Tribeca Film Festival reveals immersive program

Tribeca was one of the first festivals to champion VR as a dynamic form of storytelling and this year the event – which takes place between 20-28 April – is developing its offering further with the addition of Tribeca Cinema360, a VR theatre featuring four curated screening programs of 360° mobile content. The festival line-up comprises 21 world premiere VR and AR experiences and five projects selected for storyscapes competition. 

“As the technology improves, so does the storytelling, and with that we are able to use VR to tackle new issues, experiences and narratives and invite new audiences to experience these projects.”

Festival-goers will have the chance to enjoy exhibitions and experiences from creators such as Jeremy Bailenson, Chris Milk, Eliza McNitt, Eugene YK Chung, Gabo Arora, and Saschka Unseld, and emerging artists Asad J. Malik, Gabriela Arp, and Lucas Rizzotto. Established directors, actors, and musicians with projects this year include: directors Terrence Malick and Laurie Anderson; actors Rosario Dawson, Lupita Nyong’o and Alicia Vikander; and band OK Go.

The creators that have been invited to take part in the showcase of virtual reality masterpieces are all using technology and storytelling to tackle subjects such as the dangers of nuclear weapons, racial and religious discrimination, and the real face of climate change, says Loren Hammonds, programmer, film & immersive. He sees VR as a “medium of transportation” and believes the selected pieces will do just that for the festival audience.

“Each year, we’re seeing creators push boundaries and explore new ways to tell stories through VR,” says Ingrid Kopp, co-curator of Tribeca Immersive. “As the technology improves, so does the storytelling, and with that we are able to use VR to tackle new issues, experiences and narratives and invite new audiences to experience these projects.” 

Read on for the full Virtual Arcade program…

#WarGames VR (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Sam Barlow, Eko Key Collaborators: MGM, m ss ng p eces
Kelly, an ex-military brat-turned-hacker activist, teams up with international hackers in an attempt to bring about peace. But as events escalate, it seems they may have done more harm than good. #WarGames puts viewers in the middle of the convergence of hacktivism, modern-day espionage, and military intrigue.

1000 Cut Journey (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Courtney Cogburn, Elise Ogle, Jeremy Bailenson, Tobin Asher, Teff Nichols
Key Collaborators: Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Cogburn Research Group
In this immersive VR experience, the viewer becomes Michael Sterling, a black man, encountering racism as a young child, adolescent, and young adult. 1,000 Cut Journey highlights the social realities of racism, for understanding racism is the essential first step in promoting effective, collective social action and achieving racial justice.

Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Eugene YK Chung, Jimmy Maidens
Key Collaborators: Devon Penney, Annmarie Koenig, Bruna Berford, Christina Tasooji, Adrian Ochoa, Jessica Douglas, Terry Kaleas, Kinga Vasicsek
Tide’s Fall continues the journey of Meena, a young woman living in a post-apocalyptic world and searching for her father in the depths of the ocean after his unexpected disappearance. Featuring the voice of Alicia Vikander, this expansion of Penrose Studios’ Arden’s Wake embraces the art of long-form storytelling in VR.

BattleScar (New York Premiere) – USA, France
Project Creator: Nico Casavecchia, Martin Allais
Key Collaborators: Arnaud Colinart, Andrew Geller, Raphael Penasa, René Pinnell
After Lupe, a Puerto Rican runaway, meets Debbie in the cell of a juvenile detention centre, she is introduced to the punk scene of the Lower East Side and the secret world of Alphabet City. BattleScar is a coming of age drama set in 1978 New York that explores identity and empowerment through stunning animation and immersive environments. Rosario Dawson narrates.

Campfire Creepers: Midnight March (World Premiere) – France, USA
Project Creator: Alexandre Aja
Key Collaborators: Casey Cooper Johnson, Martin Andersen
When the kids at Camp Coyote are forced on a brutal midnight march by their sadistic counsellors, one boy reaches his breaking point. He turns the tables on the bullies, revealing a surprising secret about himself in the process. Master of horror, Alexandre Aja, invites viewers on a thrilling ride.

Chalkroom (New York Premiere) – Taiwan R.O.C., USA
Project Creator: Laurie Anderson, Hsin-Chien Huang
Chalkroom is a virtual reality work by artist Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang in which the reader—the viewer—flies through an enormous structure made of words, drawings, and stories. Inside the experience, the reader is free to roam and fly, while words sail through the air like emails, fall into dust, and form and reform.

