Science, Film and 360 will meet at VR Scientific Festival in Sweden
VR Scientific Festival is a unique experiment, where technology, science and creativity come together to find the best ways of using Virtual reality technologies to benefit people around the world. The festival will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 12–14, hosted by KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
During the 3 festival days visitors will be able to experience the world’s best 360 films and VR experiences about science, IT, technology, environment, space and the human body.
The main festival venue, Dome of Vision, will include a VR Film Theatre zone, where 25 Samsung Gear VR headsets will be connected simultaneously to provide a unique cinematic experience. Each hour, viewers will be able to watch the selection of films provided by such renowned media companies as The New York Times, BBC, ARTE, Russia Today, Time Inc., ZDF, RYOT, as well as by companies such as Telia, Google Inc., NASA, General Electrics.
Overall, more than 40 films will be presented in 8 major categories:
PEOPLE & SOCIETY
PLANET & ENVIRONMENT
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING
HUMAN BODY
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
SPACE & ASTRONOMY
as well as Interactive VR Projects, including Webby Award public vote winner VirryVR and recent Unity Award Winner “Zero Days VR” by Scatter, NYC-based company which will also present their projects and depth kit technology at the VR Talks zone.
One of the world leading VR companies, WITHIN, will present the selection of their “THE POSSIBLE” episodes, dedicated to the most innovative inventions and the people behind them. The program will be screened on the streets of Stockholm as part of the VR Street Cinema program.
“While searching for the content which best fits the festival program, our team had figured out, that the most popular subjects of VR/360 and scientific community are Space, Underwater, Technological Facilities and visualization of the processes happening inside the human body. That fits perfectly with the purpose of VR — to bring us somewhere we could not get to easily or at all” — programming director of the festival Georgy Molodtsov says — “This unique combination of new technology, scientific approach and huge amount of creativity shows us how important it is to combine the efforts between film, IT and science professionals to bring attention to the most important and underrepresented problems of mankind”.
“Human Body” program participants, “Visual Science”, “Hybrid Medical”, “Nucleus Medical Media” and “Body VR” companies will let you see and experience the journey to the world inside our bodies the way viewers have never tried before. Oculus “VR for Good” films were created by emerging 360 creative professionals with the support of the leading VR companies like MPC, ReelFX, Nokia and many others, and will show how the beauty of 360 surrounding imagery might influence your emotions and help to drive attention to social and environmental issues. The selection of films produced for General Electrics will show how businesses might present their work in the entraining and attractive manner.
“Space and Astronomy” part will include the first-ever 360 footage from the International Space Station, created by Russia Today 360, as well as materials from NASA training center created by YouVisit and NASA. As with “Human Body” section, all the works in this category will show completely different approaches to the subject of space, from photoreal film “Spacewalker VR” to the creative journey to the stars in “Fistful of Stars” by renowned artist Eliza McNitt. However, the list of films and experience is so big and diverse, that any attendee will be able to find something he or she would be interested in.
The screenings will be built on a one-hour slot basis, where the selection of the films from each category will be shown as one non-stop program with an opening presentation and discussion afterwards. Festival attendance is free and open to the public.
360 Film Zone is the core of the festival, but that’s just a one of the myriad of events happening within the VR Scientific Festival.
“Our goal was to create a unique meeting point for those who are passionate about their profession, no matter if it is science, cinema, VR, education or anything else and to share their passion with each other,” — Elena Malakhatka, head of the festival says, — “That’s why we created VR Expo zone, series of workshops, lectures and discussions about the future of the technology, as well as Art zone and showcase of the world best artistic VR experiences as a part of Kaleidoscope VR World Tour”.
The festival is supported by KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Telia, NCC, Accenture, MTG Tech, INTEL, TIETO, STOCKHOLM STAD, Epicenter and US Embassy Stockholm.
The idea of the VR Scientific Festival comes from the first VR Film Fest in Stockholm, which happened in October, 2016 and was organized by “Immersive Science” team.
Festival activities started in March with VR Sci Hackathon, where scientists, designers, coders, hackers, learners, artists and engineers and curious visitors had a chance to pick one of the Sustainable Development Goals and create their 60-seconds immersive scientific story.
Pre-screenings of the selection of VR films from the festival was held at the International Film Festival at CERN (March 21–26). VR SCI FEST will be presented within the NEXT Hub at Marche du Film as a part of 70th Cannes International Film Festival. Selection of film and discussion panel would be held on May, 18th and May 19th.
Full catalogue of the films, panels and sections of the festival, as well as schedule and registration form might be found on the festival web-site www.vrscifest.com
For the additional information you could mail to info@vrscifest.com
