The program of the Geneva International Film Festival 2024 was announced last week. Now in its 30th edition, GIFF, which has hosted a curated selection of immersive works since 2016, will once again offer us a variegated collection of stories that allow us to rediscover immersive productions in all their forms.
Cover: IMPRESSIONS DE LA SUISSE, a restauration of a Swissorama system by Ernst Heiniger who made a 360° film of Switzerland’s landscapes and sights in 1984.
Wonder: that’s a word Anaïs Emery, GIFF’s general director and artistic director, used often in the conversation we had about her curatorial work and this year’s immersive selection.
Wonder at the magic that even today – and even more so with the possibilities offered by the more immersive storytelling tools – audiovisuals inspire.
Wonder, that feeling the audience gets when they put on a headset for the first time and are transported to another world.
Wonder, when you discover works that are much more than a technology… they share a universe of meanings and possibilities, they are subversive but also “a joy to behold”, as Anaïs told us. They make you realize that what matters are still stories and the ability they often have to leave us speechless.
A story of discovery and changes: happy 30th anniversary, GIFF!
Anaïs Emery – This year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Geneva International Film Festival, an event that is still absolutely central to our country and on the international scene.
A. E. – The immersive section had its first official edition as an international competition in 2016, but the first time we exhibited an immersive work was actually back in 2014! At that time I was not yet working for the festival, but I was able to follow its evolution closely. At that time the immersive field was presented to our audience as a narrative curiosity, but one that nevertheless was part of a continuing reflection on multimedia and web content that has always characterized GIFF’s approach to the whole audiovisual sector.
A. E. – Then, from there, the festival continued its research and opened this international competition that required a specific person to manage it, Paola Gazzani Marinelli. The decision to create dedicated sections for these innovative narrative formats deeply changed the more physical and organizational aspect of this festival, as well, and I have noticed this particularly since I joined the organization as General and Artistic Director.
A. E. – The way we show immersive productions today has changed a lot, even simply looking back at these last three years. We are increasingly focusing on experiences that operate on an ambitious device, experiences that welcome more than one person at a time and that we can therefore call collective. But alongside these, we find other technologies that have risen up: augmented reality, for example, but also artificial intelligence, which can be a very cinematic device.
Complementarity of media and variety of stories
A. E. – We are disloyal on a technological level. We host very diverse technologies, and the only allegiance we show is to audiovisual, stories and storytelling!
A. E. – Looking at this year’s selection, we have multiple common threads that connect our works by technologies or themes. The Swissphoria section on the other hand has a very precise direction since it was created with the aim of having a body of works that reflect Swiss innovative artistry, but otherwise we really chose productions that we liked for their balance between storytelling and the device used.
A. E. – They are very different works for their themes or the way they reach the audience, and from this point of view I think that rather than placing themselves on the same line, all these works look at complementarity. All together, in fact, they represent a landscape of the different possibilities we have today for storytelling.
Practical curatorial challenges for a meaningful selection
A. E. – For the past few years this huge diversification of media has been taking place, and it required very practical management changes – a new team, a rethinking of our venues and of the relationship with the audience, even the ticketing system. Hosting an immersive selection made up of ambitious works, installations, and at the same time 360 films… One of the biggest challenges we encounter each year concerns timing, for example.
A. E. – So behind our artistic work there is also a very concrete discussion, which is also related, to the distributional differences between the various geographic areas: some countries offer a production that is very easy to navigate, with precise lists for curators to make their own evaluations on.
A. E. – But there are also countries that require a different approach. You have to know their production well, look at other kinds of networks as well, such as art or museums, to see if there is something new to show. There is certainly no shortage of some well-known productions at GIFF this year … but we love to show works that are a bit special, that maybe few people know about.
A. E. – So the research is not easy, if you want to make your lineup something more than a copy/paste of selections made for other events and if you want to create something that is in line with the personality of your festival. In short, having an immersive section really requires a different and specific approach if you want to run it with care..
A window on the 2024 selection: exploring the Swissphoria section
A. E. – The Swissphoria section is absolutely worth discovering because it houses two works that are very important at the Swiss level but also at the international level. The first is the restoration of LE PANORAMA DE LA BATAILLE DE MORAT (THE PANORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF MURTEN), an absolutely iconic painting for Switzerland, which was shown more than 20 years ago in the national exhibition and has not been made available since.
A. E. – It has been restored and the painting scanned, and it will be shown in an absolutely incredible format: there will be guides, who will take you on a tour of the work and can show you details of the panorama that have never been discovered and tell you its story. As an audience, you will really get to discover this painting that makes an astounding thousand square meters. Immersion will also be at the sound level. On a 1:1 scale, you will be able to hear the sounds of the battle. Zooming into the work, you’ll get to listen to the different stories, all the way to the sounds of the paintbrush itself as it spreads across the canvas. Finally, immersivity will also be at the level of smells, as users will be able to wear necklaces with different scents that evoke different aspects of the battle. It is a masterful work.
A. E. – Another Swiss work that is very interesting is Swissorama (Impressions de la Suisse). This work too represents national heritage, but it tells another story: that of Ernst A. Heiniger, who was a filmmaker but also a Swiss scientist. He made this film in 360, which was shown at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne from 1984 to 2002 and was a crazy success. More than a million people saw this film. He had invented a projection device, one of the first 360s, which he called Swissorama. Then when the museum bought an IMAX, he left everything to go work for Disney in the United States and there he could continue his work as an inventor. This film was restored in virtual reality but keeping its original look, and I must say it is interesting to use this virtual reality technology for more vintage-looking projects.
