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FilmGate Interactive
Media Festival #07
VIRTUAL REALITY
BATTLESCAR follows the life of 16-year- old Lupe, a Puerto Rican-American teenager living in late 1970’s New York City. Lupe’s handwritten journal guides us through her experiences as she meets Debbie, another runaway kid living in the city.
Carried by two strong female characters, the story exudes the energy of New York punk-rock - fast and harsh, loaded with anti-authoritarian ideology and political messages, expressing a young rebellion characterized by the main characters independent and determined attitudes.
BattleScar is a coming of age drama that explores the theme of identity through the use of animation and immersive environments in virtual reality.
DIRECTED BY: Nico Casavecchia & Martin Allais
LENGTH: 30 minutes
FORMAT: 3x10mn/vr6dof + 360 Video Version
PUBLIC: Mature audiences
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: English, Spanish, French, German, Mandarin
VR INFO: All VR devices (no controllers required)
PLAY AREA: 4 x 8 ft
PRODUCED BY: Atlas V in coproduction with 1stavemachine, Fauns and Arte France in association with Kaleidoscope, with the support of CNC & La Région Auvergne Rhône-Alpes
NARRATED BY: Rosario Dawson & Jenny Beth
CREATORS
MARTIN ALLAIS is a visual artist, illustrator, animator, and director. Experimentation, freshness, and playfulness are key elements in his work, which strongly reflects in his finished pieces.
He co-founded the collective No-Domain, directing commercials for brands like Heineken, Seat and G4 Channel, among others. Whilst Martin was part of No-Domain, the New York based production company, Blacklist, Part of Psyop Inc, represented the collective. Psyop is a multi-awarded production company, and creators of iconic commercials such as Coca Cola’s Happy Factory Campaign and Crow for MTV.
Martin has participated in international events like Designmai (Berlin), Sperm (Prague), Mapping (Genève) and Sonar Festival Barcelona (editions of 2004 to 2007), touring with the festival as the official video performer.
NICO CASAVECCHIA is an Argentinian director, screenwriter and illustrator based in Brooklyn. His work employs mixed-media techniques ranging from animation to live action. His first feature film Finding Sofía, a live action narrative film, premiered at the Austin Film Festival in 2016.
Nico directed A Boy and His Atom (2013), a stop-motion animated short lm created by IBM Research scientists. It was made by moving carbon monoxide molecules, and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s smallest stop-motion film.
Nico’s work has been showcased in festivals like Sundance, SXSW, BAFICI, Siggraph, Viedram (Rome), Holland Film Festival, Ars Electronica, among others, and has collected Gold & Bronze statues in Cannes, Clio, AICP, and London LIA awards.
PROJECT GALLERY
TRAILER
SPACED OUT (France)
From lead artist, Pyaré, SPACED OUT is an underwater VR experience using the revolutionary VR waterproof headset, DiVR by Ballast Technologies . It invites visitors to float on water while breathing with a snorkel, giving an illusion of being immersed onto the lunar surface.
SPACED OUT transports the visitors from earth to the moon, from water to space and from the first to the third person leaving body behind, to reach the moon and then its hollow center.
The trip crosses in a tunnel of lines and points, a trajectory of the Earth on the surface of the moon, where the last Apollo 11 mission landed. SPACED OUT’s narration is composed by original audio archives of the communication between the three astronauts and the mission control. The running audio track clashes with the abstract 3D visual representation of what the 19th century writers believed the moon looked like. The piece is like a magic trick: simulating absence of gravity it bypasses the brain’s predispositions for an immersion of all senses.
CREATORS
Pierre “Pyaré” Friquet is a digital artist based in France and India who creates immersive experiences. Fascinated by immersive technologies since 2010, Pyaré has created more than a dozen VR fictions, documentaries, music videos, and dome- and location-based experiences. His VR original fiction (co-created with Ando Shah) Jet Lag won the Best Live-Action Experience Award at the Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival.
