With a catalogue that bridges socially engaged documentary, artist-driven storytelling, and carefully crafted immersive formats, producer An Oost has positioned Cassette for timescapes as one of Belgium’s most distinctive voices in VR and creative non-fiction. At a time when Belgium continues to play a pioneering role in Europe’s XR landscape – both as an early adopter and as a country where XR continues to attract attention and creative ambition – her work stands out for its commitment to underrepresented communities and for the way it transforms lived experience into environments the viewer encounters with genuine agency.
From GLAD THAT I CAME, NOT SORRY TO DEPART to FLOATING WITH SPIRITS and, most recently, the Venice-awarded A LONG GOODBYE, her projects demonstrate how immersive proximity can generate deeper emotional understanding and long-lasting social impact. In this conversation, An Oost reflects on Belgium’s evolving ecosystem, the growing recognition of XR on the international stage, and the production strategies required to sustain hybrid works across formats, audiences, and time.
This article is part of our French XR in Benelux coverage, a 2026 initiative in partnership with Institut français in the Netherlands, the French Embassy in Belgium, and Institut français du Luxembourg, to promote the dynamism of local ecosystems dedicated to immersive creation. https://xrinbenelux.fr
Cassette for timescapes: Crafting a Distinctive Narrative Language in XR
Cassette for timescapes is a leading, all-female production company for documentary and VR, in Belgium. We focus on a strong editorial guideline, extensive project development and international co-productions. Societal change is our goal, with topics like gender, cultural identity, migration, climate change and (mental) health care. The immersive projects we create begin with the lived realities of communities that are underrepresented in mainstream audiovisual culture. In VR, these voices are not just “heard” but they become environments and encounters that the viewer can navigate with agency and a unique proximity. This immersive proximity supports deeper emotional understanding and a more sustainable form of social impact.
GLAD THAT I CAME, NOT SORRY TO DEPART by Zam Zadeh (2020) immersed the viewer in the powerful poetry of 11th Century Persian philosopher and mathematician Omar Khayyam. FLOATING WITH SPIRITS by Juanita Onzaga (2023) opens the perception of the viewer by sharing the ancestral knowledge of the Mazatec community in Huautla in Mexico, reconnecting us with nature and the afterlife. In our most recent VR-piece A LONG GOODBYE (2025) by Kate Voet & Victor Maes you step into the shoes of a 72-year old pianist living with dementia. All projects combine multiple techniques or platforms to tell these stories in a way authentic to the protagonists and driven by a strong creative vision of the directors.
Belgium as a Supportive Landscape for XR Development
Belgium has become a fertile ground for immersive creation because it brings together different key elements: strong public support for artistic experimentation, a deeply collaborative production culture, and a long tradition in author-driven documentary and visual arts. Here, XR is not approached as a technological curiosity but as a fully recognised artistic medium.
The regional funding bodies embraced immersive formats quite early on, understanding that XR requires research, prototyping, and risk-taking. This openness gives creators room to create, allowing new voices and hybrid forms to emerge.
Belgium’s audiovisual sector is also built on cross-border collaboration. Producers are skilled at navigating international financing and assembling multidisciplinary teams across Europe. For XR, where storytelling, design, sound, and technology intersect – this mindset is essential. Combined with Belgium’s strong documentary industry and contemporary art scene, it gives Belgian XR projects a distinctive, creative, and internationally oriented identity.
A LONG GOODBYE and Its Ripple Effect Beyond Venice Immersive
Receiving the Venice Immersive Achievement Prize for A LONG GOODBYE has had a very positive impact on our company.
Venice remains one of the few international festivals where immersive work is evaluated with the same artistic seriousness as cinema. That is important as it validates immersive storytelling as an artistic practice and it shifts how local institutions understand and value XR. For a production company working in creative documentary and socially engaged VR, a festival like Venice reinforces the idea that immersive pieces can stand alongside traditional cinematic and artistic works. This validation strengthens our ability to secure co-productions, attract new talent, and build long-term partnerships. It allows timescapes to position ourselves as a European production company with a distinct author-driven identity. International recognition has a ripple effect at home.
