At the NewImages market, this year, we had the opportunity to discover two projects that immediately called for our attention: THE PRIVILEGE GAME SHOW and KITCHEN OF MEMORIES. Both are from the production studio Arkanum Pictures, which also operates in the world of film and series.
In these works, the physical component and embodiment play a fundamental role, both from a narrative perspective and in effectively conveying the strong social themes that THE PRIVILEGE GAME SHOW, in particular, aims to address.
Our curiosity about these two projects led us to take a closer look at Arkanum Pictures’s production and its highly innovative and multi-platform spirit.
Cover: WINGSPAN, a TV series by Pedro Harres
Rethinking storytelling: XR as a new art form
Stephan Bernades – What makes a good immersive experience is something I keep updating in my head. We’ve gone beyond XR’s first baby steps, but we’re still in its childhood and we haven’t reached adolescence yet. With every festival I attend, I learn something new. And actually that’s what excites me about this medium… how fast it is evolving, and how XR can break open new dimensions in storytelling.
For this reason and coming from film production, it’s starting to feel strange to me that we, film producers, are also producing XR. In many ways, XR has more in common with installation art than with cinema. It’s a completely different way of telling stories and reaching people emotionally.
Take DUCHAMPIANA by Lilian Hess (a/n a piece which recently won the XR COMPETITION – IMPACT PRIZE at 2025 NewImages Festival): that kind of experience just isn’t possible in film.
In the past, I also thought XR was a medium best suited for slow, contemplative storytelling, to allow audiences to immerse themselves in a space. Then I tried IMPULSE: PLAYING WITH REALITY by Anagram, which was fast-paced and intense… but it was that same speed that made it immersive! You couldn’t think about anything else, you were fully in it. That was a real shift in perspective for me.
So, I’m still discovering this field, and I’m actually starting to treat immersive storytelling not as a genre of film, but as its own distinct art form. And it’s with this awareness in mind that we’re moving forward at Arkanum Pictures.
People and stories, the true core of Arkanum Pictures
Lukas Koll – The core idea of our company is built around a very simple credo: people come first. Just like in Bauhaus, where “form follows function,” for us, form follows people and the stories they want to tell. We always begin with what someone wants to express, and how they wish to impact an audience. We listen closely to their intentions and the nature of the project, and then we explore what format best serves that intention and unlock the full potential of their story. This is the philosophy of our company.
For us, immersivity has to emerge organically from the heart of the narrative. To mention a recent example – a project we’ve presented at the NewImages market – The Privileged Game Show is centered around the idea that the audience should embody someone else’s privilege. The goal is for viewers to step into another person’s experience, embody it within their own lives, and reflect on it. That’s not something you can fully convey in a film. It needs to be immersive.
L. K. – The other project we had at the NewImages market, KITCHEN OF MEMORIES, is entirely different, but in a similar way it’s once again a concept that can’t be turned into a traditional film because it stems from a deeply bodily experience: eating. You take something into your system, which is an act that is inherently immersive. So it becomes natural to extend that idea, that story, into an immersive work, rather than just screening a film while people eat… which, honestly, everyone is already doing at home at 8 PM. The idea is to deepen and expand the physical dimension of the experience and that’s a big part of our approach to immersivity at Arkanum Pictures.
Physicality between cinema and immersive storytelling
S. B. – One of the most fascinating aspects of XR, for me, is exactly this physicality that Lukas just mentioned. It immediately brings to mind how I used to approach sculpture, when I was studying it for my bachelor’s degree in art history. I would engage with it physically. If the statue represented a human figure, I’d mimic its pose so as to feel it in my own body, sense which muscles were pulling, which were contracted, which were relaxed.
This approach creates a physical relationship with the artwork. And that’s exactly what XR reminds me of. XR, too, creates a physical interaction with the story… something that film doesn’t quite do in the same way.