PROJECT GALLERY
TRAILER
STILTSVILLE VR (USA)
Seeming to float above Miami's Biscayne Bay shallow seagrass beds, Stiltsville has a colorful history that dates back to the 1930s, when "Crawfish Eddie Walker" built the first shack on stilts above the water. Told in the style of a time travelling journal, with puzzles solved, games played, images captured and clues discovered, the Oculus Quest experience, will guide us through the houses, their history, their underwater sea life colonies and introduce us to their colorful caretakers. From 29 houses, to 7 and most recently to 6, these fascinating houses have weathered historic and nature turmoil, not unlike Miami itself. The houses have influenced many talented architects, who are using their ingenuity as the blueprint for sustainable structures, where the sea is taking over the land. Now at the mercy of sea level rise and climate change, they are living on borrowed time and will remain preserved in posterity in a virtual world.
CREATED BY: FilmGate Miami & Jose Guzman, Lien Tran, and Clay Ewing of nerdlab.miami
DIRECTED BY: Diliana Alexander
WRITTEN BY: Diliana Alexander
PRODUCED BY: FilmGate Miami
DEVELOPER: Jose Guzman
3D ARTIST: Segundo Correas
TYPE: Prototype
DEVICE: Oculus Quest
LENGTH: 5 minutes
PLAY AREA: 4 x 8 ft
CREATORS
DILIANA ALEXANDER
Diliana is an award winning interactive storytelling producer and director, who hails from Toronto, Canada and now lives in Miami, Florida. In 2012, she founded FilmGate Miami a not-for-profit production studio, supporting innovative storytellers who craft independent narratives. She is also the Founder and the Executive Director of the annual FilmGate Interactive, a Festival that focuses on interactive and immersive storytelling and the tech that empowers it. In 2017, she founded the Downtown Media Center, a co-working space for media related businesses. Hosting pitching sessions, workshops, panels, interactive screenings, virtual reality experiences and networking events. Diliana is an experienced speaker and festival organizer and is currently producing the experience Stiltsville VR.
José is passionate about the entire video game industry, from the artistic elements that create different atmospheres and worlds to the logical part behind the main core mechanics’ functionality. He also enjoys creating interactive worlds and simple solutions to complex problems.
Segundo Correas is a 3D artist from Argentina. He started his career doing architectural renderings, which helped him realize his passion for 3D and convinced him to move to Miami to study Game Art and work in Video Games.
He loves to bring environments, props, and characters to life through sculpting, modeling and texturing.
PAULINA CAMPO HAEUSLER
Paulina is a Filmmaker from Colombia. Her main focus is on editing and screenwriting. She currently coordinates Stiltsville VR for Filmgate Miami.
PROJECT GALLERY
TRAILER
LEGENDS OF THE BRUSH (USA)
Step into a wild collection of colorful fables created in virtual reality from the mind of Eisner-nominated digital artist Sutu. From a disgraced fashion designer's deal with an unlikely partner to a young girl's quest to find the creator of the universe, each fable features stunningly unique art styles and game mechanics.
Prepare for a journey through a collection of stories that convey timeless and universal themes. This first ensemble explores humanity’s endless curiosity, the timeless quest to understand our place in the universe and a near fatal case of FOMO.
CREATORS
Dr. Stuart ‘Sutu’ Campbell uses art and technology in new ways to tell stories. He has been commissioned by the likes of Marvel, Google and Disney to create Virtual Reality (VR) art for properties such as Doctor Strange, Ready Player One and Metropolis. He has also created four VR documentaries; Inside Manus for SBS, Mind at War for Ryot Films, The Battle of Hamel for the Australian War Memorial, and Future Dreaming for NITV. He is also known for his interactive comics including the Eisner-nominated These Memories Won’t Last, Nawlz, Neomad, and Modern Polaxis. He holds an Honorary Doctorate of Digital Media from Central Queensland University, is a 2017 Sundance Fellow and is the co-founder of EyeJack an Augmented Reality company.
Based in Roebourne WA, Stuart's role as a Digital Media Coordinator and arts mentor in often isolated community settings sees him developing ground breaking digital interactive content in collaboration with local people. His community development work has been captured in the 2014 ABC documentary, ‘Cyber Dreaming’ and he is also featured with his NEOMAD team in the award-winning documentary, ‘How do we get to space?’, along with his most recent VR Film Future Dreaming which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.
