Biennale College Cinema Virtual Reality: phase 2

I don't know about you, but I've been refreshing the Biennale Cinema page continuously for the past few weeks. I was eagerly waiting for an official announcement: the names of the three VR stories selected for the second workshop of Biennale College Cinema Virtual Reality 2018/2019 (a workshop that was held in early March in Venice).

On January, in fact, I had the chance to find out more about the 12 works that joined the first phase of Biennale College and found them all amazing (as written in previous articles here and here).

There was not a single one among them that lacked that something special to pass this second selection. And that is why I did not envy Biennale for the difficult choice it had to make.

The projects selected for Biennale College Cinema VR 2018/2019, phase 2

...This was actually the part of the article I left open to add the names of the (three?) projects as soon as they were announced.

Problem is: Biennale has not announced them yet. Officially, at least.

I wanted to wait for their news, no matter how long it took, but when the call for Biennale College Cinema – VR (Italia) 2019/2020 opened... well, I realized that maybe it was time to come back here and publish all this before things got too far with the new edition.

This is the reason why at the present time I cannot share the titles that made to phase 2. Cliffhanger, anyone?

But at least, contrary to what happens with tv-show that are cancelled after a shocking plot twist (or even without the plot twist, but it still hurts - see Almost Human), I will come back to share how things ended... as soon as I am allowed to do it.

"I loved that idea and I need to know more about it": aka, a list of social pages for the 12 project of Biennale College Cinema VR 2018/2019

It is my heartfelt opinion that all the works selected for the Biennale College Cinema Virtual Reality deserve to be experienced by an audience.

They are significant both for the ideas behind them and for the meanings they intend to convey. Furthermore, the words and enthusiasm shared by their directors and producers during the first workshop evoked worlds and images in those who listened to them. Worlds and images that I would be happy to live during the Venice Film Festival or at other festivals.

That is why I'd like to use this post to collect all the official websites and social media pages of the 12 projects that passed the first selection. The list is not complete at the present time, since many pages are still "work in progress". Also, some links redirect to directors/producers' personal websites and not to the specific projects. However, it's a place to start, if you want to find out more about them.

I will keep the list updated to help those who are eager to learn more about what is happening with these VR productions and, hopefully, to give us all the chance to know where and when we will get to experience them all.

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Keep in touch with the 12 projects: official websites and social media

NB: if you are working at one of the following productions and would like to change/add a link or share specific videos or articles about it, please contact me so I can add them here.

Doubts of a genius (Dir: Matteo Lonardi - Prod: Francesco Lonardi)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"This is a VR experience about failure. We will go on a transformative journey through the failures of one of the most famous artists and innovators of all time, Leonardo Da Vinci, allowing the user to experience the redemptive power of art"

• Website: Matteo Lonardi | Biennale College Cinema VR page

Feather (PUSH) (Dir: Itoh Keisuke - Prod: Katsutoshi Machiba - Ass Prod: Tetsuya Oohashi)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"Watch over a young girl as she grows up, and use PUSH* to encourage her to be brave and face difficult situations"

• Website: Keisuke Itoh | Biennale College Cinema VR page

Frontera (Dir: Emiliana Ammirata - Prod: Helena Carpio)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"A Venezuelan refugee finds herself on a desperate search for medication on the south-east border of Brazil and Venezuela. An interactive phone call from her son back home changes everything"

• Website: Emiliana Ammirata | Helena Carpio | Biennale College Cinema VR page
• Other links: Facebook (Sin Fronteras) | Instagram

Goliath (Dir: Barry Gene Murphy, Prod: May Abdalla)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"Goliath is a profound interactive virtual reality documentary about how a man lost his mind and found it again through the virtual world of social gaming. Through candid first person interviews, mesmerising animated recreations and meaningful interactivity bringing you viscerally into the story, Goliath explores what it means to feel at odds with the world and how it is possible to create a shared reality to find one’s place in it"

• Website: Anagram | Biennale College Cinema VR page
• Other links: Twitter

How is the water (Dir: Ninja Müller, Prod: Michel Lovecky)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"Global threats are changing our oceans. In the unseen reality of today’s marine life, a dolphin pod fights for survival"

• Website: Cyan Planet | Biennale College Cinema VR page
• Other links: Facebook | Instagram | Youtube

My Room (Dir: Uta Arning, Prod: Tina Lin) 

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"In the near future, a young woman is followed by the public eye around the clock. A victim of the perversion of Social Media her only companion is a robotic cat. Her apartment is a stage, which she never leaves. When the cat breaks she starts to question her own existence"

• Website: Uta Arning | Biennale College Cinema VR page

Open the door (Dir. Zsolt Magyari, Prod: Tamas Olajos)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"The fragments of modern history told through a journey within the Scitovszky villa, guided by its former inhabitants"

• Website: Zsolt Magyari | Biennale College Cinema VR page

Queerskins Ark (Dir: Illya Szilak, Cyril Tsiboulski - Prod: Kathleen Fox)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"A devoutly Catholic mother seeks to reconcile with the estranged son she has lost to AIDS. Reading his diary, she imagines him alive and in love"

• Website: Queerskins - Queerskins: Ark (Chapter 2) | Biennale College Cinema VR page
• Other links: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Sublimation (Dir: Karolina Markiewicz, Pascal Piron - Prod: Astrid Kahmke - Tech Director: Fabrizio Palmas)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"Dance fluently into butoh, let yourself sublimed and discover your impact on your environment"

• Website: Markiewicz - Piron | Biennale College Cinema VR page
• Other links: Facebook

This is for you (Dir: Mercedes Arturo; Prod: Gabrielle Floquet)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"A present can be an object. An object can hold a story. Unfold the present"

• Website: Mercedes Arturo | Biennale College Cinema VR page

Ways to school (Dir: Zohar Kfir - Prod: Katayoun Dibamehr)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"Way To School is a social-justice VR documentary series that allows the viewer to enter the imaginative world of a child. This unique VR experience highlights the path to education of different traditions, upbringing and geopolitical matters. Eventually, this project will expand into an episodic VR series that would narrate the parallel stories of 5 children from around the world for whom, going to school is a real journey"

• Website: Zohar Kfir | Ways to school VR | Floréal Films | Winds Films | Biennale College Cinema VR page
• Other links: Facebook | Twitter

Whispers (Dir: Jacek Naglowski; Junior Prod: Joanna Skupinska)

Biennale College Cinema presentation:

"On the Polish-Belarusian borderland, where the East meets the West, the nature is wild and mysterious. Life and death do not mean the persistence and disappearance of some biological processes here, but they have an irrational, impenetrable, non-verbal power structuring the entire reality. This is where the whisperers live. They heal using the traditions of the East: the power of word, gesture and image"

• Website: Centrala Films Cinematic VR | Whispers (Centrala Films)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Agnese Pietrobon, independent researcher, fan culture scholar and popularizer, virtual reality explorer... and cinema addicted.

Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Currently obsessing over how VR is the perfect media for fans. Come and find our more about why and about our culture in this article and at fanheart3.