Big news on the Croisette. The Cannes Film Festival will launch a competition dedicated to immersive works based on virtual reality for its 2024 edition, the organizers announced on Wednesday. From May 15 to 24, the selected works will be accessible to festival-goers and Film Market accreditors, during the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival itself, which will take place from May 14 to 25.
This new competition “aims to highlight this new generation of international artists who invent and develop new narrative experiences, breaking with the two-dimensional framework of the cinematographic screen,” explains a press release.
For this first edition, “eight immersive works will be selected by a committee made up of industry professionals and members of the Festival team gathered around the general delegate of the Festival”, Thierry Frémaux. A selection of “non-competitive” works, exposing the links between immersive experience and cinema, will complete the system”, develop the Cannes officials. The Prize for best immersive work will be awarded by “an international jury composed of well-known personalities from cinema and immersive art during a specific closing ceremony”.
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The selected works will be accessible to festival-goers and accredited members of the Marché du Film from May 15 to 24, while the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival itself takes place from May 14 to 25. In 2017, during the 70th edition, Alejandro González Iñárritu showed, in virtual reality, Carne y Arena, the first immersive work ever presented in the official selection of a major festival.
Furthermore, the Cannes town hall will announce the launch of the “Cannes Immersive” program, sponsored by the musician keen on new technologies Jean-Michel Jarre with the support of the CNC (National Cinema Center), whose ambition is to be “ a global hub dedicated to immersive creations and the new artistic territory of artificial intelligence (AI),” according to the press release.