Stuart’s work has been internationally recognized within the fields of digital media and education and has won Webby, FWA, ATOM and JMAF awards.
PROJECT GALLERY
TRAILER
THE LINE (Brazil)
Have you ever felt like you were living in a ceaseless repetition? Set within a scale model of 1940s São Paulo, “The Line” is an interactive story about love and fear of change, allowing you to unlock an enchanted maquette of two miniature dolls, Pedro and Rosa.
This roomscale experience invites you to pull on knobs and even crawl under the scale model to unfold the story of these figurines who are perfect for each other but reluctant to live out their love.
“The Line” is a welcoming experience to first-time VR users.
“The Line” was awarded the “Best VR Immersive Experience” prize at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.
DIRECTED BY: Ricardo Laganaro
NARRATED BY: Rodrigo Santoro (Westworld)
LANGUAGES: English, Portuguese (narration, SDH subtitles)
ADDITIONAL MODES:
Hand Tracking: Using your own hands for natural interaction
Room scale and seated mode: Freely around the maquette, or experience the story around you for those with limited space or reduced mobility.
CREATORS
Ricardo Laganaro is a Brazilian awarded director based in São Paulo, partner and Chief Storytelling Officer at ARVORE Immersive Experiences. He has degrees in Communications at ECA-USP, in Advertising at ESPM and filmmaking at the New York Film Academy.
Laganaro’s most recent piece, "The Line”, has received several awards globally, including Best VR Experience at the 76th Venice Film Festival and a Primetime Emmy® Award for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Programming.
He began his career at TV Cultura in 1999 and in 2001 transferred to the advertising area, working in post-production and as a director’s assistant, not only for live-action movies, but also stop-motion, tradicional animation and CGI.
In 2006, he began to direct his own projects, and his first music video won the "Best Music Video for a New Band" Award at the Brazilian MTV's VMA. From there he went on to partner with Universal Music to make more music videos and also directed a documentary about the last album by Ira!, one of the biggest rock bands in Brazil.
In 2009 went to O2 Filmes, the biggest production company in Brazil, combining his experience on the film set with his technical knowledge of post-production. Ricardo was the head of the 3D department, VFX Supervisor and has participated in the production of commercials, special projects, TV series and Brazilian feature films, besides international projects such as "360" directed by Fernando Meirelles, and the Brazilian production called "Zoom".
In 2015, Ricardo directed an immersive film for “Museum of Tomorrow”, one of the great new museums in Rio, designed by Santiago Calatrava. The 360º videos he directed for clients like Google and Mastercard sum more than 60 million views, in 2016 (including the one for the Brazilian pop singer Ivete Sangalo, which was the most viewed 360º music video in the world in 2016).
He was a speaker twice at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, where he talked about his experiences with immersive narratives, as well as events such as Comic Con Experience, Wired Festival Brasil, Mediamorfosis, Demand Solutions by IDB, among others; and he is visiting professor at the Laboratory of Design and Immersive Experiences at the Fine Arts University in São Paulo.
Ricardo was selected by Oculus to be part of the program "VR For Good", where he directed the VR documentary Step to the Line, premiered at the Tribeca Festival 2017 and selected for Sheffield Doc/Fest, FoST amongst many others totalling over 30 festivals. FastCompany considered the experience a groundbreaking example of how VR’s horizons can be expanded to change peoples’ lives. Time Magazine declared this piece as one of the five best contents in mobile VR. Due to his innovation and commitment to act for social change, Ricardo was invited to be one of the opening speakers for the Global People’s Summit during the UN General Assembly on September 2017.
In 2018, Laganaro was XR Creative Director of the installation "objects in mirror AR closer than they appear," one of five experiences nominated at Storyscapes Award for immersive storytelling, at the Tribeca Film Festival.
