The fourth edition of the Darkroom showcase took place from 1-4 February, featuring nine invited projects. The IFFR initiative is designed for recently completed or nearly finished titles in search of completion or gap financing, as well as sales representation and festival exposure. Below, we take a closer look at five particularly compelling projects.

Sea, Star, Woman - Jeunghae Yim (France/South Korea)
The project is a deeply personal creative documentary, in which the filmmaker retraces the fragmented memory of her mother, who left South Korea for the United States, leaving her children behind. Built around photographs with her mother’s face deliberately removed, the film explores absence as both an emotional wound and a political condition, examining how law, convention and silence shaped a woman’s fate across borders. “Through the process of making this film, I feel, for the first time, like I have become the daughter of the mother I never truly knew. And by exploring the reasons behind her absence, I'd like to move towards reconciliation with my memory of her,” Yim tells Cineuropa.

Produced by 5 à 7 Films in co-production with Sea Pictures, the film has a total budget of €555,933, with €136,000 of it already confirmed. Current partners include France Télévisions, the Seoul Film Commission, the Korea Film Commission, KOFIC’s Korean Independent Film Development Fund and the Busan Asian Film Fund. “During the festival, we hope to connect with broadcasters, sales agents, distributors and financiers who share our desire to support this deeply personal yet universal story,” adds producer Helen Olive.

LFD Hope by Joshua Loftin

LFD Hope – Joshua Loftin (UK/Hungary)
Loftin’s feature is an 80-minute hybrid creative documentary that blurs the boundaries between lived experience and imagination, following five men navigating isolation, mental-health struggles and belonging in contemporary London. Developed through an intimate, collaborative process, the film draws directly from the protagonists’ real lives as their stories intertwine with the director’s own. As producer Bálint Révész explains: “LFD Hope blends truth and imagination in equal measure. The film is a requiem for London and its forgotten souls,” tracing “five men learning to find their voices through intimate, symbolic encounters”.

Produced by Galivant Film, Sea Fox Films and Lorenz Film in co-production with Good Kids, the project has a total budget of €287,500, with €154,100 already confirmed. The project is currently in post-production, and is seeking co-producers and financiers to support the final stage of completion, as well as partners or programmers to assist with its release.

Làstima by Mario Piredda (© Francesca Ardau)

Làstima – Mario Piredda (Italy/Switzerland)
This 100-minute fiction feature follows Vera, an unemployed Romanian woman in her forties, and Kali, a young Nigerian girl, on a journey across a sun-scorched Sardinia that gradually becomes a space of confrontation, solidarity and emotional exposure. What begins as a simple, one-day assignment turns into an intimate road movie shaped by themes of sisterhood, migration and social marginality. As producer Chiara Galloni explains, “We define the project as an ‘on-the-road feminist drama’, centred on the freedom to choose, or the impossibility of choosing, which both unites and distinguishes us as human beings,” a tension encapsulated in the Sardinian word làstima, a term blending curse and compassion.

Produced by Articolture (Italy) in co-production with Dok Mobile (Switzerland), the film has a total budget of €1,650,000, with €1,500,000 already secured. Financing partners include the Italian Ministry of Culture, Sardinian Region, Sardegna Film Commission, FICS Film Investment Refund Switzerland and OFC Federal Office of Culture. Currently at the rough-cut stage, Làstima is seeking sales agents, distributors and broadcasters. At IFFR Darkroom, the team is also positioning the film as a highly anticipated new work by Piredda, following his David di Donatello-winning short A casa mia and the critical success of his debut feature, The Lamb [+lee también:
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Stand Up by Mari Sanders

Stand Up – Mari Sanders (Netherlands/Greece)
The project, now in post, is a 90-minute coming-of-age fiction debut, conceived as a rites-of-passage disability drama centred on autonomy, friendship and self-acceptance. It follows Vera, a 23-year-old woman who loses her independence after an accident and must reinvent her life in a wheelchair. Her encounter with Xander, who has used a wheelchair since birth, forces her to confront a central dilemma: embrace her limitations or strive to appear “normal”. As producer Myrthe Laarakker explains, Stand Up is shaped directly by the filmmaker’s own experience of living with a disability and the process of “grieving and coming to terms with being different from the majority”.

A defining USP of the project lies in its casting choice: every actor portraying a character with a disability also has a disability in real life, including Lucia Zemene, who lost her leg in an accident four years ago – it’s an approach that the team sees as essential to the movie’s authenticity and poetic exploration of disability. Produced by The Film Kitchen in co-production with Neo Film, the film has a total budget of €3,146,252, with strong backing from the Netherlands Film Fund, Creative Europe, BNNVARA, Green Bird Broadcasting and the Netherlands Film Production Incentive.

“The team is actively looking for a sales agent and is eager to talk to festival programmers for a release in 2026. We’re planning an impact campaign alongside the regular release,” Laarakker reveals.

Sugar by Amira Duynhouwer (© Sam du Pon)

Sugar - Amira Duynhouwer (Netherlands/Belgium)
This 90-minute fiction feature explores sisterhood, domestic violence and young motherhood through the lens of an intimate, urban drama set in Amsterdam. It follows Chyna, a young woman juggling work at a hair salon, financial pressure and caring for her baby, Sugar, as she attempts to leave an increasingly violent relationship. When her boyfriend Raoul refuses to let go, Chyna is forced to confront entrenched patterns of control and abuse, breaking away from everything she has ever known. With Sugar, Duynhouwer aims to “connect the dots” of everyday life, showing how seemingly small, everyday moments accumulate, making for a situation that can become dangerous and ultimately life-threatening.

Produced by Studio Ruba in co-production with Mirage Films, the project has a total budget of €2,532,670. Current partners include Creative Europe, the Netherlands Film Fund, the Flanders Audiovisual Fund and the Belgian Tax Shelter. Following the wrap of principal photography and the early stages of editing, Sugar is presently in rough cut. “The partners we’re currently seeking are mainly sales agents and festival programmers in order to secure an international premiere at the end of summer 2026,” notes producer Layla Meijman.