SXSW 2019 VR
This year Virtual reality Cinema at South by Southwest Film Festival (March 8–17, Austin, USA) will include 27 projects.
“The Virtual Cinema section of the Film Festival continues to grow, showcasing the newest and most cutting-edge work. SXSW resides at the intersection of film and technology, and there is no better place to present this innovative format. The 27 projects emphasize storytelling, ingenuity and also showcase how other industries are embracing this new medium.”
22.7°C (France)
Director: Jan Kounen, Screenwriter: Molécule, 10 min.
Guided by the sounds, we explore the powerful nature of the polar regions and face our inner self until we enter a state of harmony. (World Premiere)
Ahorse! (Netherlands)
Director: Wendy Gutman, Screenwriters: Lenina Ungari, Wendy Gutman, Edwin Gardner, 20 minutes.
A playful cinematographic VR installation inviting us to experience the various phases of what we see as reality. Ahorse! takes us on a journey through the development of human perception using as its vehicle the history of our vision of the horse. (North American Premiere)
The Atomic Tree
Directors: Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Adam Loften, Screenwriters: David Haskell, Adam Loften, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
The Atomic Tree is a virtual reality journey into the memories of one of the most revered trees in the world — a 400-year-old Japanese White Pine bonsai that survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima. (World Premiere)
Border Stories
Director: Nonny de la Pena
Border Stories puts people along the US-Mexico border to not only experience real stories but to make their own volumetric pieces that can be created online using Emblematic Group’s webVR platform REACH and shared with a simple web link. (World Premiere)
Chronicle of a Vanished City (Colombia)
Director: Jorge Caballero, Screenwriters: Jorge Caballero, Anna Giralt,
10 minutes.
An experience in virtual reality within the most typical streets of Bogota city, told through seven stories of one of the pioneers of the “red chronicle” in Colombia, José Joaquín Jiménez “Ximénez”. A trip through a vanished city. (World Premiere)
Cypher
Directors: Guvenc Ozel, Benjamin Ennemoser, 5 minutes
Cypher is a shape-shifting sculptural installation that creates an interactive and cinematic experience through synchronizing virtual reality, robotics and sensor interaction. (World Premiere)
Diorama №4: Die Fernweh Oper (Netherlands)
Director: Daniel Ernst, Screenwriter: Maud Vanhauwaert (song lyrics), 10 minutes.
In Die Fernweh Oper you will visit a perpetual opera performed by a star in the form of a 50 ft tall opera singer named Asteria, who sings especially for you. Just as with the stars you see at night, she has already died light years ago. (World Premiere)
Eclipse (France)
Directors: Jonathan Astruc, Aymeric Favre, Screenwriter: Frederic Cussey, 35 minutes.
Eclipse is a collaborative hyper reality VR experience. For 40 minutes, four players embody the crew of Eclipse II, sent in space to rescue a previous space crew who disappeared. The set up integrates 4D effects and full body awareness. (North American Premiere)
Eleven Eleven (United Kingdom, U.S.)
Showrunner: Mehrad Noori, Screenwriter: Lucas Taylor, 90 minutes.
A ground-breaking, feature-length science fiction story, written and designed for VR and AR, Eleven Eleven is a multi-linear narrative experience inspired by immersive theatre, from NBCUniversal International Networks. (World Premiere)
Forest
Directors: Kelsey Boncato, Daniel Oldham, 8 minutes.
A meditative visual music experience in a hand-drawn landscape of ancient bristlecone pine trees, sculpted organic matter, and transmuted earthy-electro sounds; get lost in an interactive sacred space. (World Premiere)
Girl Icon
Director: Sadah Espii Proctor
Around the world, over 130 million girls do not go to school. Step into the life of Rani, a girl from India who is part of a growing movement of girls inspired by Malala Yousafzai to change their path and become educated community leaders. (World Premiere)
Gloomy Eyes (Argentina, France)
Directors/Screenwriters: Jorge Tereso, Fernando Maldonado, 6 min. 48 sec.
