Film 

The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs, dir. Èlia Gasull Balada, Matteo Norzi, Peru, United States, Spain, Chile
Produced by: Shipibo Conibo Center, Desfase Films, Funicular Films, Pista B

The Outside, dir. Víctor Moreno, Spain, Belgium
Produced by: KV Films, Womack Studios, Transit Transat

Uchronia: Parallel Histories of Queer Revolt, dir. Fil Ieropoulos, Greece, Netherlands
Produced by: FYTA Films, GROM Productions

The selection in detail

Brazilian filmmakers Laís Santos Araújo (Infantaria, Best Film Berlinale Generation14Plus) and Pethrus Tibúrcio (Tell Her What Happened to Me, IFFR 2025) co-direct the Hubert Bals Fund-supported and CineMart-presented coming-of-age drama Marina, where a teenage girl’s dreams for her 15th birthday party come up against structural violence, class difference and racial inequality.

Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi (Icaros: A Vision, Tribeca 2016) present the hybrid documentary The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs on 75-year-old Indigenous artist Sara Flores, as she emerges from the Peruvian Amazon into the global contemporary art scene. The project is produced by Rotterdam Lab graduate Maria Altamirano. 

Costa Rican filmmaker Neto Villalobos (Rotterdam Lab 2011), whose features All About the Feathers (2013) and Helmet Heads (2018) both premiered in Toronto, presents the tropical dystopia Amor es el monstruo, where a seventy-year-old grandmother defies age and prejudice to save her kidnapped granddaughter. 

Mario Piredda (The Lamb, Italian Golden Globe for Best Young Newcomer 2021), returns with the sun-scorched Sardinian road movie Làstima, following Vera, a jobless Romanian in her 40s, and Kali, a young Nigerian girl she is forced to traffic from one city to another – produced by Lab graduate Chiara Galloni. 

Víctor Moreno’s sci-fi The Outside, presented at CineMart 2023 and filmed on Fuerteventura and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, charts the odyssey of an astronaut lost in the desert. 

Two Dutch projects feature in the work-in-progress platform. Mari Sanders (Go Daan Go!, short, 2014; 80% Disabled, short, 2016; Handicapable, series, 2025) returns to themes of disability and belonging with Get Up Stand Up, produced by Lab graduate Lisette Kelder. Vera loses her autonomy after an accident and must reinvent her life in a wheelchair, finding a new perspective through her friendship with Xander, who has been in a wheelchair since birth. 

Kenya-born Dutch filmmaker Amira Duynhouwer (Save It, short, NFF 2021; Beti, short, NFF 2020; Kimya, short, Cinekid 2020), who co-wrote Jim Taihuttu’s Hardcore Never Dies, presents Sugar (produced by Rotterdam Lab graduate Layla Meijman of Studio Ruba) about a hair stylist breaking free from her violent and abusive partner while trying to protect her daughter.

BAFTA New Talent award-nominee Joshua Loftin’s docu-fiction LFD Hope tells the stories of men from London’s margins, co-produced by Hungarian Rotterdam Lab graduate Patricia D’intino. 

Paris-based Korean artist and filmmaker Jeunghae Yim (Entre chien et loup, FIDMarseille, Jeonju IFF) presents Sea, Star, Woman, returning to Korea to recover the memory of her mother, weaving together archival footage, portraits, eye-rehabilitation inspired animation, and re-enacted childhood memories. The project is produced by Rotterdam Lab graduate Martin Bertier. 

Fil Ieropoulos’s second feature Avant-Drag! premiered at IFFR 2024. His experimental docu-essay Uchronia: Parallel Histories of Queer Revolt (co-prod. Rotterdam Lab graduate Steven Rubinstein Malamud) embarks from Arthur Rimbaud’s radical poem ‘Une Saison En Enfer’, travelling through 150 years of queer resistance and revolutionary politics.

Darkroom success in 2025

Last edition’s projects had a year of wide spread success and acclaim, including: Dry Leaf by Alexandre Koberidze (Special Mention & FIPRESCI prize Locarno 2025, TIFF, BFI), Sorella di Clausura by Ivana Mladenovic (best actress award for lead Katia Pascariu, Locarno 2025; Heart of Sarajevo Award for best film Sarajevo IFF), Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes by Gabriel Azorín (Giornate degli Autori, Venice, WP 2025; NYFF) and Hiedra by Ana Cristina Barragán (Special Mention, Horizontes Latinos San Sebastián 2025).