Coral Compass: Fighting Climate Change in Palau (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Tobin Asher, Elise Ogle, Jeremy Bailenson
Key Collaborators: Rob Dunbar, Bob Richmond
Palau, like many other small countries, is powerless to curb global carbon dioxide emissions. Nevertheless, the tiny island nation is adapting to climate change: In its clear, warm waters exist resilient coral reefs safeguarded by a strong-willed people fighting to keep them alive.

Coral Compass: Fighting Climate Change in Palau

The Day the World Changed (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Gabo Arora, Saschka Unseld
Key Collaborators: Nathan Brown, Tom Lofthouse, Jennifer Tiexiera, Nate Robinson, Igal Nassima
This VR experience situates participants in the ruins of Hiroshima after the bomb, allowing them to witness testimony from survivors and survey the nuclear arms race through immersive, interactive data visualisation. The Day the World Changed, from Gabo Arora & Sachka Unseld, brings the harrowing impressions of the victims of atomic bombings and nuclear tests to viewers through innovative use of 3D scanning and photogrammetry.

Dinner Party (New York Premiere) – Puerto Rico, USA
Project Creator: Angel Manuel Soto, Charlotte Stoudt, Laura Wexler
Key Collaborators: Rachel Skidmore, Bryn Mooser, Erik Donley
Dinner Party tells the story of Betty and Barney Hill, an interracial couple who made the first report of a UFO abduction in America in 1961. Having sought hypnosis to recover memories of their inexplicable experience, the Hills decide to listen to the recording of their session during a dinner party—and what they hear could change their lives forever.

Firebird: The Unfinished (World Premiere) – France
Project Creator: Balthazar Auxietre
Key Collaborators: Hadrien Lanvin
The curator of a museum dedicated to the famous sculptor Auguste is making a last inspection the night before the grand opening when a storm breaks out. Suddenly, the statues populating the grounds are not quite as still as one might expect—but it’s not clear whether the storm outside is playing mind games, or whether, perhaps, the ghost of Auguste has appeared to ask for help finishing his masterpiece.

Fire Escape (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Vassiliki Khonsari, Navid Khonsari, Andres Perez-Duarte, Sam Butin
Key Collaborators: Lulu LaMer, Maria Essig, iNK Stories
This innovative, interactive thriller invites the participant to peer into the private lives of eight diverse New Yorkers from the vantage of a fire escape, where suspicion and deception unfold in real time. Set against the shadowy backdrop of gentrification in contemporary Brooklyn, Fire Escape depicts a contingent of disenfranchised tenants who soon become entangled in a string of dark mysteries and murder.

The Hidden (World Premiere) – India, USA
Project Creator: Lindsay Branham
Key Collaborators: International Justice Mission, Oculus VR for Good
There are currently more people living in slavery than at any other time in human history. One such family has been enslaved in a rock quarry in southern India for 10 years—over a paltry debt of $70 USD. Indian government representatives, supported by the human rights group International Justice Mission, plot a daring raid to free the family.

Into the Now (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Michael Muller
Key Collaborators: Michael Smith, Morne Hardenberg
Director and shark photographer Michael Muller’s lifelong fear of sharks eventually led him to discover the tranquillity and peace of mind that is possible underwater, engaged with these curious and intimidating creatures. This stereoscopic virtual-reality documentary, explores marine life and ocean conservation via Muller’s own internal journey.

Meeting a Monster (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Gabriela Arp
Key Collaborators: Oculus VR for Good, Life After Hate
Through audio recordings and re-enactments, former white supremacist Angela King relives the memories of, and motivations behind, the eight years she spent inside the white power movement—and the path she took to get out. While the monsters of Angela’s past define the years she spent mired in hate, she finds redemption only after acknowledging the ultimate monster: herself.

My Africa (World Premiere) – USA, UK
Project Creator: Conservation International, Passion Planet, Vision3
In Northern Kenya, the futures of wildlife and people are intertwined. Stand in the midst of a thundering wildebeest migration, witness a lioness snatch her prey—and meet a community dedicated to saving Africa’s wildlife in My Africa. The mixed-reality, companion experience puts participants in the shoes of a Reteti Elephant Sanctuary keeper caring for the newest arrival, a baby elephant named Dudu. Lupita Nyong’o narrates.

My Africa

SPHERES: Pale Blue Dot (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Eliza McNitt
Key Collaborators: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel, Jess Engel, Arnaud Colinart, Dylan Golden
In this cosmic journey from the edges of the universe to our “pale blue dot,” the viewer uncovers echoes of the Big Bang; gazes back in time; traces the history of sound across the cosmos, uncovering the strangest song of all; and traverses the universe, ultimately finding a path home.

