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South by Southwest, the film festival held in Austin, Texas, will showcase seven competing projects of its virtual film program on Oculus TV from May 22 to 31.
SXSW was canceled by local government officials just a week before it started in March. However, 39 shorts, features, and episodic shows aired on Amazon Prime Video between April 27 and May 6.
The recently announced virtual cinema line includes Mélanie de Riberolles’ “Notre-Dame de Paris: A unique journey through time”, in which the video game company Ubisoft created a virtual reality tour of the Notre-Dame Cathedral after it was almost destroyed in the 2019 fire. Ubisoft has been collaborating with historians collecting data and testimonies to build Notre-Dame as part of its Assassin’s Creed Unity game.
Other titles in the lineup are “After the Fallout”, “The Curious Life of Bill Mont”, “Ferenj: A Graphic Memoir in VR”, “Gr8tness”, “Look at Me” and “A Song Within Us”.
“We are very excited to offer the global audience the opportunity to experience these phenomenal 360 projects on Oculus TV,” said Blake Kammerdeiner, SXSW virtual cinema programmer. “This sample of what a robust XR program would have been sure to delight the public, and we are grateful to OculusTV for helping us showcase these artists and projects.”
See the full lineup below:
After the consequences (Switzerland, USA)
Directors: Sam Wolson, Dominic Nahr
This unforgettable 360-degree experience pushes beyond traditional documentary tropes to evoke the reality and emotional gravity of life in Fukushima, ten years after the 2011 nuclear disaster. After the Fallout is an immersive mosaic that leads us to through surreal environments in the exclusion zone and explore the lives of families as they navigate a new world to which they have had to adapt.
The curious life of Bill Mont
Directors: Andrea Patiño Contreras, Katrina Sorrentino
As he prepares for a formal winter at Northwood, a senior center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bill Mont, an 89-year-old self-made entrepreneur, remembers his life, including his most recent adventure: Sending People’s Ashes to the moon . As you reflect on love and loss, as well as your business ventures and acquisitions, in a 9-minute 360 virtual cinema movie, we experience what it’s like to have fun as you get older! (World Premiere)
Ferenj: a graphic memory in virtual reality
Director / Writer: Ainslee Alem Robson
How is identity conceived? What does it mean for your home to be built immaterially through fragments of culture and oral history distorted by the filter of time and migration? This Afro-realistic portrait of the house traverses crosswalks, continents and consciousness, moments of cultural alienation, and the childhood memories of the director from the Ethiopian restaurant Empress Taytu in Cleveland, Ohio to the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the mother’s country of origin. Ferenj reclaims the Ethiopian-American mixed race identity, redefines the boundaries between memory and the digital imaginary, and challenges
reductionist narratives of Africa.
Gr8ness (Kenya)
Directors: Michael Ilako, Isa Paul Mohamed
70% of the 20 million young people in South Africa have been victims or perpetrators of crimes. Of every 100,000 youth, 37% dropped out of school before enrollment. The documentary explores how these statistics can be changed by exposing young people to opportunities in the creative industries, which unfortunately are not known to most at-risk youth in South Africa. Ethan grew up in Muizenberg with his parents and siblings, due to the difficult economic times he had to move to Grassy Park and live with his grandmother. Through Ethan’s lens, we want to take the user on a journey to experience the growth of the relationship between the child and the mentor as they explore art and creativity together in Cape Town. (World Premiere)
Look at me (Taiwan)
Director / Writer: HE Wei-Ting
Zhang, like everyone in the near future, is addicted to the virtual world. A failed date with his girlfriend causes Zhang to roam the city at night, where he discovers a club where everyone abandons the virtual world for physical fighting, to participate in “real interactions” and where everyone really looks at each other during the conversation. (North American premiere)
Notre-Dame de Paris: a unique journey through time (France)
Director: Mélanie de Riberolles.
On April 15, 2019, the world witnessed how Notre-Dame Cathedral was nearly destroyed in a devastating fire. As the tragedy unfolded, people began to share memories of the cathedral with photos and videos that relived those moments. Others were able to relive their memories virtually through Assassin’s Creed Unity, the video game. Ubisoft has been collaborating with historians for years, meticulously collecting data and testimonials to build Notre-Dame in-game. Based on this 3D model, Ubisoft created a virtual reality tour of Notre-Dame so that people can return to the cathedral and discover views that were
inaccessible to the public, or elements of architecture that were destroyed by fire, including the famous spire! (North American premiere)
A song within us (Taiwan, France)
Director / Writer: Fangas Nayaw
A song within us is an interactive sound experience, with Ambisonic audio. During the experience, audience members will imitate the tribal leader, who will teach them to sing together. Viewers can receive visual feedback for the efforts. There are two versions of the project, both with spatial audio. One version is an immersive, individual sound experience, but we also designed an ambisonic dome for a physical installation. In the ambisonic dome, viewers will experience the project without using headphones and five members of the audience will be able to discover the piece together. (North American premiere)
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