Storyspace

Discover innovative ways of storytelling at the Netherlands Film Festival. In the Storyspace exhibition in the Neude Library, you will experience interactive installations, VR experiences, apps and performances that stimulate your senses. Everything is about looking, feeling and experiencing - just a little bit different from an ordinary film.

The expo is accessible to everyone, you can easily walk in and out. Ideal between film screenings or if you want actually want to stand still for a minute. Be surprised by the talent and creativity of Dutch digital makers.

The 46th edition of the Netherlands Film Festival will take place from Friday 25 September to Friday 2 October 2026.

Storyspace locations

: Neude 11, Utrecht

Opening hours
25 Sept: 17:00 – 21:00
26 Sept: 09:00 – 21:00
27 Sept: 10:00 – 18:00
28 - 30 Sept: 09:00 – 21:00
1 Oct: 09:00 - 19:00

: Neude 11, Utrecht
From Friday 25 to Sunday 27 September, Graves' End can be seen here for free.

: Wolvenplein 29, Utrecht
On Saturday 26 September Conversations can be seen here.

Experiences in Library Neude

Alterity

Creator Jacco Gardner
Performance Jacco Gardner
Narrative & Script Maria Pandiello
Producer Floris Smit
Production Company UPscaleXR
Research Edwin Gardner
Video & Animation Lucas Laujedo

Musician and media archaeologist Jacco Gardner combines vintage 1980s hardware with modern AI agents to create an immersive audiovisual installation. A voice-over reflects on our conflicted relationship with technology: do we fall in love with our own creations, or fear them? The installation kicks off with a live performance at the opening.

This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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Being Gregor

Creator Camiel Schouwenaar
Concept Development Camiel Schouwenaar, Bastiaan Hooimeijer, Sönke Kirchhof
Producer Martin Venema
Production Company Happy Ship
Co-production Company INVR.SPACE
Sound Design Game Audio Squad
Animation Sönke Kirchhof, Yume Tanaka, Timo Heikkilä, Stefanie Wermeling, Antonia Lutter, Jessica Zippel

Gregor Samsa is a devoted son and breadwinner, until he wakes up one morning as an insect. In this interactive VR experience, your perspective slowly shifts from human to insect, and you feel how the love of those closest to you turns out to be anything but unconditional. Kafka's classic The Metamorphosis comes to life through game elements and unsettlingly beautiful artwork.

More information and tickets

The Daughters, The Interpreters and The Family

Maker Eliane Esther Bots
Conceptontwikkeling Eliane Esther Bots
Verhalen Alma, Amela, Amira, Elma Čavčić, Matea, Besmir Fidahić, Alma Imamović, Nenad Popović Pops, Adajew Family
Uitgeverij DOC Editions
Geluidsopnamen Eliane Esther Bots
Sound Design Sergio González Cuervo
Grafische Vormgeving Jonathan Roorda

Documentary maker Eliane Esther Bots hands the stories back to the people she filmed, in a 275-page interactive book. Three audio tracks guide you crisscross through experiences of conflict, told by second-generation Dutch-Bosnian women, interpreters from the Yugoslav Tribunal, and a family who fled Chechnya. Leaf through, listen, and discover how footage takes on a new form.

Out of competition. This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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Deep Soup

Creator Luna Maurer, Roel Wouters
Producer Corine Meijers
Production Company Studio Biarritz
Script Luna Maurer, Roel Wouters
Sound Design Andreas Tegnander
Composer Philipp Johann Thimm
Camera Jasper Wolf, Thomas Weber

While AI labs like Google's DeepMind feed on human input, artists Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters brew an analogue primordial soup from footage submitted by people worldwide. The result is a mesmerising, messy counterpart to the smooth perfection promised by digital systems. Not artificial intelligence, but physical intelligence.

This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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exec.DEUS

Creator URLAND
Concept Development Marijn Alexander de Jong (URLAND), Theater de Maagd
Production Company URLAND, Innovation:Lab
Sound Design Jimi Zoet (URLAND), Tomas Loos
Voice Thomas Dudkiewicz (URLAND)

This intimate confession booth houses an artificial intelligence that you train yourself, simply by starting a conversation. Talk about guilt, doubt or faith with an AI that never tires, remembers everything and never judges, but is still far from all-knowing. In her search for divinity, you might just find your own humanity.

This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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Graves' End

Creator Finn Stevenhagen
Production Company Finn Stevenhagen
Composer Finn Stevenhagen
Production Design Finn Stevenhagen
Animation Finn Stevenhagen
Technical Realisation Finn Stevenhagen

A medieval boy mistakes a raven for a spy of the Viking god Odin, in an installation combining projection, sound design and animatronics. His story is a parable for the echo chamber AI so often creates, made without a single trace of generative AI.

Graves' End can be experienced for free in the Filmzaal at Bibliotheek Neude from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 September.

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The Great Orator

Creator Daniel Ernst
Production Company The Shoebox Diorama
Poems Thomas Möhlmann
Composer Misha Velthuis, Armeno Alberts
Audio Max Sombroek
Technical Realisation Niels Egberts, Daniel Ernst, Maarten Tromp, Jan Bijster, Codeglue
3D Art Daniel Ernst, Danny Groot, Bart Limburg, Anej Golcar, Joeri Lefèvre

Once a TV medium in the style of Jomanda, now living on as AI: The Great Orator has been trained on the memories of her followers and current events. In this VR experience, you step into her house and listen to an all-knowing narrator, or at least one who's very good at faking it. What does she have to tell you, or feed you a line about?