Star Child (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Paul Bettner
Key Collaborators: Mia Goodwin
This cinematic platforming adventure follows the journey of Spectra and her companion on an important mission to an alien planet. After they are stranded, they uncover a hostile, overwhelming force that threatens to destroy everything. 

Untitled OK Go & WITHIN Project (World Premiere) – USA, UK
Project Creator: Chris Milk, Damian Kulash
Key Collaborators: WITHIN, OK Go, Oculus
Innovative creators Chris Milk and OK Go’s Damian Kulash invite pairs of participants into a wondrous environment where they can experience the joy of creating music through collaboration. In this virtual world, replete with magical music-making contraptions, friendly animals, robots, and audience members work together to create an original song.

Vacation Simulator (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Owlchemy Labs
The follow-up to the VR game Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator returns participants to the world of Owlchemy Labs, where they can visit Vacation Island and experience “recreation,” optimal “relaxation,” and classic human pastimes like “sunburn.” Vacation Island offers all this and more, helping visitors rediscover the lost art of “time off.”

Vestige (World Premiere) – UK, USA, France
Project Creator: Aaron Bradbury
Key Collaborators: Paul Mowbray, Antoine Cayrol, Jill Klekas Basmajian
This creative nonfiction experience uses multi-narrative and volumetric capture to journey through the mind of Lisa as she remembers her lost love, Erik. Fragments of memories of their life together appear inside a void and, over time, become entangled with a haunting vision, culminating in the shocking moment of Erik’s death.

Vestige

Where Thoughts Go: Prologue (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Lucas Rizzotto
Key Collaborators: Tarik Merzouk, Steven Hodgson
An intimate social virtual-reality experience, Where Thoughts Go is set in a world where all human thoughts exist as sleeping creatures, each holding a voice message left by a previous visitor. As they awake, they reveal the dreams, experiences and fears of other people—and give the participant the opportunity to leave their own for others to find.

Where Thoughts Go: Prologue

Storyscapes line up…

One Storyscapes nominee will be selected by a jury to receive the Storyscapes Award which recognises groundbreaking approaches in storytelling and technology. 

Biidaaban: First Light (World Premiere) – Canada
Project Creator: Lisa Jackson, Mathew Borrett, Jam3 and the National Film Board of Canada. Key Collaborators: Rob McLaughlin, Dana Dansereau
The town square has flooded, buildings and subways have merged with local flora, and indigenous languages and knowledge are thriving in a radically different future Toronto. Here, in the future, people have found a connection to the past.

Hero (New York Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Navid Khonsari, Vassiliki Khonsari, Brooks Brown
Key Collaborators: Mark Harwood, Sinclair Fleming, Andres Perez-Duarte, Sam Butin, iNK Stories, Starbreeze Studios
This powerfully immersive, large-scale, multi-sensory installation explores humanity in our modern era of civilian warfare. When everyday life is disrupted by a barrel bomb falling from the sky, provoking a profound crisis in this vérité virtual-reality experience, only connection among humans can inspire hope, and participants must embark on a visceral hero’s journey.

objects in mirror AR closer than they appear (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Graham Sack, Geoff Sobelle, John Fitzgerald, Matthew Niederhauser. Key Collaborators: Sarah Hughes, Steven Dufala, Steve Cuiffo, Jecca Barry, The Molecule, New York Theatre Workshop, SilVR
Based on the critically acclaimed theatrical performance The Object Lesson, objects in mirror AR closer than they appear fuses augmented reality technology with an immersive theater installation, inviting audiences to reflect on the relationship between new media and archaic objects; 21st-century technology and 19th-century magic; and memory and optical illusion.

Queerskins: a love story (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Illya Szilak, Cyril Tsiboulski
In Missouri in the early ’90s, a diary and a box of belongings offers a devoutly Catholic mother—and participants of this haptic virtual-reality experience—a chance to know Sebastian, the estranged son she has lost to AIDS. Sitting in the back seat of a car, behind Sebastian’s parents, you take an emotionally charged journey down a country road, a memory lane populated with scrapbook artifacts that present an archive of Sebastian’s life.

