#virtual arcade

The Tribeca Film Festival has been the premier curator of cutting-edge interactive storytelling for more than a decade – from the first film shot entirely on a cell phone in 2007 to spotlighting independent online content creators. Within this year’s Immersive program, the Storyscapes and Virtual Arcade exhibits will feature a diverse array of projects that are rooted in documentary, narrative and music, providing an intense program of experiential storytelling for audiences to explore. Established VR creators and studios debuting new pieces include: Marshmallow Laser Feast, Gabo Arora, Baobab Studios, Oculus Story Studios, Penrose Studios, and Within. Both Storyscapes and Virtual Arcade open to the public on Friday, April 21.

Storyscapes, which celebrates its fifth year this spring, was created in 2013 to bridge filmmaking, technology, and storytelling. At the 2017 Festival, the Storyscapes juried showcase will continue to present new trends and innovative work across mediums that integrate various forms of audience participation with six VR and interactive installations focusing on emotion and the human experience. The projects tackle topics including an exploration of autobiography in VR, a hunger to connect with the world around us, recounting life in a concentration camp, perception and identity, and the secret lives of strangers.

“Artists allow us to see the world differently. They peel back layers of reality to show us new ways of thinking, using story, and technology to reveal truths and possibilities,” said Ingrid Kopp, curator of Storyscapes. “It is thrilling to be exhibiting such a dynamic range of projects in the fifth year of Storyscapes and at a time when there is so much creativity and energy in the interactive space. It has been wonderful to witness audience interest in immersive work grow over the past few years and to see how artists have responded to this excitement.”

The Virtual Arcade, which debuted at the 2016 Festival, returns for 2017 to entertain, inspire and transport participants with a range of experiences from animated epics to post-apocalyptic landscapes.

“As VR has continued to evolve technologically, so has the storytelling. Our mission is to shine a light on those creators pushing the boundaries of the medium to move beyond the demo phase and deliver on the promise of fully realized stories and truly transformative experiences,” said Loren Hammonds, Programmer, Film & Experiential at Tribeca Film Festival.

STORYSCAPES

The 2017 Storyscapes selections include six projects from four countries, three of the projects are world premieres. One project will be selected by a jury to receive the Storyscapes Award, presented by AT&T, which recognizes groundbreaking approaches in storytelling and technology.

Blackout (World Premiere) Project Creators: Scatter:​ ​Alexander Porter, Yasmin Elayat, James George, Mei-Ling Wong Key Collaborators: Hannah Jayanti Blackout is an ongoing participatory, volumetric VR project gathering the reflections of real people living in today’s tense political climate through the lens of the New York subway. By creating a rotating, ‘crowd-sourced’ cast, Blackout addresses the impossible task of representing the extraordinary breadth of human experience in New York City. Each viewing of Blackout is different, surrounding you with a unique group of straphangers taking you to the places their minds go between destinations.

Draw Me Close (World Premiere) Project Creator: Jordan Tannahill Canadian playwright-director Jordan Tannahill partners with the National Theatre and the National Film Board of Canada to create Draw Me Close, a vivid memoir about his relationship with his mother in the wake of her terminal cancer diagnosis. Collapsing the worlds of live performance and animation to create an unforgettable encounter between a mother and her son, Draw Me Close tells the story of their past and what is to be their future. This special presentation is a world premiere of the first chapter of Draw Me Close.

The Island of the Colorblind (International Premiere) Project Creator: Sanne de Wilde Key Collaborators: IDFA DocLab, de Brakke Grond What does color mean to those who can’t see it? In the late eighteenth century a catastrophic typhoon swept over Pingelap, a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean. One of the few survivors carried a rare gene that causes achromatopsia, a condition that includes the inability to distinguish colors. Over generations, the islanders ended up perceiving their world in black and white. The Island of the Colorblind invites the audience to explore this shift in perception through de Wilde’s photography and an interactive installation

The Last Goodbye (World Premiere) Project Creators: Gabo Arora, Ari Palitz Key Collaborators: Stephen Smith, Here Be Dragons, MPC, Otoy, LightShed and USC Shoah Foundation In July of 2016, Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter toured the Majdanek Concentration Camp in what he vowed would be his final visit. By marrying a stereo video capture of Pinchas within a photoreal roomscale experience, The Last Goodbye reaches profound levels of immersion in service of the first ever VR testimony that will be archived and preserved. The importance of listening to Pinchas’ story is more important now than ever and this is also a beautiful testament to love, compassion and the human spirit.

NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism (New York Premiere) Project Creators: Hyphen-Labs - Ashley Baccus-Clark, Carmen Aguilar y Wedge, Ece Tankal, Nitzan Bartov Imagined futures and contemporary realities come together in NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism, a multidisciplinary exploration of women of color’s experience through the lens of technology, society and culture. The project includes speculative products, immersive experiences and neuroscientific research. In the VR experience, discover the neurocosmetology lab, a kind of beauty salon, where instead of ordinary braids, customers are fitted with transcranial electrodes that allow access to a surreal alternate world.

TREEHUGGER: WAWONA (North American Premiere) Project Creator: Marshmallow Laser Feast Key Collaborators: Natan Sinigaglia, Mileece I'Anson, Cinekid Foundation, STRP, Southbank Centre and Migrations TREEHUGGER : WAWONA is an interactive installation that combines today’s cultural hunger for beautiful immersive experiences with art, science, data, environmentalism and technology. Centered on a vast sculpture of a giant redwood tree, the viewer dons a VR headset, places their head into the tree’s knot and is transported into its secret inner world. The longer someone hugs the tree, the deeper they drift into treetime: a hidden dimension that lies just beyond the limit of our senses.

VIRTUAL ARCADE

The Virtual Arcade selections include 23 projects from six countries, 17 of which are world premieres:

Alteration (World Premiere) – France Project Creator: Jérôme Blanquet Key Collaborators: James Sénade, Yann Apéry, Antoine Cayrol, Baptiste Chesnais, Pierre Zandrowicz, Jean-françois Blanquet This is a poetic trip into the future: Alexandro volunteers for an experiment carried out to study dreams. He can’t imagine that he will be subjected to the intrusion of Elsa, a form of Artificial Intelligence who aims to digitize his subconscious in order to feed off it. She’s a vampire…bit by megabit.

Apex (World Premiere) – The Netherlands/USA Project Creator: Arjan van Meerten Key Collaborator: Wevr The stunning new experience from the brilliant imagination of 3D artist and musician Arjan van Meerten, APEX is the highly anticipated follow up to the creator’s acclaimed and award-winning experience, Surge. Step into a surrealistic and darkly beautiful vision of a fiery urban apocalypse; one populated by skeletal ghost animals, abstract shapes, maniacal smiling giants and, of course, you.

Arden's Wake (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Eugene Chung Key Collaborators: Jimmy Maidens The sea levels have risen, and a young woman and her father live in a lighthouse perched atop the ocean’s surface. When he goes missing, she descends deep into the post-apocalyptic waters previously forbidden to her, embarking on a thrilling journey of family history and self-discovery. From the creators of the magnificent Allumette (Tribeca 2016), Arden’s Wake continues the elegant evolution of storytelling from Penrose Studios.

Auto (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: J. Steven Schardt In the near future, self-driving taxi services employ “safety drivers,” a transitional measure of comfort for passengers. On his first day, Musay, an Ethiopian immigrant with 40 years of driving experience, picks up a couple habituated to the service.   Not content -- not comfortable -- with merely sitting, Musay insists on driving, instigating a series of events with substantial consequences.

Bebylon - Battle Royale (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Cory Strassburger, Ikrima Elhassan Key Collaborators: Alex Underhill, Giray Ozil, Jennifer Chavarria From the minds at Kite + Lightning, this comedic arena battle experience blends a satirical narrative with revolutionary head-to-head VR gaming. Set in a futuristic status conscious society, players compete as crude, narcissistic, immortal babies for fame and fortune. Wielding weaponized status symbols such as gold-plated selfie sticks and big-fisted battle buggies, you can be the “beby” of your most shameless rock star fantasy.

Becoming Homeless: A Human Experience (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Stanford University Key Collaborators: Elise Ogle, Tobin Asher, Jeremy Bailenson Everyone's story is unique, but the human experience is collective. In this interactive first-person VR experience, you will face the adversity of living without a home. From Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Becoming Homeless aims to change the way some may think and act about the epidemic of homelessness that exists globally.

