Virtual reality now has its own dedicated film festival.
And it's about time, too. The inaugural Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival is set to showcase 20 pieces of VR filmmaking on headsets including Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR, and tickets start at just $10 for students or $15 for everyone else.
The festival is actually an ambitious ten city tour starting in Portland on 22 August and taking in Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Montreal, Toronto and New York City before finishing in Austin on 14 October.
As well as allowing industry insiders and movie fans to see the work, Kaleidoscope will also feature talks, though no names have been confirmed yet. The aim with ticket prices seems to be to get VR in front of as many people as possible but there will be a $99 VIP pass that lets you skip to the front of any demo.
Earlier this year we reported from the Sundance Film Festival's New Frontiers selection of VR shorts and demos and Tribeca and Cannes have also showcased VR work alongside traditional cinema. The company behind the event is Kaleidoscope VR, a talent agency for virtual reality founded in May by entrepreneur René Pinnell and former ILM technical director Michael Breymann. Sponsors include Vrideo, a VR streaming startup, as well as familiar names Samsung, Condition One and Altspace VR.
Some of the work also looks familiar with two films from Chris Milk and his production company VRSE - Clouds over Sidra and Evolution of Verse - plus the Nepal Quake Project, produced by RYOT News and narrated by Susan Sarandon. The remaining short films come from directors from the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Israel and South Korea.
The selection is a combination of animation and live action VR and subject matter ranges from the conditions in war torn Syria to what happens in your brain when you fall in love to a story about mental health and well, butts. For the full list, head to the film festival's site.
Source: Variety
How we test