UNCERTAIN TIMES FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

These powerful projects explore how to convey politically and socially relevant stories through new digital media. How can we interact with those stories, how can we learn from history? Witness how these experiences shift your understanding of reality and how they empower you to see another, fresh side of a story. Virtual Reality, often conceived as an “empathy machine”, really has the power to facilitate understanding across borders and even impact government decisions, as is expressed through these films.

FILMS IN THIS SECTION:
Child of Empire ( UK / English, Hindi, Urdu/ 2021/ 17mins) Dirs. Sparsh Ahuja, Erfan Saadati, Omi Zola Gupta, Stephen Stephenson. This animated virtual reality documentary immerses viewers in one of the largest forced migrations in human history: the 1947 Partition. Age suitability :12 +

You Destroy. We Create (Germany/Ukraine/ Ukranian with English subtitles/ 2022/ 20 mins) Dirs. Felix Gaedtke, Gayatri Parameswaran. An immersive journey through Ukraine, where artists and professionals from the cultural sphere are busy protecting, rebuilding and creating art. 

The Man Who Couldn’t Leave (Taiwan/Taiwanese, Chinese with English subtitles/2022/34 mins)
Dir. Singing Chen. Green Island off the southeast coast of Taiwan is now a memorial park, but in 1949 it was a penal colony where political prisoners were detained. An estimated 4,000 Taiwanese did not survive this period, and many were imprisoned for years. A-Keun was among them. In this film, he is the guide who welcomes the viewer to the barracks. Surrounded by fellow prisoners, he talks about daily life, boredom, hunger, comradeship and the loss of a sense of time.

FRESH PERSPECTIVES - FEMALE AND NON-BINARY CREATORS IN VR

Explore cutting-edge immersive storytelling, created by the most inspiring female and non-binary artists from all over the world. With emerging technology often perceived as a predominantly male domain, we want to challenge this preconception and present a selection of works by international and local artists.

Kindred (UK / English/ 2022/ 10mins) Dir. Bambou Kenneth. Highlighting the unique challenges faced by non-binary parents in the UK’s outdated adoption process, this animated VR experience tells the inspiring story of Syd and Ollie, who redefine the meaning of family. 

The Choice (Canada, Poland/ English/ 2021/ 25 mins) Dir. Joanne Popinska.This powerful VR documentary project focuses on lawmaking around reproductive rights in the US.

(Hi)Story Of A Painting: The Light In The Shadow (UK/English/ 2022/15 mins) Dirs. Quentin Darras, Gaëlle Mourre. An animated 6DoF VR series aimed at engaging young audiences with art by creating intimate, gripping and relatable experiences focused on the human stories behind some of the world’s greatest art and artists. 

MISSING PICTURES

Missing Pictures is a 5 episode immersive documentary in VR that features five different directors. Each unique in their own way, the episodes reflect the character and experiences of the director through animation and implanting the director via volumetric capture into the virtual world.The series is at once an homage to the world of movie making via a look into the complicated process of bringing a film to life, and an important addition to the canon of cinema history as an archive and a bridge builder between traditional 2D and VR storytelling.

FILMS IN THIS SECTION:
Abel Ferrara - Birds Of Prey (UK/English/ 2020/ 8.35 mins) Dir. Clément Deneux. In the film we meet long-time independent American filmmaker, Abel Ferrara who speaks of the political thriller of his dreams, until it all falls apart. He takes us with him on a journey through the heart of his unfinished story based in the 70's New York City. 

Tsai Ming-Liang - The Seven-Story Building( UK/English/ 2020/ 11.33 mins) Dirs. Clément Deneux & Lai Kuan-Yuan. Lai Tsai Ming-Liang doesn’t have a “missing picture”, but what he does have are childhood memories, so vivid that it is impossible for him to film. The Taiwanese maestro of slow cinema seizes the medium of virtual reality to go back to the Malaysia of his childhood, when his grandparents took him to see two movies every night. 

Catherine Hardwicke - The Monkey Wrench Gang (UK/English/ 2020/ 11.24 mins) Dir. Clément Deneux. After Twilight Chapter 1’s huge box-office hit, Catherine Hardwicke tried to make an adaptation of 'The Monkey Wrench Gang' by Edward Abbey, a cult book of the 70s American counterculture and a precursor of eco-activism. The director revisits this project which excited her so much and which became, because of the reluctance of the Hollywood studios, one of these umpteenth "ghosts of the garage". 

Lee Myung - Se Father Is Gone (UK/English/ 2020/11.20 mins) Dirs. Clément Deneux &Lee Myung-Se. Thiscould have been Lee Myung-se’s debut film, but slipped into a long hiatus instead. After thirty years busy directing unprecedented features in Korea like First Love or Nowhere to Hide, Lee finally brings the lost project back to life through virtual reality. 

Naomi Kawase - Oh Debu (UK/English/ 2020/ 14.20 mins) Dir.Clément Deneux.The most celebrated female filmmaker from Japan revisits a project that she envisioned after her 2015 film Sweet Bean. This filmtells the story of Aya, a 27-year- old, overweight and over romantic woman. Through this story, Naomi Kawase wanted to give herself a challenge trying to make a comedy, far from her previous naturalist, poetic features.