Broken Night (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Alon Benari, Tal Zubalsky, Alex Vlack Key Collaborators: Eko, Hidden Content, Real Motion VFX Broken Night explores a woman's (Emily Mortimer) unreliable narrative of an intense trauma. Speaking to a detective, her confused memories unfold: returning home in the midst of a fight with her husband (Alessandro Nivola), they encounter an intruder. The viewer is placed in a position of choosing which memories to follow, sharing her confusion before coming to the startling truth.

Extravaganza (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Ethan Shaftel Extravaganza mixes 3D animation and live-action footage in a bitingly funny satire. You are a puppet trapped in a stunningly offensive puppet show, performing for a clueless executive (Paul Scheer). Confronted with his glaringly obvious blind spots and prejudices, Extravaganza asks: can technology change society for the better, or does it just magnify our worst traits in new ways?

Hallelujah (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Zach Richter, Bobby Halvorson, Eames Kolar Key Collaborators: Chrissy Szczupak, Orin Green, Jess Engel, ECCO VR, International Orange Chorale of SF, Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin Hallelujah is a revolutionary virtual reality music performance that reimagines Leonard Cohen’s most well-known song. It is the world's first VR music experience to provide an uncompromised sense of presence with six degrees of freedom using Lytro Immerge technology. A Within Original.

Life of Us (New York Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin, Pharrell Williams Life of Us is a shared VR journey from Within that tells the complete story of the evolution of life on earth. Created by Chris Milk & Aaron Koblin, with original music by Pharrell Williams.

The Other Dakar (World Premiere) – Senegal Project Creator: Selly Raby Kane Key Collaborators: Electric South, Goethe Institut A little girl receives a message and discovers the hidden face of Dakar. An homage to Senegalese mythology and a stunningly visual debut from Dakar-based artist and designer Selly Raby Kane, this magical 360 film transports viewers to a place where past and future meet and where artists are the beating heart of the city.

The People’s House (World Premiere) – Canada Project Creators: Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël (Felix & Paul Studios) The People’s House takes you on a historic visit of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House. Through the transportive power of VR, The Obamas take you on an intimate journey inside the West Wing, Executive and Private Residences, reflecting on their time there, and recounting the building’s profound history since its creation over two centuries ago.

The Possible: Hoverboard (Season Finale) – USA Project Creator: David Gelb If you could have just one superpower, what would it be? For Alexandru Duru, the answer is obvious: the ability to fly. That’s why he founded Omni Hoverboards, which has transformed hoverboard technology from dream to reality. In “Hoverboard,” you’ll follow his team as they build and test a prototype—then experience the freedom of flight for yourself.

The Protectors: Walk in The Ranger’s Shoes (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Kathryn Bigelow, Imraan Ismail From Academy Award-winning director Katheryn Bigelow and acclaimed VR creator Imraan Ismail, The Protectors chronicles a day in the life of the rangers in Garamba National Park. These rangers are often the last line of defense in a race against the poachers intent on slaughtering elephants for their ivory tusks. The rangers face constant danger and even death, at the service of these sentient, noble creatures.

Rainbow Crow (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Eric Darnell, Maureen Fan, Larry Cutler, Claudia Southmartin, Kane Lee Key Collaborators: Michael Hutchinson, Nathaniel Dawson From the Director of Madagascar, Invasion! (Tribeca 2016), and Asteroids! comes Baobab Studio's latest visionary VR animation. The carefree forest animals imagine spring will last forever. However, winter comes and the animals soon realize that their lives are in danger. What they need is a hero; what they need is Rainbow Crow. Step inside a moving, soon-to-be classic, musical experience for all ages.

Remember: Remember (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Kevin Cornish If our minds are a map of every memory we've had, what do we become if those memories are stripped away? In this cinematic, room-scale VR experience set against the backdrop of an alien invasion, you are a prisoner being brainwashed by a lost love. As you cycle through your memories, the two of you begin to question what is real and what is imagined.

Sergeant James (North American Premiere) – France Project Creator: Alexandre Perez Key Collaborators: Avi Amar It’s Leo’s bedtime, but he thinks there is something under his bed. Is it just the harmless imagination of a young boy, or something more sinister? Is it…you? From director Alexandre Perez, Sergeant James recaptures the innocence of youth, the wonder of the unknown, and the folly of fear, while hinting at a far creepier possibility.

Step to the Line (New York Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Ricardo Laganaro Key Collaborators: Defy Ventures/ Oculus VR for Good Shot entirely on location in a California maximum security prison, Step to the Line is a documentary that aims to provoke a transformation in the spectator’s eyes about prisoners, the prison system, and even themselves. In this project, we see how release from incarceration can be just as jarring as intake and how parallel lives diverge when someone serves time.