L. K. – We know that pretty well, because we also work in film, and it’s really interesting to carry over the learnings from immersive projects into our film work and vice-versa.
I recently submitted a project for funding. It’s an art house, body horror, female-driven film. It’s made for cinema, but it has a deeply physical and bodily approach. We’re working with performance artists rather than classical film actresses.The experience is highly performative, and as you’d expect with body horror, it’s about the texture of skin, the sight of wounds, the sensation of transformation. It’s deeply embodied. It’s very physical.
And when I think about this film, I inevitably think about the audience, about what could make it stand out, what could leave a mark. For me, it’s exactly that: physicality.
And while that specific film is meant to be experienced in the cinema, for the collective experience it offers, the next natural step is to explore how we can bring that same sense of physicality to our immersive works in general. After all, XR, in particular, provides incredible tools to trigger that same physical, tangible response.
So while cinema remains our foundation, immersive storytelling is where that foundation is now growing. And as Stephan said, we’re learning constantly. Every new project, every new piece we see, opens up more possibilities. There’s still so much that hasn’t been done. It’s incredibly exciting.
Wingspan: Arkanum Pictures’ breakthrough project
S. B. – THE GOOD SISTER was our first film release, premiering at the Berlinale. Then came WINGSPAN: it is our first series and the project that got us into LED-based virtual production, which overlaps in interesting ways with XR-production. In fact, several crew-members from our VP team – like 3D-artists and Unreal developers – will likely join us again on our XR projects.
Created by Pedro Harres, whom people in the XR world know well for FROM THE MAIN SQUARE, WINGSPAN is an unconventional drama series centered around a psychotherapist who treats people with the ability to fly. The production was filmed last year using a large LED wall from Dark Bay, the company behind acclaimed series such as DARK and 1899, which we set up at Studio Babelsberg, a globally recognized studio complex in Germany and the oldest still active film studio in the world.
Earlier this year, WINGSPAN premiered at Series Mania in Lille. One of the most surprising and rewarding outcomes was the response from younger viewers, which awarded the series the Student Jury Prize. That such a bold project resonated most with young viewers is a powerful sign. Too often, younger audiences are underestimated or targeted with superficial content. WINGSPAN proves they are not only capable of, but also interested in engaging with complex, artful storytelling.
In fact, because the project was developed independently, without a broadcaster attached, the creative team embraced the freedom to avoid conventional approaches. We encouraged them to push beyond obvious ideas, opting for more layered and unexpected solutions. Today, WINGSPAN stands as a project the team is deeply proud of. Discussions are now underway with broadcasters and industry partners to continue the development of the series and bring its unique world to a wider audience.
L. K. – In all our work, we’re drawn to stories that not only engage narratively but also explore new formal possibilities. We encourage the creatives we work with to think beyond the first idea, to push further, just as Stephan described with WINGSPAN. This applies across all our formats, whether it’s film or immersive media. We want artists to experiment with the tools at hand, to question conventions, and to break rules when necessary.
The goal is never just form, it’s always about the people behind the stories. Their voice is where every project begins and where it must return. If we lose that, we lose the soul of the work.
On the immersive side, our current key projects, KITCHEN OF MEMORIES and THE PRIVILEGE GAME SHOW, reflect this mindset. We’re also developing new ideas in earlier stages, concepts focused on how we engage not only the body of the character, but the body of the audience. One such idea explores restricting movement as part of the narrative.
Most immersive works we see expand space and motion, but we’re curious about the opposite: can physical stillness, or confinement, become a powerful narrative device? What feelings could it evoke? These are early explorations, but they reflect how we approach storytelling: always starting from the human experience, and using the tools of cinema and XR to unlock new emotional and physical dimensions.
KITCHEN OF MEMORIES, an immersive culinary experience
S. B. – KITCHEN OF MEMORIES is the second project by Mattia Casalegno that explores this unique mechanic of combining taste with storytelling. Like his previous work, it is entirely location-based.
