Until Sunday at the Forum des Images, the NewImages Festival evaluates cinema made in virtual reality and in all formats that put the viewer at the heart of the device. Documentary, Fiction, Animation: The creative canvas is vast.
After months of virtual and immaterial releases, the festivals are gradually returning to “face to face”, and one of the first events to take advantage of the possibility of a “real” return is partly dedicated… to the virtual. After its online release in September 2020, the Parisian NewImages Festival returns this spring to its historic venue, the Forum des Images, located at the Forum des Halles in Paris.
The festival dedicated to “digital creativity and virtual worlds” opened its doors Wednesday to professionals, and this weekend opens to the general public, who can come and see a fairly accurate overview of what the often highly ambiguous term “experience” means. And above all, the famous virtual reality (VR), embodied in the form of a worn helmet, which immerses the spectator in action.
Sitting, standing, photography or animation الرسوم
There are dozens of virtual reality experiences that can be experienced within this festival, of which about fifteen are subject to competition until Friday evening to win the grand prize, which here bears the name “Golden Mask”. There are a variety of wonderful genres such as “traditional” cinema: next to GilbirdA French-Belgian animated film that puts the spectator in the atmosphere of a strange prison cell, Najd Noha raft, a Nigerian documentary about a man who decides to set up schools in his community that lives on the water. If the two films are watched using a VR headset, then everything distinguishes them: in Noha raft, seated spectator, film editing, traditional, allows contemplation of places around you; at GilbirdWe stand surrounded by bars that create a small space in which we can move.
Among the selected films, educate A bridge between the former two: This documentary about a Uyghur prison in China takes the form of an animated film based on the testimonies of former “re-education camp” survivors. In this dimension, virtual reality is no longer just a means of dissemination, but also fully participates in the device by making the person watching the prison feel.
VR has now dominated the video game trend, with experiences like wise lady (Produced by France Télévision) which allows you to put yourself in the shoes of a prehistoric hunter, sometimes an age of speculative landscapes, in a device imagined by the Musée d’Orsay making little dancer by Degas at Museum Paintings. And with the animated movie we are at home, multiple viewers can immerse themselves in the same movie…but each one embodies a different character, beliefing the prevailing notion that virtual reality is an experience that can only be lived on its own.
Creativity beyond virtual reality headsets
In the middle of this selection, a short animation paper birds is a nugget of poetry and animation: the story of this passionate musician who feels sound in the form of light, birds, and must rescue his sister from a world of shadows, is as beautiful as it is poignant. This time, you can move freely in space, you can flip combos, get close to the characters as if they were mini-figures in front of you, and even create interactive visual effects, with a simple movement of the arms.
Another interesting aspect of this festival is that it shows that digital creativity does not stop at virtual reality, even if it is an important part of it: thus, in competition, the work Aqua Alta – Crossing the Mirror By Adrien M & Claire B is an augmented reality experience that can be discovered on the pages of a book projected onto the screen of a tablet device. Out of competition, there are “video maps” projections that trace the contours of the places on which they are displayed – in this case, the Church of Saint-Eustache, near the Halles de Paris. Or films that are imagined for a very large screen, with a 180-degree image. And sometimes, virtual and tangible reality come together: you might come across an AI: Under the guise of a prototype, Elisa – that’s her name – promises to be the first artificial intelligence… capable of romantic feelings.
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