Venice International Film Festival’s VR selection to release on Viveport

In Virtual Reality News

August 29, 2020 – From September 2-12, the 77th Venice International Film Festival will take place, and the festival’s virtual reality (VR) selection will be held entirely virtually in 2020. In total, there will be 31 VR works for fans to enjoy this year in the format of games, experiences, and 360° videos.

HTC Vive is partnering with La Biennale di Venezia to bring ‘Venice VR Expanded’, the official Virtual Reality selection of the festival, to the Viveport platform, allowing attendees to view competing works. Three prizes will be assigned for the Venice VR Expanded category by a jury formed of international professionals and chaired by the French director Céline Tricart.

Of the selection, François Vautier’s new VR film “Recoding Entropia” is one of six VR works representing France in the category. The film, which aims to tell an immersive story on evolution of form, species and intelligence, starts with a specific geometry that keeps transforming throughout the story until it finally comes up as another figure. Recoding Entropia is the latest work that is part of François Vautier’s VR anthology about evolution. 

The French director debuted his first VR film at the 2017 Venice Film Festival with “I Saw the Future”. The movie was subsequently distributed to more than 50 festivals worldwide. In 2019 Vautier directed “Odyssey 1.4.9”, and this year’s VR film has been created whilst he has been concurrently working on two other VR projects with French production studio, Da Prod.

From September 2-12, viewers with a VR headset will be able to experience the official selection and activities of Venice VR Expanded through the Viveport, Oculus TV or VRChat platforms. From there they will receive free access (for viewers over 14 years-old) to the following:

• Access to 23 projects in Competition;
• Access to the whole “Best of” section;
• Access to the whole Biennale College Cinema VR section (4 projects).

For more information, please visit La Biennale di Venezia’s website.

Image credit: La Biennale di Venezia

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.