London Film Festival Unveils Immersive Art and Extended Realities Lineup

Naman Ramachandran
·3 min read

The BFI London Film Festival has revealed the line-up for LFF Expanded, its immersive art and extended realities strand (Oct. 5-16).

Programmed by Ulrich Schrauth, the BFI’s immersive art and XR curator, this year’s program features interactive virtual reality, screen-based installations, augmented reality, mixed reality, immersive audio experience and live performance. The program will be at multiple venues on London’s South Bank.

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The highlight of the program is the world premiere, commissioned by the festival, of Guy Maddin’s “Haunted Hotel: A Melodrama in Augmented Reality,” which promises to transport the audience into a surreal paper world, created from a selection of clippings drawn from Maddin’s own personal archive, set to a soundscape by composer Magnus Fiennes.

Schrauth describes the work as one “that invites audiences to explore a vibrant tableau of desire, deception and death.”

Schrauth said: “This year’s program considers pertinent issues of our time from a hugely diverse range of perspectives and art forms.”

Maddin said: “I’ve long told myself that collage-making is good for keeping my eye sharp for film shoots. After all, the snipper and gluer of papery things arranges those things in a frame, just like a director — pure mise-en-scène! But making collages in Augmented Reality truly is a brain-breaker, another experience completely, with its multiple layers of interest aspiring to draw the viewer ever inward, free-floating non-sequiturs that suggest causal connections and conceal vile secrets, the whole creating an atmosphere thick with uninhibited urges — lustful, homicidal, stupid!”

Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival director, said: “We’re electrified by the quality of the work being made for immersive and expanded reality platforms. This is a space where the film industry meets the creative storytelling worlds of art, dance, music, performance and digital design, a space that encourages experimentation, cross-pollination and collaboration.”

This is the third year of LFF Expanded at the festival and the 2022 edition features 20 projects from 17 countries.

LFF Expanded 2022 Immersive Art And XR Program

“All Unsaved Progress Will Be Lost” – U.K. Premiere
2022, France, Lead Artist: Mélanie Courtinat

“Apparatus Ludens” – World Premiere
2022, U.K.-Sweden, Lead Artist: Untold Garden

“A Mighty Mass Emerges” – U.K. Premiere
2022, Switzerland-France-Italy, Lead Artist: Wu Tsang

“As Mine Exactly”
2022, U.K., Lead Artist: Charlie Shackleton

“The Choice” – U.K. Premiere
2021, Canada-Poland, Lead Artist: Joanne Popinska

“Black Movement Library – Movement Portraits” – International Premiere
2022, U.S., Lead Artist: Lajuné Mcmillian

“Digital Motions” – U.K. Premiere
2022, Germany, Lead Artists: Helge Letonja, Marcel Karnapke, Björn Lengers, Anke Euler

“Framerate: Pulse Of Earth” – U.K. Premiere
2022, U.K., Lead Artists: Matthew Shaw, William Trossell, Scanlab Projects

“Haunted Hotel: A Melodrama In Augmented Reality” – World Premiere
2022, Germany, Lead Artist: Guy Maddin

“The Infinite Library” – U.K. Premiere
2022, India-Germany-Czech Republic, Lead Artist: Mika Johnson

“In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats”
2022, U.K., Lead Artist: Darren Emerson

“Intravene” – World Premiere
2022, U.K-Canada, Lead Artists: Darkfield, Crackdown, Brenda Longfellow

“The Last Time I Saw Snow”
2022, U.K., Lead Artists: Isobel Mascarenhas-whitman, Alex Tennyson

“Line Of Contact” – World Premiere
2022, Netherlands-U.K.-Ukraine, Lead Artist: Dani Ploeger

“Monoliths”
2022, U.K., Lead Artists: Lucy Hammond, Hannah Davies, Asma Elbadawi, Carmen Marcus

“Missing Pictures Ep. 3: Catherine Hardwicke: The Monkey Wrench Gang” – U.K. Premiere
2022, France-U.K.-Taiwan-Luxembourg-South Korea, Lead Artists: Clément Deneux

“On The Morning You Wake (To The End Of The World)”
2022, U.K.-France-U.S., Lead Artists: Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Arnaud Colinart, Pierre Zandrowicz

“Pan + Tilt” – World Premiere
2022, U.K., Lead Artists Ruth Gibson, Bruno Martelli

“Planet City” – U.K. Premiere
2022, U.S.-China, Lead Artists: Liam Young, Kayvan Boudai, Eilliot Ordower, James Clar

“Walzer” – World Premiere
2021, Netherlands, Lead Artists: Frieda Gustavs, Leo Erken

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