The experience unfolds at a physical venue, where visitors are welcomed by a chef, who is not just any chef, but someone who can be considered an artist in their own right. Participants are offered a series of small bites, each carefully curated and prepared to match the narrative journey.
The first project focused on the relationship between taste, visuality, sound, and shape, and it was very abstract, poetic. KITCHEN OF MEMORIES, on the other hand, leans into narrative. It explores the connection between taste, memory, and emotion and does it through a simple but powerful concept: a fictional restaurant that can cook any meal ever made in human history.
Visitors are taken through a sequence of about seven memories, each one revealing a different human experience. At the end of each chapter, the memory is translated into a single bite. But it’s not about replicating historical dishes… there’s no “Jacques’s croissant from 1750”. Instead, for example, Jacques might have witnessed a revolutionary speech in a crowd, and it becomes the chef’s artistic task to translate that emotional moment into flavor. That’s what you eat.
The format allows for regional adaptations, depending on the chef involved. In the U.S., for instance, the chef will be Chintan Pandya, a Michelin-starred Indian chef known for his distinctive culinary style. In Berlin, we’re currently in close discussions with Sophia Hoffmann, a vegan chef and food activist from Happa, who would reinterpret the same narrative through her own lens. This structure means the VR experience remains consistent, but the culinary interpretation changes based on location and chef, making each version of KITCHEN OF MEMORIES uniquely site-specific.
So far, the response from chefs has been extremely positive. For them, it represents a new artistic challenge that goes beyond what simply tastes good and looks at the idea of crafting something that aligns with a specific emotion, while also fitting into the structure of a menu. That’s already how chefs think: the dish you eat at the beginning affects the one that comes next. Change one element, and the entire progression shifts. In this way, chefs become co-authors of this project. They’re not just preparing food. They’re shaping narrative through taste.
We will also discuss this work during a panel specifically dedicated to the relationship between culinary and immersive experiences, which will take place at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18 (When the Culinary Experience Unfolds Within a Narrative Concept).
Embodying privilege through a game show
L. K. – THE PRIVILEGE GAME SHOW is a documentary-VR-game by Rafael Leal and Thiago Rosathat explores the dynamics of privilege across race, gender and class. Set in a fictional quiz show environment, the player faces several NPCs based on real people to determine who among them holds the most privilege. Blending immersive storytelling with game mechanics, the experience invites users to embody privilege and reflect critically on social structures in a format that is both playful and provocative.
To complete the development of this project, we’re currently in discussions with potential co-producers. As storytellers, we depend on collaborators who can bring the technical expertise to help us realize our vision, in particular in projects like this, where the narrative and technical aspects are deeply intertwined. What we need now is a partnership with teams who combine artistic sensibility with technical know-how and specific techniques they could apply to this idea. These technical decisions will inevitably influence the narrative too, so we’re looking for that kind of close collaboration. Once we have that foundation in place, we’ll be able to condense the material, move into prototyping, and finally begin production.
The project is also interesting from a distribution perspective, as it proposes a highly adaptable model. The narrative is rooted in specific social contexts: the characters, the questions, and the discussions around privilege will vary greatly depending on the country, the city, even the neighborhood where the experience is set. That’s why we envision THE PRIVILEGE GAME SHOW not as a single fixed version, but as a framework that can evolve with each community that engages with it.
We’re currently focusing on Berlin for the first edition. If we find a co-producer in another country, we would develop a second version based on voices and stories from that location. The final structure would allow us to present the experience at festivals, collect audience feedback, and refine the project further.
The next step would be to license the project to other producers. In that case, they wouldn’t be co-producers in the traditional sense. Instead, they would receive the base version of the game and create their own localized edition. They wouldn’t just translate the narrative but rebuild it using voices from their own communities. This approach is quite new in immersive production, but it empowers local creators to take ownership of the content. They can apply for their own funding and shape the experience according to their cultural and social realities.
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