When a Belgian project is celebrated at Venice, it signals to local funding bodies, museums, press and media and cultural policymakers that immersive formats are not marginal, experimental add-ons – they are culturally relevant artistic works with global reach. This often leads to greater openness from institutions to support XR productions, both on the level of financing as the level of distribution, which is essential for sustained artistic research and innovation.
The Challenges of Producing Hybrid XR Works
Hybrid XR projects require ecosystems that can support both artistic experimentation and technical complexity. In Belgium, we benefit from a supportive cultural landscape, but there are a few challenges
As said the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) is very open to XR and we can now also find financing in the Tax Shelter program of the Belgian Federal Government (also for minority co-productions), so in combination with a co-production setup, European funding like MEDIA and by addressing multiple funds across regions or sectors (social impact funds) we usually manage to finance our projects well.
For many immersive works, distribution in Belgium however is still limited to festivals and temporary screenings at cultural venues. There is no consistent national network for XR exhibition, and the commercial LBE market is let’s say, very commercial. As a result, projects with strong cultural or social value, like those we develop at timescapes, rely heavily on international circuits to reach audiences.
That said, the landscape in Belgium is clearly evolving: more cultural venues are integrating XR into their programming giving VR -projects increasing opportunities to reach wider audiences in Belgium as well. Over the years I’ve seen an amazing evolution in the programming at Belgian festivals. Where we in 2020 could submit to 2 or 3 local festivals, A LONG GOODBYE has now (since its premiere in Venice end of August, been shown at 6 Belgian festivals in 3 months time.
The Future of Franco-Belgian Immersive Co-Creation
France and Belgium already share a strong history of coproduction in cinema and documentary, and XR is a natural extension of this collaboration. Both our projects A LONG GOODBYE & FLOATING WITH SPIRITS have been set up as a Benelux duction. I’m very open to co-produce with France and for our linear documentaries we have done so, but strangely enough I haven’t produced on an XR project with France yet. So let this be an open invitation for French producers to reach out to me.
I believe there is a clear shift, in France and internationally, towards multi-user, free-roaming experiences and works designed specifically for museum environments. I follow this trend with great interest and see tremendous potential in shared, multi-user formats. Up to now, however, the innovation in technology has often outpaced the depth of the storytelling.
That’s why I’m particularly excited about the creative possibilities that will emerge as these experiences begin to integrate stronger, more imaginative storytelling.
Building Long-Term Sustainability for Immersive Works
At timescapes, we approach long-term sustainability by designing our immersive works to exist across multiple formats and scales. FLOATING WITH SPIRITS, for example, was produced not only as an interactive 6DoF PCVR experience for HTC Vive, but also as a 360° video to ensure compatibility with a wider range of headsets. GLAD THAT I CAME, NOT SORRY TO DEPART was conceived as a 360° animated film, complemented by a travelling exhibition with AR illustrations and an AR graphic novel. And for A LONG GOODBYE, originally a room-scale interactive piece, we recently created a seated version to make it more accessible, especially for educational and healthcare environments. Schools, in particular, are interested in integrating the piece into their health-care curricula for several years.
This multiplatform, scalable approach helps us extend the lifespan of each project, reach broader audiences, and create additional revenue opportunities over time.
From a technical standpoint, we archive all source materials so that future migrations or re-encodings can be done smoothly as formats evolve. We also rely on widely adopted engines such as Unity and Unreal to minimize dependence on niche or discontinued technologies.
Financially and in terms of impact, we explore long-term partnerships beyond the initial production phase. For our co-production THE IMAGINARY FRIEND by Steye Hallema, we entered a three-year impact program with partners in education, mental health, and research. Together, we’re developing a toolkit that helps teachers implement VR safely and meaningfully in the classroom, particularly around topics such as loss, mourning, and mental health.
www.timescapes.be
www.alonggoodbyevr.com
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