Sword of Baahubali (New York Premiere) – India Project Creator: SS Rajamouli, Arka Mediaworks Key Collaborators: Radeon Technologies Group & CNCPT LA Two friends find themselves on a battlefield, as the armies of Bhalladeva and Shivudu are set to charge into battle. As they watch the action unfold, they are unexpectedly asked to participate. Their mission – to find a legendary warrior’s sword and deliver it to him, ensuring victory.  Based on S.S. Rajamouli's World of Baahubali, India's biggest movie franchise.

Talking With Ghosts (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Ric Carrasquillo, Roman Muradov, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Maria Yi Key Collaborators:  Wesley Allsbrook, Matthew Chadwick, Sebastien Chevrel, Tauni Oxborrow, Saschka Unseld. Talking With Ghosts is the next wave of emerging art in the field of Illustrative VR. Following the success of Dear Angelica, Oculus Story Studio decided to enhance its painting app Quill with comic-like storytelling functionality, enabling anyone to tell their own illustrative stories in VR. The resulting works are called Quill Stories and Talking With Ghosts is a compilation of the very first of their kind, entirely painted and told in VR by four remarkable artists. Made in collaboration with Oculus Story Studios.

Testimony (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Zohar Kfir Key Collaborators: Selena Pinnell Recent events have dramatically shifted the conversation around sexual abuse in the United States. Despite persistent victim-shaming and the discounting of their experiences, abuse survivors are increasingly coming forward, empowering one another to become agents of change. Testimony is an interactive documentary presenting the narrative accounts of sexual abuse survivors, using virtual reality to engage viewers with an intimate, motion-driven interface.

Tree (New York Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Milica Zec, Winslow Porter Key Collaborators: Aleksandar Protic, Jakob Kudsk Steensen See and feel what it is like to become a tree in this haptically enhanced VR experience. With your arms as the branches and your body as the trunk, you experience the growth from a seedling to its fullest form, taking on its role in the majestic rain forest and witnessing its fate firsthand.

Unrest (World Premiere) – France/USA Project Creator: Arnaud Colinart, Jennifer Brea, Amaury La Burthe Key Collaborators: Diana Barrett (Fledgling Fund), Lindsey Dryden (Little By Little Films) From the award-winning team behind Notes On Blindness, Unrest allows audiences to access the world of chronic illness and disability in an exploratory, user-led experience. Based on the documentary film of the same name, the project draws upon sensory meditations on pain, fatigue, and neurosensory symptoms, and allows the public a visceral personal experience of a hard-to-understand condition.

About the Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Film Festival is a cultural event for the new age of storytelling that brings together visionaries across industries and diverse audiences. It celebrates the power of storytelling in a variety of forms – from film to TV, VR to online work, and music to gaming. As a platform for creative expression, independent filmmaking, and immersive entertainment, Tribeca champions emerging and established voices, discovers award-winning filmmakers and creators, curates innovative experiences, and introduces new technology and ideas through premieres, exhibitions, talks, and live performances.

The Festival was founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2001 to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan following the attacks on the World Trade Center. With strong roots in independent film, the annual event has evolved into a destination for creativity, reimagines the cinematic experience, and explores how art can unite communities. www.tribecafilm.com

Find the Tribeca Film Festival on and use #Tribeca2017 Twitter: https://twitter.com/tribeca Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tribeca Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tribeca/ Snapchat: TribecaFilmFest YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/tribecafilmfest Tumblr: http://tribeca.tumblr.com

Passes and tickets for the 2017 Festival Advance selection ticket packages are now on sale. All advance selection packages can be purchased online at tribecafilm.com/festival/tickets, or by telephone at (646) 502-5296 or toll free at (866) 941-FEST (3378).

Also available for purchase now is The Hudson Pass, an all access pass to screenings and talks taking place at BMCC, Regal, Cinepolis Chelsea, and SVA as well as full access to all events at the Festival Hub at Spring Studios, which includes VR and immersive projects, special screenings with music performances, and access to the lounges.

Being the late-adopter that I am, it took me just a few years to really get into the virtual reality presented at Tribeca Film Festival. But even the experts in the field seem to agree that the festival this year made a breakthrough, and for the first time its virtual reality selection felt more like a solid part of the whole event than an unnecessary addition.