Gloomy Eyes is a 3D real-time animated VR experience in 6DOF. Woodland City, a small town lost in the middle of nowhere and plunged in eternal darkness ever since the sun, weary of the damage humans were doing to mother earth, decided to rise no more. In this perpetual darkness, the dead have awoken and left their graves. Since then, the clash between man and zombie sets the pace of daily life in the town run by Lewis, a machiavellian priest obsessed with the capture of every single zombie with the help of
the townspeople and his henchmen.
Home After War (India)
Directors: Gayatri Parameswaran, Felix Gaedtke, Screenwriter: Gayatri Parameswaran
What if your home becomes the place you fear? An Iraqi father returns to Fallujah to face the threat of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Join him in his home and discover the unfolding of a tragic event. (North American Premiere)
Incitement (Netherlands)
Director/Screenwriter: Wiebe van den Ende
When Sara returns from a business trip only to announce she has more travel lined up, her boyfriend Luis comes clean for a very peculiar reason. (World Premiere)
Kaleidoscope Funding Showcase
The Kaleidoscope Funding Showcase features new projects currently in-development by some of the world’s most innovative XR Creators. Meet the artists, see work-in-progress, and help fund the next wave of great XR projects.
Last Whispers: An Immersive Oratorio
Director: Lena Herzog
At an unprecedented speed, we are losing our linguistic diversity — and the very means by which we know ourselves. This immersive oratorio is an invocation of the languages that have gone extinct and an incantation of those that are endangered.
The Making Of (Taiwan)
Director/Screenwriter: Midi Z
In front of the VR camera are the actors playing in the film while the crew are shooting the scene behind the VR camera. Midi Z and his crew are filming the other crew on both sides of the camera. (North American Premiere)
Mars Home Planet
Directors: Brian Frager, David Witters, Screenwriter: Leland Frankel, 14 minutes.
The year is 2176, and you are the newest resident of the thriving Martian community. The planet is still hostile to human life, yet we have carved out a habitable section of the red planet, finally transforming ourselves into a multi-planetary species. (U.S. Premiere)
Mechanical Souls (France, Taiwan)
Director: Gaëlle Mourre, Screenwriters: L.P. Lee, Gaëlle Mourre
Glimpse of a soul in a mechanical heart. Produced by Digital Rise and Serendipity Films.
Mercy
Director: Armando Kirwin, 9 min 40 sec.
Mercy is the story of a young woman from Cameroon who journeys from her village to a hospital ship docked on the nearby coast in order to receive a life-saving surgery. (World Premiere)
Metro Veinte: Cita Ciega (Argentina)
Director: Maria Belen Poncio, Screenwriters: Rosario Perazolo Masjoan, Ezequiel Lenardón, Elisa Gagliano, Agustin Peralta Pando, Maria Belen Poncio
Juana, an 18 year-old girl bound to a wheelchair, is anxious to explore her sexuality.
Nothing to be Written (United Kingdom)
Director: Lysander Ashton, Screenwriter: Mark Grimmer
Moving, haunting and emotive, Nothing to be Written tells the stories behind ‘field postcards’ one of the few communication options in WWI between soldiers and their families. Part artwork, part documentary, NTBW pushes the boundaries of mobile VR. (U.S. Premiere)
Re-Animated (Denmark, United States)
Director: Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Re-Animated is a virtual reality and video installation that investigates extinction, preservation, and immortality. It is a virtual ecosystem based on real plant and animal specimens that mixes primal habitats with emerging ecological realities. (North American Premiere)
Runnin’
Director/Screenwriter: Kiira Benzing
This interactive dance experience takes you on a journey of musical expression. Play along with music in a record store and be transported to a retro-future dance party. Show off your moves on a dance floor with a troupe of dancers and Reggie Watts.
Send Me Home
Director: Cassandra Evanisko, 13 minutes 33 sec.
Send Me Home is a 360 portrait of Rickey Jackson, one of the longest-serving exonerees in U.S. history, in his surreal, new life post-prison.
Traverse
Director: Jessica Brillhart
Traverse is a platform for spatial audio experiences. Using a mobile device and audio-driven AR technology, each Traverse experience takes an audio recording and makes it something you can physically move through. (World Premiere)
