The Venice Immersive section of the 81st Venice International Film Festival, which will be held with the support of VRChat, will present 63 projects from 25 countries that include all types of creative XR expression: 360° videos, virtual and mixed reality and XR works of any length, including installations, haptics and virtual worlds.
The Venice International Film Festival was one of the first film festivals in the world to show an interest in Virtual Reality, and the XR section of the festival has evolved since it was launched. The official program for 2024 will take place on the Venice Immersive Island (island of Lazzaretto Vecchio), a short distance from the Lido di Venezia, on the following dates:
- 27th August (afternoon): press preview
- 28th August: open exclusively to Press, Industry and Venice Immersive accreditations
- 29th August – 7th September: open to all accredited visitors
Entirely devoted to immersive arts and media and includes all types of creative XR expression, the VR section of the festival sparked enormous interest among the participants of the Venice Production Bridge when the VR Theatre was introduced, in 2016. Starting in 2017, La Biennale di Venezia launched the first competition for works in Virtual Reality in an A-list festival, which was held for three editions, through 2019, on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio on the Lido, judged by an International Jury.
The online accessibility of Venice VR Expanded over two editions (2020 and 2021) represented a new commitment and a new challenge to guarantee that the Venice International Film Festival would continue to offer the experience of this new art form, even in times of required social distancing. In 2022 the section, renamed Venice Immersive, returned in person to the island. Since the very first years, the section has been recognized as a unique event in the field and the most significant annual exhibition of immersive arts and media.
Venice Immersive will present 63 projects from 25 countries:
- 26 projects in Competition, representing a selection of 19 world premieres and 7 international premieres of the world’s best immersive works
- 30 projects Out of Competition, an international selection of the best works that have been released or premiered elsewhere since the last edition of the Venice International Film Festival; this section is divided into:
o Best of Experiences, 10 projects
o Best of Worlds, 20 projects, created by independent artists from all over the world on the VRChat social platform, an ecosystem of virtual worlds presented in guided tours
- 7 projects developed during the Biennale College Cinema – Immersive: 1 project produced thanks to the grant from this year’s eighth edition, 6 projects developed within the international workshop of the eighth, seventh, sixth and fifth editions
The 2024 Venice Immersive Jury will award the following prizes:
- Venice Immersive Grand Prize
- Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize
- Venice Immersive Achievement Prize
Accredited visitors to the Venice Film Festival will have access to all the titles in the line-up. There is also a dedicated Venice Immersive Accreditation reserved to people over 18 years of age that grants access to the projects of the section and is available in three formats:
- 2-DAYS Venice Immersive Accreditation (€ 40): valid for 2 days
- 5-DAYS Venice Immersive Accreditation (€ 60): valid for 5 days
- FULL Venice Immersive Accreditation (€ 100): valid from 28th August to 7th September
Registrations for Venice Immersive Accreditation are open on the festival’s website.
Venice Immersive Market
The members of the international Jury of Venice Immersive are:
- Celine Daemen – president: (The Netherlands) born in 1995, she is a director of transdisciplinary art. Her work develops at the interface of theatre, music, visual arts and digital media. She creates immersive experiences that invite the audience on a journey inwards and take them to a place where personal associations arise in response to universal philosophical questions. Celine is the founder of Studio Nergens. In 2022 her VR opera Eurydice, a descent into infinity premiered in the Venice Immersive selection in competition. After that, it received several awards during its international tour. Her latest VR opera Songs for a Passerby premiered last year at the Mostra. It won the Venice Immersive Grand Prize and has since been touring prestigious festivals and cultural venues around the world.
- Marion Burger: (France) born in 1987, she is a production designer who has worked on many feature films, including Divines by Houda Benyamina, that won the Caméra d’or at Cannes Film festival in 2016, Gagarine by Jérémy Trouilh and Fanny Liatard, in Cannes official selection in 2020, and more recently Mother and Son by Léonor Serraille, also in Cannes in 2022 edition. As a former graduate of the Duperré design school, she has always been attracted by the transversality of creative media. Emperor, an empathic VR experience co-created with Ilan J. Cohen, that won Venice Immersive achievement prize last year, marked her directorial debut.
- Adriaan Lokman: (The Netherlands) was born in 1960, he is creator of time based, linear, interactive and cross-media projects. After graduating at the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam in illustration and audio-visual design, he worked in Rotterdam, where he ran his production studio for animation, web design and event concepts. In 2002 his film Barcode was awarded the Grand Prix d’Annecy. In last edition of the Mostra Flow was awarded the Special Immersive Jury prize. In his short films, he investigated the boundaries between abstraction and reality, with the ongoing desire to involve the viewer.
Attendees to the festival also have an opportunity to visit the 3rd edition of the Venice Immersive Market (29th August – 3rd September), a part of the Venice Production Bridge, that will take place on the Venice Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio).
The Venice Immersive Market is gathering all the Venice Production Bridge Immersive activities during the Venice International Film Festival. These activities include: the presentation of immersive projects of both the Venice Gap-Financing Market and the Biennale College Cinema Immersive through 1-to-1 meetings; panels and networking events dedicated to immersive topics; an Exhibition Area for Institutions, public and private funds, the manufacturers, the VR production, distribution and sales companies, public and private funds supporting VR/XR/AR, VFX and post-production companies that are connected to Immersive content.
In the Spazio Incontri Immersivo there will be, from 29th August to 3rd September, panel discussions and activities dedicated to the world of XR – Extended Reality.
The 2024 VPB Focus are Luxemburg & Wallonia-Brussels and Japan. Film Fund Luxemburg (Luxemburg), Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel (Wallonia-Brussels) and JETRO (Japan) will have dedicated areas within the context of VPB.
The Island will also be the place where teams (producer and creator) of the Immersive projects selected for the Venice Gap-Financing Market will gather (30thAugust – 1st September 2024):
16 IMMERSIVE PROJECTS:
16 Immersive projects (11 from Europe and 5 from around the world), including fiction, documentary, animation and other interactive installation-based experiences, included the 4 projects coming from the Wallonia-Brussels & Luxembourg and the Japan VPB Focuses. All projects have secured 30% of their budget and have this financing in place. These 16 projects will deliver a live pitch at the Spazio Incontri Immersivo on the morning of 30th August.
8 BIENNALE COLLEGE CINEMA – IMMERSIVE PROJECTS:
8 projects, that have been developed during the workshop of Biennale College Cinema Immersive, eighth edition, and that have reached different stages of development, pre-production and post-production.
Registered delegates with Industry Gold or Trade accreditations will be entitled to request meetings with the selected projects through our website (veniceproductionbridge.org) in the dedicated area to the VGFM.
The Venice Immersive Market will be the place where institutions, professionals, production, post-production and distribution companies, public and private funds linked to the Immersive world will convene.