PROJECT GALLERY
TRAILER
RAIN FRUITS (Korea)
“Rain Fruits” is based on a personal writing of Thura, an alien worker from Myanmar in Korea. As a foreign worker and an an observer of Korea, Thura depicts social inequalities and discrepancies against alien workers while sharing his poetic comments on the glamour and dark sides of the modern capitalist society. Calmly narrating his views and experiences in a foreign country, he juxtaposes stories of his childhood in his hometown where life was poor but more wholesome. Using empathetic power of VR and the poetic quality of volumetric point cloud imagery, creators of this project wish the audience to become Thura and experience the anger, sadness, alienation and nostalgia of an alien worker in a foreign country. Not just in Korea, but anywhere in the world. In this ever-changing capitalist world, everyone is an alien.
CREATORS
Sngmoo Lee is a writer, director and producer working in traditional film and XR industry.
Using technology for aesthetic purposes is his Sngmoo Lee’s ongoing focus.
He experimented this in his first feature film “Warrior’s Way” (featuring Jang Dong Gun, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush and Danny Houston), a fantasy Western shot entirely on green screen stages putting real actors inside CGI generated Wild West.
His passion for going beyond the limits of the traditional cinema lead him to VR, which he believes to be the storytellers’ ultimate medium.
His first VR cinema “Eyes in The Red Wind” has been invited to various film festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and Geneve, and received a few awards.
His latest VR immersive theater project “Scarecrow” has been invited to Sundance New Frontier 2020 described by the press as “one of the most visceral digital experiences” and to be “simply ahead of its time.”
Youngyun Song is an emerging director from Korea.
He majored filmmaking at Hanyang University and started his career in VR as an AD of “Eyes in The Red Wind,” which has been invited to Sundance 2018.
His documentary film “Crossing the desert” has been opening film of DMZ international documentary film festival with high acclaim. His other VR and documentary projects, “Creator’s room,” “Happy Together” also has been invited to many film festivals and exhibitions.
PROJECT GALLERY
TRAILER
SATURNISM (France, Romania)
Francisco Goya’s painting “Saturn Devouring His Son” is considered one of the most terrifying in the history of art. It is indeed so disturbing one might want to turn away, as it is nearly impossible to look at Saturn's face distorted in madness, at his mouth open to consume his own child. According to the myth, Saturn devours because of fear to be devoured - or rather overthrown - by his son; the fear of losing power makes Saturn lose control over his mind. The plot of the presented VR experience based on Goya’s painting includes running from and running towards something, suggesting the cyclicity of life, the same that brings night after day, counter-revolution after revolution, children after parents. This experience offers to figuratively dive into fears (of Saturn, of the child, and of the witness) and reach the bottom of them, by putting on a VR helmet resembling Saturn’s mouth, jumping inside the depicted scene, and living it through.
DIRECTED BY: Mihai Grecu
PRODUCED BY: Francois Martin Saint Leon and Mihai Grecu
WRITTEN BY: Anna Biriulina
SOUND DESIGN & MIX: Pierre Blin
ANIMATION: Xavier de L’Hermuziere
RIGGING: Bruce Taj
ADDITIONAL SCULPTING: Ovidiu Enache
PRODUCTION: Barberousse Films
CREATORS
Mihai Grecu was born in Romania in 1981. After studying art and design in Romania and France, he has been pursuing his artistic research at the Fresnoy Studio of Contemporary Arts. Recurring topics such as environmental crysis, political allegories, new technologies and catastrophes articulate the whole of his exploration of mysterious and subconscious beginnings. These visual and poetic trips mix several techniques and may be seen as propositions for a new dream oriented technology. His work hes been shown and awarded in numerous film festivals (Tribeca, Locarno, Rotterdam, Festival of New Cinema in Montreal) and exhibitions (“Dans la nuit, des images” at the Grand Palais, “Labyrinth of my mind” at the Cube, “Video Short list: the Dream Machine” at the Passage du Retz, “Studio” at “Les Filles du Calvaire” Gallery).
PROJECT GALLERY
ACCUSED #2 WALTER SISULU (France)
A DOCUMENTARY IN VIRTUAL REALITY BY NICOLAS CHAMPEAUX AND GILLES PORTE
“Mandela would, without fail, seek out Sisulu before making any kind of big decision.” It was an open secret among Mandela’s comrades in the struggle. Without Walter Sisulu, there wouldn’t have been Nelson Mandela. Sisulu was the one who found Mandela. It was Sisulu who persuaded Mandela to join the ANC. Sisulu was his guide. Sisulu was his mentor.