More information and tickets

INNERVERSE

Creator Arno Coenen
Concept Development Arno Coenen
Production Company Arno Coenen
Sound Design Arno Coenen
Camera AI
Distribution Li-Ma, Amsterdam

Put on your headphones for a cinematic space opera steeped in AI from start to finish. The protagonist descends ever deeper into artificial worlds filled with endless elevators, pop-culture altars and algorithmic dreams that promise comfort. Blending retrofuturism with dark humour, INNERVERSE is an observation on making art within a system that promises freedom while quietly sidelining the soul.

This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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Lesbian Simulator

Creator Iris van der Meule
Producer Corine Meijers
Production Company Studio Biarritz
Co-production Company Art et Essai, Cassette for Timescapes, Podium Biarritz
Technical Realisation Frank Bosma, Lilian Souwer, Tom Semeijn
Animation Pip Williamson, Colegram Studio
Voice actors Hanna van Vliet, Sofie Hellemons

Create your own lesbian avatar and guide her through familiar moments: coming out, dating, forming new friendships, but also facing prejudice and verbal abuse. This interactive celebration of diversity lets you experience what it's like to belong to a minority. It's not all bleak: discover the warmth of community and the exuberance of Pride too.

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Nothing to see here

Creator Celine Daemen
Artistic and Technical Direction Aron Fels
Sound Design Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, Wouter Snoei
Technical Realisation Sjoerd van Acker, Glenn Wustlich
Writers Stefanie Kolk, Celine Daemen
Installation Design and Build Floriaan Egbers
Cast Fabrizio Rongione

Peer through the peepholes of a box-shaped diorama and step into an optical and auditory illusion. You see yourself from above as strange events — a plastic bag, a confused man, a wolf — gradually call your perception into question. Nothing to see here invites you to pause and truly look around you.

This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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Tracing Colombia

Creator Jan Rothuizen
Producer Ilja Roomans
Production Company Docmakers, Zesbaans
Camera & Edit Stijn van Santen
Animation Franka Wiggers
Sound Design Huibert Boon
Interface & Interaction Design Harm van de Ven, Juul Spee

Travel with visual artist Jan Rothuizen through Colombia, shortly after the signing of a historic peace agreement. Across eight chapters he meets people — from a Love Motel to the Queen of Cali — captured in narrative drawings you can explore at your own pace. Set your own tempo, rapido or tranquilo, through this personal search for understanding.

This work is free and accessible without restriction.

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Dance Out of Pattern

NFF Fellow 2026 Luna Maurer

Choreographer Luna Maurer doesn't use AI as a tool, but as a creative improvisation partner on the dance floor. She gives the machine a prompt or task, then lets herself be surprised by unfamiliar, unexpected ways of moving. Dance Out of Pattern explores what emerges from the friction between a body and a bodiless machine.

Part of the NFF Fellowships Programme.

More information More information about the Fellowship Programme

Green Clouds

NFF Fellow 2026 Nirit Peled

From thousands of photos on your phone to data in the cloud: storage seems self-evident, but according to Nirit Peled it is anything but. In a lecture-performance, she connects her own experience of serious illness to broader questions about digital immortality and collective memory. What do we gain by preserving everything, and what do we lose when we can no longer forget?

Part of the NFF Fellowships Programme.

More information More information about the Fellowship Programme

Synthetic Bioscope

NFF Fellow 2026 Matthew C. Wilson

Where the bioscope invites you to look at life, Matthew Wilson's Synthetic Bioscope invites you to look at synthetic life. Through fictional scenarios and speculative 'specimens' based on current scientific research, he explores the convergence of biotechnology and AI. Moving-image experiments and filmed 'research notes' carry you into possible future worlds.

Part of the NFF Fellowships Programme.

More information More information about the Fellowship Programme

Experiences in other locations

Conversations

Creators Paul Boereboom, Leon Rogissart
Concept and XR Design Paul Boereboom
Concept and Composition Leon Rogissart
Performer Annelinde Bruijs
Technique Dries Himpe
Producers Muziektheater Transparant, Podium Bloos
Technical Production UpscaleXR

Put on the XR headset for a court dance set to Renaissance sounds, where physical and digital worlds merge into a search for yourself and the other. Are you an obedient sheep, or do you dare choose your own path?

Conversations can be seen on Saturday 26 September at De Lik.

More information and tickets

Amsterdam 1652 | The Hands of the City

Creatir Nienke Huitenga Broeren, ENTR
Production Company ENTR
Sound Design Arcade, Studio QKLQ
Research Hugo Post, Annick Gossen, Lianne Wilhelmus, Thomas Dresscher
Animation BackLight

Step into Amsterdam in 1652 through the eyes of three ordinary residents: a whaler, a printer and a freed Black craftswoman. When the old Town Hall goes up in flames, their paths cross, revealing how ordinary people shape a city.

This experience is not on display at Storyspace and can instead be visited at the ENTR VR Museum in Amsterdam.

More Digital Culture at NFF

HEFT

HEFT: Heritage for the Future is a collaboration between the Nederlands Film Festival and a broad group of creators and institutions experimenting with immersive experiences: how can they reach a wider audience, and how can they be better preserved? During the Open Lab Sessions – from 26 to 29 september in Kinepolis – four works in progress are presented to an audience for the first time. Audience feedback contributes directly to the further development of these works.

More information about HEFT