The name "New Horizons" obliges, and this year the VR Stage returns to the festival, showcasing outstanding projects that chart new frontiers in immersive cinema. The program will feature two cinematic gems awarded at last year's Venice Film Festival in the prestigious Venice Immersive section. Celine Daemen's meditative VR opera, Songs for a Passerby, won the Grand Prize, while Flow, by renowned animator Adriaan Lokman, received the Jury Prize. The Embassy of the Netherlands in Warsaw is a partner of the event.
The special VR Stage will be hosted in the welcoming space of Klub Proza, located in the heart of Wroclaw (Przejście Garncarskie 2; 2nd floor), and will be available from July 19 to 27. A detailed schedule of screenings will be announced on July 2.
Flow, dir. Adriaan Lokman, Netherlands, 2023, 16’
A visually remarkable experience by Dutch animator Adriaan Lokman, awarded by the jury at the recent Venice Biennale. Flow invites you to float with the wind on what seems at first glance, to be a day like any other, with its turbulence: a night in the life of a woman, painted by the ebb and flow of air currents. Smells, heat, breathing, natural and artificial gusts of wind, the air currents, affected by invisible presences, make the imperceptible perceptible. They reveal to us a series of events in which the woman – that we are invited to follow during her wanderings – takes part. They immerse us in a world entirely made of air. But when the storm calms down, and the woman wakes up from what turns out to have been a dream, the world is no longer the same.
Songs for a Passerby, dir. Celine Daemen, Netherlands, 2023, 25’
Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale in the "Venice Immersive" section. A VR opera by Celine Daemen about our tenuous relationship with the transitory nature of reality. How does one relate to a world of things that are passing? Are we a part of it? Or are we just looking at it? And what about the body – is it something that we are or that we have? In Songs for a Passerby you will autonomously pass through a musical dreamscape shown in a VR headset. You will be following your own 3D mirror image and take a melancholy walk. It is a meditative quest that allows you to step outside reality for a moment and look at yourself. As a puppeteer of your own body you will be entering a poetic space where the melancholy question arises: is this me passing by moments, or is it rather the moments passing by me?
The film will be shown in Dutch with English subtitles (no Polish track).
Tickets (Flow: PLN 10, Songs for a Passerby: PLN 20) will be available from July 4, 12:00 PM at nowyhoryzonty.pl. Passes and festival accreditations are not valid for the VR Stage.
The 24th mBank New Horizons IFF in Wroclaw will take place from July 18-28. For an additional week, until August 4, the festival can be experienced online from the comfort of your home. The full program will be announced on July 2, and ticket sales for screenings will begin on July 4.