The world came to know about Sisulu during the Rivonia trial in 1963 and 1964. Mandela, accused number one, read a speech during the trial justifying why the ANC had resorted to violence. Sisulu, accused number two, was the first of the group to be cross-examined. The sound archives of the trial - which have recently been restored by the INA - allow us to relive the five days of his gripping confrontation with an overtly racist prosecutor. Sisulu, who faced the death penalty, stood up to the unrelenting aggression and gave as good as he got.
Transported back into a world of secret court sessions during the apartheid nightmare, the viewer will discover the testimony of an exceptional man who instigated one of the turning points of 20th century history.
DIRECTED BY: Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte
DRAWINGS AND ANIMATION: OERD
TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Michaël Bolufer
MUSIC: Aurélien Godderis-Chouzenoux
VIOLINIST: George van Dam
ANIMATION: David Devaux, Matthieu Gueritte, Mathieu Ratier
SOUND: Hervé Déjardin, Florent Denizot, Florian Fabre, Yohann Angelvy
PRODUCED BY: Jérémy Pouilloux & Alexandre Hallier - La Générale De Production
CO-PRODUCERS: UFO Production, Rouge International, Arte France, Radio France, INA
CREATORS
Journalist, author and director, Nicolas Champeaux is French-American.
Born in 1975, He was the permanent special correspondent of Radio France International in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 2007 to 2010, and then an international journalist working for the Africa department of RFI until July 2016. He now freelances.
Nicolas Champeaux has especially made such audio productions as Mandela et son image (Mandela and his Image) (2013), Mandela : l’histoire secrète d’une liberation (Mandela: the Secret Story of a Liberation) (2010) and Nelson Mandela 1990-1994: les années de transition (the Transition Years) (2013). He also wrote and produced the radio series Zimbabwe exclusif and the radio documentary Robert Mugabe le pouvoir à tout prix (Power at Any Cost) (2016).
Finally, he also made the Web documentary Sur les traces de Boko Haram (On the Trail of Boko Haram) selected for the Prix Bayeux war correspondent award in 2015, Multimedia category, and the radio documentary Tombouctou: 10 mois sous Aqmi (Timbuktu: 10 months under al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), selected for the 2013 Prix Bayeux, Radio category.
Between 2017 and 2018, he co-directed the feature length documentary “The trial against Mandela and the others”.
The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and later nominated for a César. In February 2019, he produced for France Culture radio station “Ahmed et Sylvia - les lettres de l’apartheid.”
Based on more than 100 letters, actors recreate the love affair between Ahmed Kathrada, one of the accused in the Rivonia trial and Sylvia Neame, a fellow activist who fled into exile.
Gilles Porte is a director of photography, photographer, screenwriter, and film director.
He has worked as director of photography on nearly thirty feature films. He worked with Jacques Audiard, Raoul Ruiz, Xavier Durringer, Safy Nebbou, Fré- déric Beigbeder, Xavier Gens, Marc Dugain, etc. In 2004, with Yolande Moreau, he co- directed “Quand la mer monte”, which won the César for best first film, the Prix Louis-Delluc and around 30 other awards internationally.
In 2009, he directed around 100 short films “Portraits/Autoportraits” and the documentary “dessine-toi” which mixed live action images and animation.
In 2015, he directed Tantalum, an interactive production featuring binaural sound and starring Jean-Luc Bideau and François Marthouret.
In 2017 he was director of photography on Marc Dugain’s film “L’échange des Princesses” which was nominated in the 2018 Césars for best foreign film.
Porte’s film, “The trial against Mandela and the others” was nominated in the best documentary category at the 2019 Césars. He was director of photography on Safy Nebbou’s film “Celle que vous croyez”. He worked with Nebbou on his 2015 feature “Dans les forêts de Sibérie.” He has also written two books on photography: “Rendons à César” and “Portraits/ Autoportraits.”
PROJECT GALLERY