VR took over the large area in the festival’s main happening space, with overall more than 30 short videos on display. Some of them required more interaction than others, and some were closer to the video games playing than film watching experience in the way they were letting the participant control elements of the action.

Then, in many cases the virtual and the old traditional reality are still crisscrossing each other, not necessary because the creators planned them to. VR is supposed to separate you from whatever you are surrounded with, to “immerse” you (probably the most overused word in this context) in its world. But since we are still at such an early stage of the development of the technology, the case is often the opposite. And not always this means that the specific piece does not work, sometimes it adds an extra layer to the viewing experience.

That happened to me when I was watching MY MOTHER'S WING (2016) created by Gabo Arora and Ari Palitz. It is a touching documentary piece about the mother living in Gaza, grieving the loss of her children, while still trying to move forth with her life. Even though it seems so fragile and can be lost at any moment, as well as her house, neighbors, or lives of the loved ones. The narrative here is very simple, but you do not really need anything else, when you are standing in the middle of the debris of a bombed school and the narrator tells you about the event.

While I was watching MY MOTHER'S WING, hanging above the carpet in the mosque and turning around on the real revolving chair, I hit the real table standing in front of me. My first instinct was to look around, but there was nothing on that mosque’s carpet that my leg could possibly hit. Just then, already considering my reaction on the conscious level, I realized what happened. I am not sure if moments like this really bring you out of the story that the filmmakers are trying to tell. Engaging story remains an engaging story, even if watched in the imperfect conditions.

On the other hand, VR still encounters so serious quality issues that it can ruin the experience, at least for some of the viewers. One of my other favorite pieces from Tribeca, HARD WORLD FOR SMALL THINGS (2016) by Janicza Bravo, drops you in the middle of a scene somewhere in the LA suburbs – three friends are slowly driving a car, having very casual conversation. Later, together with them you move into the middle of the unexpected action – without revealing too much about the plot, it really gives a feeling of what the randomness of violence means for people of color living in a poor American neighborhood. I found the whole thing great (except a very mediocre performance by two actors playing the cops), but I have heard from two viewers, that the car ride made them feel so sick they could not watch to the end. Again, our brains here: they seem not to know what to make out of the fact that they see we are moving, but the body is actually sitting still.

Nevertheless, the element of the shock that Bravo brought into her story, I found one of the most promising ways of using the VR technique. It is an example of how it can enhance the traditional storytelling. Otherwise, the whole thing would stay just a gimmick – something entertaining but not really trying to progress the cinematic narrative. Sure, I too flew a dragon in the upcoming video game DRAGONFLIGHT (2016) directed by Michael Conelly (which had the longest lines in the whole show) or danced and moved my funny animal limbs to Future Islands' Old Friend in the animated video under the same title directed by Tyler Hurd. But there was nothing about these pieces I could talk about except the technicalities and the wow-factor.

Tribeca also showcased something we could call “an experimental VR.” Within merely a few minutes, ASHES (2016) by Jessica Kantor manages to establish a unique world with its separate rules of logic. It is actually an experiment on several levels at the same time, yet surprisingly it works and gives the viewer just the right amount of confusion. The film is a choreographed ballet and a tragic love story. It takes place on the beach, where we see a couple dancing. When we turn and look into the other direction, there is this very same couple but dancing a different dance, dressed differently. Why are they multiplied? Do they exist in different times? One of the couple-clones moves backwards. And so at some point those two timelines cross each other, giving a new meaning to the ending. That is, of course, assumed on what I saw and how I interpreted it during the screening. Viewers will have to choose for themselves where to look and make assumptions based on that. I actually think I missed the pivotal event in the story… Anyway, ASHES is not playing around with the VR, but makes a conscious, sophisticated use of its 360-degree quality.

Soon more and more artists will be showing us that VR is not just for flying the dragon. Or reporting, or putting us in places we cannot get to. Also, soon the problem of body perception, all these physical difficulties of the brain adjusting will become so unimportant for the whole experience that it would even not need need mentioning. For now, it still feels like an adventure into a new medium where everything is exciting, even if it goes wrong.

Like one of the panelist during a VR-themed discussion at the festival noticed, other generation must have had felt the same thrill, when the films were just a new curiosity: “We are in a silent film period of VR. We don't know where we can get yet. What we’re doing right now, it's probably going to be laughable in a few years. Or a few months.”