Open Frame Award // GoEast Film Festival
FESTIVAL OF CENTRAL- AND EASTERN EUROPEAN FILM GOEAST (Wiesbaden, Germany, 18.04–25.04.2018) announced its selection of the projects for the Open Frame Award, which this year fully dedicated to VR/360 projects from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Rhine-Main region.
One week in advance to the festival the Open Frame Award VR exhibition started in one of the major cinema venues in Frankfurt – German Film Museum //Deutsches Filmmuseum (April 10 — April 15).
A three-member jury, consisting of Julia Leeb (filmmaker, VR expert and photographer from Munich), Cyril Tuschi (film director and VR producer) and Simon Ofenloch (film editor ARTE/ARTE fiction on ZDF) will determine the winner of the award, which is endowed with 5,000 euros in prize money presented by the BHF BANK Foundation. The competition is also sponsored by the Adolf und Luisa Haeuser Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege.
The selection includes 4 interactive projects and 4 spherical 360 films made in absolutely different genres and techniques. INVR and Samsung helps to run the exhibition as a technical partners.
Festival web site: https://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/en
INTERACTIVE WORKS
NOMINAL EMPIRE
Denis Semionov, Natalia Severina
Russia 2018 / 10 Min / Oculus Rift
The artist duo of Denis Semenov and Natalia Severina, known for their work BETWEEN PETROV AND VODKIN, takes up an examination of the Russian avant-garde once again. Here they create a postmodern dystopia. Let us imagine the famous theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold wasn’t executed by Stalin’s thugs in 1939, but instead installed his own dictatorship of the “proletariART”. The entirety of society is organised according to the rules of his theatre. Alas, a single solitary individual prefers not to play by the rules and would rather talk instead.
A COURAGEOUS HEART
Krzysztof Garbaczewski
Poland 2017 / HTC Vive
Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1811) was a hero of the Enlightenment. Monuments have been erected to his memory in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and the United States, where he fought for independence at George Washington’s side. The VR experience A COURAGEOUS HEART, conceived by the Polish collective “Dream Adoption Society” under the direction of Krzysztof Garbaczewski, allows users to slip into the skin of the human rights champion.
SHIL
Giedrius Tamulaitis
Lithuania 2018 / 15 Min
Giedrius Tamulaitis — director, developer, animator and composer all in one person — conceives in his first VR project a monochrome world without shadows, with reduced perspectives, as in a paper cutting. In arranging the objects, which are only perceptible as black silhouettes, the individual’s imagination is stimulated. In this way, each viewer may have their own special experience and follow their own narrative.
THE GRIND
Jörg Peter
Germany 2017 / 15 Min
Don’t let yourself get distracted or start to procrastinate! Those who look away from the computer screen a moment too long are dismissed without mercy in this 360° work. Alas, as soon as the office’s cubicle walls disappear, new worlds open up, worlds in which the machines have taken over all the work.
360 FILMS
HERE AND THERE
Kiryl Halitsky, Mitriy Sorkin
Belarus 2017 / 9 Min
In this 360° work everything revolves around an author who has barricaded himself inside a dream world made of books and manuscripts, somewhere between fiction and reality. Director Kiryll Halitsky stages his work like a play, complete with actors and backdrops, but without an audience. At times, the action takes place in parallel, depending on which direction one looks.
BANANZA!
Teodora Stojković, Sofija Stanković
Serbia, The Netherlands 2017 / 3 Min
A 360° tour takes the viewer through animated landscapes, populated by symbols of the digital era. Emojis, game-elements, animated animals and a whole bunch of bananas are matter-of-fact components of this particular universe. The artist duo TeYosh enables us to immerse ourselves in this bright and cheerful digital children’s world, making it possible to experience how it feels to grow up as a digital native in an era where the physical offline world and the digital online one are both approached on an equal footing.
CIRCUS 360
Dorin Moldoveanu
Romania 2018 / 10Min
Dorin Moldoveanu discovers the “Metropolitan Circus” in his hometown of Bucharest. The round dome of the circus building is predestined for the 360° format. Alas, the storied 58-year-old circus finds itself at a critical juncture: after shows featuring wild animals are banned, the circus troupe has to reinvent itself. CIRCUS 360 shows preparations and rehearsals which give us an intimate glimpse of circus life. In December 2017 the first animal-free performance finally takes place.
UKRAINIAN SUMMER CAMP — LEARNING TO FIGHT
Alexey Furman, Sergii Polezhaka
Ukraine, USA 2017 / 3 Min
A day in the summer camp “Azovets” near Kiev. The volunteer battalion AZOV, which is fighting against Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, has initiated a training program for children. During the day they drill combat scenarios, while at night they tell stories around the campfire. UKRAINIAN SUMMER CAMP was created as a commissioned work for the New York Times.
P.S. As a curator of this exhibition I wanted to tell, that with the inclusion of virtual reality we are embarking on totally new approaches to storytelling. The beautiful thing is: We’re all starting from square one! So the projects are not only being developed in the big film studios, they’re also being made on shoestring budgets, in countries with tiny film industries. In a nutshell: virtual reality is a fresh start!