Terminal 3 (World Premiere) – USA, Pakistan
Project Creator: Asad J. Malik
Key Collaborators: Kaleidoscope VR, Anita Gou, RYOT, Philipp Schaeffer, Viva Wittman, Jack Daniel Gerrard, Musa Ghaznavi
Terminal 3 is an interactive, augmented-reality documentary that explores contemporary Muslim identities in the U.S. through the lens of an airport interrogation. As viewers put on the Hololens, they step into the uncanny to directly interrogate, and determine the fate of, the hologram passenger before them. These interrogations become strikingly personal encounters that only end when the participant decides if the hologram should be let into the country or not—but there is a twist.

Terminal 3

Tribeca Cinema360 projects…

Horizons:

02:09 (World Premiere) – Sweden, China
Project Creator: Svante Fjaestad
In three minutes, the world will end. The rich have already left Earth for the New Colonies; those who couldn’t afford private shuttles into orbit remain stranded, like the now-worthless banknotes on the streets. A couple wait together on a rooftop, contemplating their fate, while, in front of them, the last human refugees leave the planet before it is too late.

Together (New York Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Terrence Malick, The Factory at Facebook, Movement Art Is 
Together fuses storytelling, dance and technology, placing the viewer in the center of a stirring, emotional narrative that explores the power of human connection. Working with Movement Art Is co-founders Jon Boogz and Lil Buck, Palme d’Or winning director Terrence Malick has crafted an immersive experience about breaking down barriers that is brilliantly brought to life through choreography.

It’s Right Behind You:

Campfire Creepers: The Skull of Sam (North American Premiere) – Spain, USA

Project Creator: Alexandre Aja
Key Collaborators: Casey Cooper Johnson, Martin Andersen
French horror auteur Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, High Tension) directs this creepy tale of a couple who encounters a vicious stranger in the woods, who has plans to add them to his rather unique collection. But by injecting humor into this horrific scenario, the experience invites audiences to laugh between the screams.

The Caretaker (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Jacob Wasserman, Nicolas Pesce, Adam Donald
Key Collaborators: Hidden Content, RealMotion VFX
After their car breaks down on the side of the road on a cold winter night, a couple checks into a strange hotel while they wait for a mechanic to arrive. When the woman’s boyfriend suddenly goes missing—the latest in a series of unsettling occurrences within the hotel—she begins to suspect that something more sinister is at work.

An Obituary (boogo) (US Premiere) – South Korea
Project Creator: Jean Yoon. Key Collaborators: Kuk- seok Yang, Jin-hee Kim
A young man travels alone deep into the countryside to pay his respects after hearing of a friend’s untimely death. Upon his arrival, he finds himself to be the sole mourner at the funeral. Alone in the country, save for the elderly mother of his deceased friend, he begins to wonder why they seem to be the only two people left in the village.

An Obituary

This is Climate Change:

This is Climate Change (World Premiere) – USA, Brazil, Greenland, Somalia 
Project Creator: Danfung Dennis, Eric Strauss 
Key Collaborators: Diana El-Osta, Catherine Yrisarri, Jeff Skoll, Elise Pearlstein, Kathy Davidov, Casey Brown
In this expansive new four-part virtual reality docu-series from Participant Media and Condition One, journey to the far corners of the earth to discover the people and places being hit hardest by climate change. This Is Climate Change offers an immersive look into our new reality of catastrophic weather events that are displacing communities and transforming landscapes with alarming speed.

VR For Good Creators Lab:

Meeting a Monster (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Gabriela Arp. Key Collaborators: Oculus VR for Good, Life After Hate
Through audio recordings and re-enactments, former white supremacist Angela King relives the memories of, and motivations behind, the eight years she spent inside the white power movement—and the path she took to get out. While the monsters of Angela’s past define the years she spent mired in hate, she finds redemption only after acknowledging the ultimate monster: herself.

She Flies by Her Own Wings (World Premiere) – USA
Project Creator: Jesse (Jesus) Ayala. Key Collaborators: Oculus VR for Good, Pride Foundation, Fovrth Studios, Flight School
She Flies by Her Own Wings depicts the inspiring story of Shannon Scott, who chose to stand up when her community, the U.S. armed services’ proud transgender service members and veterans, was under attack by President Donald Trump. Having enlisted before she could vote, Shannon has dedicated her entire adult life to defending and safeguarding American citizens at home and abroad.

The Hidden (World Premiere) – India, USA
Project Creator: Lindsay Branham
Key Collaborators: International Justice Mission, Oculus VR for Good
There are currently more people living in slavery than at any other time in human history. One such family has been enslaved in a rock quarry in southern India for 10 years—over a paltry debt of $70 USD. Indian government representatives, supported by the human rights group International Justice Mission, plot a daring raid to free the family.