Cannes Market, Tribeca, Museum of Other Realities Launch Virtual Reality Program
Click here to read the full article.
Having planned a major physical expansion to its immersive and augmented reality program, the Cannes Festival’s Marché du Film is channeling those energies into an extensive online event taking up the whole of the later half of this year’s five-day Cannes Film Market event.
Once Cannes XR 2020, now reimagined as Cannes XR Virtual, as the whole of the Cannes Film Market goes digital as a standalone online event over June 22-26, Cannes XR Virtual will feature conferences, pitching sessions and project presentations made available via a 2D live video stream on the Marché du Film Online, Tribeca Film Festival and Kaleidoscope websites, the Marché du Film – the Cannes Film Market – announced on Tuesday.
More from Variety
John Stankey: AT&T's SVOD and Linear TV Platforms to 'Become One' in Future
'A Little Late with Lilly Singh' Renewed for Season 2 at NBC
HBO Max Sets Premiere Dates for 'Adventure Time' Specials, Seth Rogen Comedy 'American Pickle'
Bringing together executives from the traditional filmmaking industry, XR artists, independent producers, leading tech companies, investors, location-based and online distributors, Cannes XR will be co-hosted by Museum of Other Realities, a virtual art gallery featuring immersive works from VR artists from over the world, and open to VR users via MOR’s application on Steam, Viveport and Oculus.
“After having prepared for a promising edition in Cannes, where for the first time we would have expanded the VR to the Palm Beach, we had to reinvent Cannes XR and find a way to put it online,” said Jérôme Paillard, the Cannes Festival’s Marché du Film executive director.
He added: “I’m very impressed to see how fast, with our spectacular team and our wonderful partners, it has been possible to build a totally new concept where we will be able to show worldwide, and with optimal quality, the VR experiences that we were expecting to show in Cannes.”
Maintaining a long-standing partnership with the Marché du Film, a customized virtual showcase of XR projects curated by the Tribeca Film Festival will make its exclusive debut at Cannes XR Virtual for a three-day exhibition. The line-up will include select world premieres originally intended to bow earlier this year at the Tribeca Virtual Arcade, prior to the Tribeca’s postponement.
“While we continue to explore the future of physical exhibition, this is an exciting moment to share our immersive curation with an expanded global audience, and Cannes is the perfect partner to help us to accomplish this,” said Loren Hammonds, Tribeca senior programmer, film & immersive, in a statement.
VeeR, the China-based worldwide VR content platform, will curate VeeR 360 Cinema, a competition of 360 films. The winner will be presented with the VeeR Future Award,. which comes with a a cash bonus and a Premium Distribution Package worth $10,000 which includes a global marketing campaign, online & LBE distribution and Chinese localization. The voluntarily participated LBE showcase will be held at VeeR ZeroSpace for two weeks in China, which is aimed to bring VR projects and teams to investors and media, Veer said in a statement.
“With the development of 5G network in China, VR is growing faster than ever and there’s great demand for premium VR content in Chinese market. More investors start to show interests in cinematic VR content,” said VeeR VR co-founder Jingshu Chen.
A Cannes XR development Showcase will be curated in association with Kaleidoscope, allowing projects to be pitched to decision-makers.
Those confirmed to date at Cannes XR Virtual include Todd Shaiman, head of immersive arts at Google; Colum Slevin, head of media, ARVR Experiences at Facebook; Ishita Kapur, director, mixed reality content and partnerships at Microsoft; VeeR’s Jingshu Chen; Jake Sally, head of development at RYOT/Verizon; and Intel Studios executive producer Sarah Vick.
A network of Location Based Entertainment (LBE) partners in several major cities in the U.S., China and France will offer access to Cannes XR Virtual to journalists and guests who do not have a VR headset.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
