The Winners of the 80th Venice Film Festival have been Announced!
Extended Reality
3-minute read
The Venice Film Festival just recently wrapped, and the immersive unit of the festival-- Venice Immersive-- recognized and awarded three immersive film entries with their highest honors:
Venice Immersive Grand Prize - "Songs For a Passerby"
Jury Special Prize - "Flow"
Achievement Award - Empereur"
Let's get to know these award winners!
Songs For a Passerby: A Poetic VR Opera for Ordinary Passersby
Winner of the Venice Immersive Grand Prize, "Songs for a Passerby"
"Songs for a Passerby," directed by Celine Daemen from the Netherlands, is a VR opera with a melancholic and mysterious atmosphere. The team invited composers and over 20 singers to record their performances, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in a world of melodic music and immersive surround sound by wearing VR glasses. Celine stated that the intention of the work is to provoke the audience to contemplate the connection between body and mind. Therefore, real-time 3D cameras were used to allow viewers to see their own silhouettes directly in the experience, encouraging viewers to reflect on their own relationship with their surrounding world. It is worth mentioning that Celine herself is a multidisciplinary artist who often combines music and drama with a variety of different mediums. She previously won an award for another VR opera, "Eurydice."
"Flow": Visualizing the Power and Beauty of "Gas" in VR
Winner of the Jury Special Prize, "Flow"
"Flow," created by Dutch artist Adriaan Lokman, is an adaptation of his 2019 animated short film of the same name. As the name suggests, the story revolves around the form of gas, using continuous lines to outline various objects and giving form to intangible things. Adriaan stated that when adapting it into a VR version, in addition to re-rendering the images with 3D modeling software, he also added lines to balance the visuals, ensuring that the video has a sense of motion without excessive shaking, so that viewers can enjoy it without experiencing VR sickness. The VR version of "Flow" is 80% the same as the original short film, but it features an additional female protagonist.
In addition to producing VR videos, Adriaan has also been working on another art project called "Timeshells" in recent years. By projecting videos onto 3D-printed objects, he makes them appear more "real," thereby delving deeper into concepts such as time and reality.
"Empereur": Using VR to Piece Together Broken Speech for Aphasia Patients
Winner of the Achievement Award, "Empereur"
And what about entries from Taiwan? In addition to the Riverbed Theatre Group's "On the Other Side of the Rainbow", which was showcased at the Venice Film Festival, Singing Chen, who won the "Best Experience Award" last year for "The One Who Can't Leave," served as the chairperson of the jury this year! The three award-winning works this year were selected under her leadership. For those in Asia who could not make it to the Venice Film Festival this year, the largest immersive film festival in Asia, the Kaohsiung Film Festival's "XR Infinite Reality," will begin on October 7th!