A. E. – Finally, again in the Swissphoria program, there is a collection of contemporary works by artists who answered the call of the Pôle De Création Numérique “NeoDoc, nouvelles expressions documentaires”// NeoDoc, New Documentary Expressions” and thus tell the connection between today’s Swiss life with new technologies.
A. E. – This section really portrays our country in its various aspects: there is the whole innovative heritage, but also a mirror of contemporary Switzerland: a country that is a special, small and complex, full of contradictions we like to narrate.
The International Immersive Experiences competition and special events
A. E. – The first piece in competition is RAVE by Patrick Muroni: RAVE is produced in French speaking Switzerland with a great international potential. It differs from Gilles Jobin’s more choreographic productions because here the structure is purely narrative and non performative.
A. E. – GIFF will host its world premiere, but in my opinion Rave is heading for an important festival run. I believe in this work. It is not a documentary like IN PURSUIT OF REPETITIVE BEATS, which we had the pleasure of hosting during the 2023 edition. Instead, it is a work of fiction that follows a group of kids who want to attend a rave. It is a fun story about a cultural movement that was quite popular in Switzerland in the 1990’s and early 2000s, partly because of the country’s permissive attitude toward such events.
A. E. – This year we also have a strong presence from Taiwan with two important works: LIMBOPHOBIA by Wen-Yee Hsieh, in competition, and FREE UR HEAD, presented as a special event in the second half of the festival. For us it is a great joy to be able to show this performance so connected with the world of music and dance, at a film festival, precisely because sometimes the link between audiovisuals and what we call performing arts is not so obvious.
A. E. – In the International Competition, we then have BATTLEFIELD (CHAMP DE BATAILLE) by François Vautier, which was recently seen in Venice and has a very strong connection to cinema. It is a classic but virtuoso work that almost feels like augmented cinema, and I personally love it.
A. E. – Another title that will have its Swiss premiere at Geneva is 8 BILLION SELVES, a small gem in our selection that comes from the art world. A provocative work – because for me aesthetics is political – by artist Nemo Vos. In 8 BILLION SELVES we find an unformatted, very personal aesthetic of an artist who wants to tell how he sees the threats of the capitalist and industrial world around us. Definitely worth watching.
A. E. – We then feature Rory Mitchell’s THE TENT. An intriguing piece that stands out for its brilliance, the intrinsic ambition of the project, and for the way it really managed to choose the best format – augmented reality – to tell the story. THE TENT addresses the housing crisis in the United States and the related crisis of the community: the difficulty of meeting and discovering the other, of talking, of interacting. These elements make THE TENT a special work that is a joy to behold, but from which we also derive powerful lessons.
Discover the other Virtual Territories works in competition
A. E. – I must mention THE GOLDEN KEY too, by Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser. Bringing its European premiere to GIFF is extremely important to us. THE GOLDEN KEY is a virtuoso continuum of TULPAMANCER, presented at GIFF in the last edition, and a fantastic way for us to continue working with these authors.
Not “just” a festival
A. E. – Related to the festival we will then have another series of events. One will be La Nuit Numérique on November 6, an event open only to a professional audience during which we will show a whole series of prototypes that will be presented in the Geneva Digital Market.
A. E. – There is obviously the market itself, which this year features a truly pan-European structure, with innovative co-productions between innovative countries.
A. E. – We also have our caravane, which toured all over Switzerland last summer. It will be located right in the central area of the festival and will host a virtual reality program featuring three of the works in competition: Art of Change, Oto’s Planet and Une Eau La Nuit.
A. E. – The caravane experience, by the way, has been absolutely beautiful so far. We went to many schools and many other places, and it really made me feel as if we had gone back to the origins of cinema, when George Méliès traveled to universal expositions to show his films, to let people discover cinema one person at a time.
A. E. – This on-the-road experience has made me realize, beyond the appreciation at the level of schools, that these new formats of audio visual have to be treated a little bit like films were treated back then, building the audience person by person. It’s what allows you to recapture the beauty of the experience.
Constantly looking at new audiences
A. E. – We have noticed changes especially in the numbers: last year we had 12,000 views… more than the year before! There is definitely a growing interest, that I think the festival still has potential to explore with new audiences. For example with the audience made up of families: as an audience, it is not easy to reach, both because of a language issue (we have to offer French translation of certain works to facilitate their fruition) and the fact that VR cannot be used by younger children.
A. E. – But these are all reflections that we are dwelling on, because we are faced with a growing public, which we have an increasing capacity to accommodate every year, given the expansion of our exhibition opening hours, the number of spots available, and the presence of multi-user works. So we are really trying to become as accessible as possible.
A. E. – I think, after all, that the wonder of discovering these new formats, like the wonder of going to the cinema or seeing a story on the big screen, are ultimately that common thread that connects the audience to the whole Geneva International Film Festival. Cinema, series but also virtual reality… they are tools of light and magic for those who experience them.
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The 30th Geneva International Film Festival will take place in Geneva from October 1 to 10, with the Market starting on the 4th. You can find the full program of the Territoires virtuels at the 30th Geneva International Film Festival website.
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