IDFA DocLab: VR Gallery
The latest virtual reality films and experiences
The selected projects cover a wide range of themes and subjects. Each and every story is eye-opening—even after you’ve taken off your VR headset… This year, the VR Gallery is home to the following projects: the hypnotizing VR film RAPTURE II – PORTAL (Alisa Berger); a glimpse into the mindset of a group of open-hearted people with ADHD in IMPULSE: Playing with Reality (May Abdallah and Barry Gene Murphy); and the story of the Chinese ‘rebel influencer’ Teacher Li in All I Know About Teacher Li (Zhuzmo Zz). Experience the everyday spirituality of the Peruvian highlands in Ancestral Secret (Francisca Silva & Maria José Diaz); confront feelings of insecurity in Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home (Vincent Abert); or indulge in the dark sci-fi world of Limbophobia (Wen-Yee Hsieh). The VR Gallery is located at DocLab’s new location, @droog, within walking distance of De Brakke Grond. If you want to take in the entire VR Gallery selection, you’ll need three time slots (and so three tickets).
Composition
1. All I Know About Teacher Li
Synopsis
The Chinese government took “Teacher Li” offline 50 times over a period of two months, but that didn’t hold him back. The Chinese student who created this persona kept making new accounts to publish bad news. In the interactive VR film All I Know About Teacher Li, you become part of this online revolution.
Teacher Li became a global phenomenon in 2022 when, from Italy, he became a conduit for controversial news from China. Now you become this conduit. Messages float around you as paper planes. They unfold and turn into videos, made during the Covid lockdowns of 2022. The restrictions are sometimes so absurd that they become comical. But more often the videos reveal distressing and dehumanizing situations. As you toss back the countless messages so that they appear online, you begin to feel the power of collaboration and perseverance. The playful VR environment, with hand-drawn animation and 3D archive material, proves to be an inspiring form of storytelling.
2. Ancestral Secret VR
Synopsis
An ancient Inca prophecy says that the world will find a new harmony when the condor and the eagle again fly together. The condor represents the indigenous peoples and the eagle represents what we know today as the globalized world.
In this VR experience, co-created with members of the Q’ero Nation and available in English, Spanish, German and Quechua, the user is invited to participate in a series of rituals of the Q’ero Nation in Peru. A voice describes the meaning of the prayers, gestures and offerings with which the Q’ero perpetuate their bond with nature.
The Q’ero, descendants of the Incas, live in the middle of the impressive Vilcanota mountain range in the Andes, where they weave colorful textiles in the traditional way. During their filmed rituals, the user sees the summoned magical and sacred powers become visible as animations in and above the landscape. In a fully animated vision of a spiritual dimension, the mythical serpent of wisdom Amaru slithers to the source of all water and the Q’ero see their prophecy fulfilled.
3. Impulse: Playing with Reality
Synopsis
Chaotic, reckless, dangerous—living with ADHD can be a constant battle. Impulse: Playing with Reality translates this into a personal experience. After their award-winning film Goliath(about schizophrenia), Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla now delve into the minds of people with severe ADHD.
In this interactive VR experience Leanne, Omar, Errol and Tara talk about their lives and ways of thinking. Their stories are brought home through mixed reality. While you attempt to follow a train of thought, the stuff in your room sets off a chain reaction leading to all sorts of mayhem. Shadows on your walls become portals into labyrinthine worlds. Words spiral out into alternative meanings and possibilities.
Impulse makes clear that the world holds much more information than we can process. This maelstrom of possibilities and thoughts pushes some people to the edge of the abyss. Murphy and Abdalla provide powerful insights into their reality, in a form that always serves the four candid narrators.
4. Limbophobia
Synopsis
Limbophobia opens with a dramatic quote from the book Will Grayson, Will Grayson: “I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.” This spiritual crisis in a dark border region forms the introduction to Wen-Yee Hsieh’s misty nocturnal world in which visitors finds themselves in twilight zones of existential terror.
The powerful black and white graphics making up this hallucinatory world blur the boundaries between the real and the digital, the solid and the ephemeral, the eternal and the temporary. What starts as a glance through a misty window on a storm-swept beach turns into a wild ride into increasingly unstable realities rocked by explosions and collapsing buildings. All this is accompanied by music that sounds like the slow breath of the collective unconscious.
The fulldome version of Limbophobia is having its world premiere at IDFA. Limbophobia can also be experienced in the VR version which is part of the DocLab Exhibition and the VR Gallery.
5. RAPTURE II – Portal
Alisa Berger | France, Ukraine, Germany | 2024 | 19 min
Synopsis
Structured as a hypnosis session, this is a trip through an abandoned apartment in the Ukrainian region of Donbas, which has been occupied by Russian troops since 2014. It belonged to vogue dancer Marko, who guides us through his home while he visits it for the first time since 2018, shortly before he fled the war.
For this project, the spaces—living room, bedroom, kitchen and hallway—were digitally reconstructed based on photographs of the apartment as he left it behind. But this is not a perfect reconstruction, and parts of the rooms and pieces of the things lying around are missing. The serene flight is occasionally interrupted by energetic, more abstract outbursts, inspired by Marko’s background as a dancer. They juxtapose the strength of the human body in dance with its vulnerability in the face of war technology. Meanwhile, in voice-over, Marko relates his memories of his home, from the liberation he felt when he first had his own place in the world, to the immense sense of loss now he has been separated from it by war.
6. Walking Alone, Text You When I’m Home
Synopsis
From annoying wolf whistles in the street to unwanted touches in a tram or bar: these are experiences familiar to many women. But not all men mean harm, and sometimes a situation only seems dangerous. Why is this? This documentary places a young woman, the narrator, at various events and locations where she has felt unsafe. As a user, you experience the scenes as an invisible voyeur. In the middle of the lifelike 360-degree sets, you also feel a bit like a participant. At an uncomfortably close distance, you follow the sexually suggestive comments and unsolicited advances the young woman experiences. The narrator philosophizes about direct threats, and also about the ambiguity of certain situations. Was it only scary because of the darkness? Or because she had been taught from an early age to be careful on the street? Users will find themselves alone in a dimly lit, remote place. How does that feel to you?
About IDFA DocLac
DocLab is an interdisciplinary platform for interactive and immersive documentary art. DocLab is seen as the most significant première platform for interactive documentaries internationally. IDFA DocLab pushes the boundaries of how we perceive and engage with non-fiction narratives by blending art, reality, and technologies. Founded in 2007, it fulfills a pioneering role in the turbulent development of digital storytelling, virtual reality, live performance, and artificial intelligence. Just as, more than a century ago, filmmakers discovered how they could use the language of film, DocLab now offers a platform to a new generation of makers through which they can invent their own languages and experiment with new forms of narrative and presentation.
Exhibition & Playrooms @droog is one of the main locations of the DocLab program. Here you play, explore, and experience interactive documentary projects that use VR, AR, AI, games, new media, and performances. Entry is free, but you need to reserve online via idfa.nl/doclab to secure your spot. New this year are the DocLab Playrooms. That’s where makers and the audience meet each other to playtest new projects, formats, and technologies. Explore the full program of IDFA DocLab at idfa.nl/doclab.
About IDFA
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is once again bringing an exciting selection of the world’s best documentaries to Amsterdam this year, from November 14 until 24. Immerse yourself in new work from emerging talent and established filmmakers, with world premieres, festival favorites, and thematic programs.
