The Venice Film Festival, held in one of Italy’s most iconic cities, is an annual cinematic event promoting unconventional, norm-breaking forms of filmmaking. This year, it came up with another innovative idea. The Venice Immersive (VI) section, opening a day before the official opening gala on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, presented a diverse program of extended reality works. Available between 26 August and 6 September, the exhibition contains artworks created with the help of virtual and mixed reality, from videos to large-scale immersive installations.
The extended reality exhibition aims to bring together the two worlds of traditional cinema and innovative technology-based art. The fact that two renowned mainstream directors, Doug Liman (“The Bourne Identity”) and Edward Berger (“Conclave”), have embraced extended reality projects is perceived by organizers as a clear sign of radical change.
Doug Liman has presented his “Asteroid” project, a film about space travelers, produced with the help of Android XR technology. This new operating system, developed by Google and Samsung, combines AI and virtual reality and provides filmmakers with new creative opportunities. In one of his interviews dedicated to the film, Liman stated that he perceives extended reality as a chance to ensure that his creations reflect the changing reality and are truly cutting-edge in terms of production.
The benefits of Venice Immersive are not limited to filmmakers. The Venice Film Festival, part of the famous Venice Biennale, has also welcomed an immersive community that can learn from conventional cinematic storytelling. Their creative interaction with traditional filmmakers helps share experiences and ideas to reinvigorate the broader art industry. It is also expected that artists (namely producers and creators) working with extended reality will be able to use the event as a platform to secure investment for their ongoing projects.
Visitors will have access to a wide range of projects from 27 countries. These vary from short animations like Menghui Huang’s seven-minute project “The Big Cube” to a six-hour-long fantasy piece, “The Midnight Walk,” created by Olov Redmalm and Klaus Lyngeled. Themes that artists explore with the help of extended reality are also extremely diverse: from mental health to the celebration of classic architecture. Exploring the space between genres and mediums, artists participating in the festival demonstrate the relevance of advanced technologies in modernizing traditional forms of filmmaking and storytelling.
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