The Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal (FNC) is pleased to unveil its programming for FNC EXPLORE, presented by HTC Vive’s Viveport.
For the eleventh year running, festivalgoers are invited to discover narrative and immersive content as exciting as it is innovative through a section dedicated entirely to new media works. On the program of this sensory extravaganza: interactive films, immersive content and two competitive categories for VR works. Rounding off the experience will be a performance and master class that takes viewers to the heart of the creative process. Best of all, the full FNC EXPLORE program will be available online across Canada this year through the Viveport platform.
HTC VIVE is proud to be the platform partner to host the festival’s curated selection of virtual reality experiences and 360 films on Viveport, so the global audience can enjoy the incredible creativity exhibited by FNC from the comfort and safety of their homes, for the first time.
Pearly Chen, VP of Business Development, Viveport
Two Must-See Events
This year’s FNC EXPLORE offers two free online events that can be accessed through the Festival’s social media platforms.
Animation virtuosi MICHELLE and URI KRANOT, whose approach transcends traditional animation to fuse painting, drawing and new technologies into contemporary experiences, will host a virtual master class. Their work is characterized by its poetic sensibility and fragmented narratives that straddle past and present, fact and fiction. Viewers can also appreciate their mastery in THE HANGMAN AT HOME – VR, part of the FNC EXPLORE competition and freshly awarded the Grand Jury Prize for best VR immersive work at the 77th Venice Biennale.
Then, making its North American premiere, MOTTO LIVE, a performance inspired by the interactive experience Motto.io, will be broadcast live from Vincent Morisset’s studio and a handful of streets in Montreal’s Petite-Patrie neighbourhood. Actress Marie Brassard and author Sean Michaels will narrate. Composed of thousands of tiny videos, Motto.io moves fluidly between documentary and fiction, incorporating participants’ lo-fi, unstaged footage into its own emotional narrative. Neither book nor film, it’s a mind-bending ghost story that takes shape through people’s unique perspectives on the world. MOTTO LIVE is an AATOAA production based on the work Motto.io, created by AATOAA and produced by the NFB.
High-Level Competition
For over ten years now, FNC EXPLORE has given pride of place to new media while building bridges with traditional cinema. The works in competition this year uphold the unique cinematic slant and avant-garde narratives that make the programming of FNC EXPLORE so strong and singular. From director Abel Ferrara in MISSING PICTURES: BIRDS OF PREY to actress Zita Hanrot in MIRROR: THE SIGNAL, this embrace of traditional film includes welcoming filmmakers of such calibre as Michelle and Uri Kranot or even Qiu Yang (Palme d’Or for best short film at the 70th Cannes Film Festival) with O, his first-ever VR work.
We’re also pleased to point up the strong showing of home-grown artists. This year’s FNC EXPLORE features five Canadian productions or co-productions (AGENCE, THE BOOK OF DISTANCE, AU PAYS DU CANCRE MOU [IN THE LAND OF THE FLABBY SCHNOOK], LES PASSAGERS: ELLE & LUI, THE HANGMAN AT HOME), including one work from Quebec (AU PAYS DU CANCRE MOU) and three from the National Film Board of Canada (AGENCE, THE BOOK OF DISTANCE and THE HANGMAN AT HOME – VR).
The selected works will screen in two distinct competitions: HORIZON for 6DoF (“six degrees of freedom”) works, and PANORAMA 360 for works of virtual reality in 3D. The jury will be composed of Victoire Thevenin (director, VR Arles Festival), Annick Blanc (producer/director at Midi La Nuit) and Charlotte Corchete (Pardi di domani competition programmer, Locarno Film Festival).
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