Four creative teams gathered in the workshop room of a Greek youth centre, unpacking their XR projects at the first Agora XR Lab (March 8-13) of the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival.
This lab builds on the strong platform of the Agora Doc Market, which since launching in 1999 has matured into a significant industry event.
Thessaloniki has a long tradition in labs, workshops and training programs under the umbrella of the Agora department. We felt that the best and most efficient way to support XR would be to create an Agora initiative. We were lucky enough to already have a good network of people in regular filmmaking and production, and this made it easier for us to find the right people, the right mentors for the lab.
Lazaros Boudakidis, Head of XR Program: Immersive – All Around Cinema
In response to emerging Greek creators and interest in growing the XR community and industry in Greece, the festival – which has hosted a curated competition of XR work since 2017 – set out to develop the XR Lab.
A young field is fertile ground
Vassiliki Khonsari, co-founder of INK Stories, came on board as lead mentor early on, also playing a role in the lab’s design. “We wanted to make it more of a ‘lift’, not just for creative development but also getting to know the industry and the process,” she explained.
Early discussions considered the size, how many projects, how many mentors, going local vs. international. They kept it small, with only five projects (one was not able to attend due to personal issues) at similar stages of development.
Danai Belosinof and Elia Kalogianni dive into the unknown world of yeast and following the journey of bread in their SOURDOUGH TALES (Greece). Lou Maeudoano’s BITXO explores social anxiety through the animated tale of a nonbinary person hiding an insect inside (Spain, Colombia). Aristotelis Maragkos’ /IMAGINE FARWELL STATION is an interactive meditation on time and memory creating found footage from described moments (Greece). In MURDER IS HER HOBBY, Emilie Valentine and Stella Jacob transform the experience of the mother of forensic science into a mixed reality game featuring dollhouses (France/Germany). Christos Bourantas’ SOLEMBIA (Greece) reconciles contemporary stories with those of the past – was not able to attend.
It was always our intention to have projects on the same level of experience, but also at the same level of progress. We didn’t really consider projects which were on an advanced prototypes phase. First projects are an opportunity to grasp the idea of how this community can be a real community, because that’s what the XR community is proud of currently: being supportive and being there and discovering this new medium. And I think you could definitely feel that.
Lazaros Boudakidis, Head of XR Program: Immersive – All Around Cinema
The final cohort ended up almost 50/50 Greek/International, which was a great environment for learning and sharing across a range of experiences. Most of the projects in the lab are from makers with no XR experience, coming from other film formats or even architecture (which is actually quite an applicable connection).
Exploring XR feels like a natural evolution of my practice, allowing me to translate the haptic qualities of my animation work into immersive, user-driven experiences. This shift opens up exciting new ways to engage audiences, blending tactile, visual, and narrative elements in ways traditional media cannot.
Aristotelis Maragkos, director of /IMAGINE FARWELL STATION
Agora XR Lab: supporting creativity and each other
For the Lab participants, it was designed to be an intimate, inspiring yet challenging experience. “What was important to us,” explains Vasseliki, “was protecting the space while being provocative. We wanted to cultivate their artistic spirit but also foster an environment of safety, so they could share perspectives and build their self-confidence.”
Accessibility to professionals is extremely unique and valuable, and the team gathered high-level mentors and people to network with –those with years in the industry that early-stage artists don’t often have the chance to interact with. Joining Vasseliki as mentors were Toby Coffee (IDFA DocLab), Annette MEES (Audience Labs), Katherine Fremming (Khora Virtual Reality) and Konstantina Stavrianou (Graal).
The Agora XR Lab opened with a morning of exploration around story from Vasseliki, followed by each team presenting their projects (which they continued to do each day as they honed their ideas).
To keep the environment intimate, outside attendees were discouraged, but I was allowed to pop my head in for Annette’s session, a mix of her encouraging and inspiring talk and hands-on project development exercises.
With her background in immersive theatre, she brought the notion of “audience as the main character” and encouraged participants to think about vibe, experience design (enough mystery but not too much unknown), building rhythm and asking the question “why are we here?” She also had groups identify key moments in their pieces, and explore how what happens between those moments might reveal itself.
“I’m from a generation that didn’t have mentorship,” says Vaselika. “We have a dissonance between the inner world as a place of wonder and an outerworld of the market.”
The Greek landscape
The mentors were also interested to see what’s happening in the Greek community vis a vis XR. While the country doesn’t yet have many XR artists, influence from the festival’s programme and classes on everything from cinematic VR, game design and VR and AR apps and installations at Greek universities are helping to foster an evolving landscape. A rapidly emerging gaming industry has the potential to build technical knowledge that could contribute to XR, as many programmers are learning programs like Unity.
Its industry of tourism, especially culture and antiquities, has spawned cultural heritage-related immersive XR experiences connected to ancient Greece. “Since these are often funded by the municipalities and Greek ministry of culture, it has been a fertile ground for many greek creators to experiment and learn VR design,” explains Dimitros Delinikolas, researcher, lecturer and producer of lab project /IMAGINE FARWELL STATION. “It’s the main financing force for the creation of VR content at the moment.” Creative Greece, the office for financing film and audiovisual productions, has just started incorporating financing programs for VR experiences, and while it’s still small, the festival has also been actively lobbying for more state funding. The Onassis Foundation, originating in Greece, with its program ONX is a major national and international player in the field, in both displaying XR projects but also in offering internships and funding.
The lab invited Heracles Papatheodorou, of Onassis Foundation, to explain the opportunities for XR artists in Greece, an how artists can benefit from key Onassis ONX program in a growing community.
One of the biggest challenges to XR artists starting out is understanding the technologies. The Agora XR Lab didn’t delve into this aspect, but instead worked on strengthening the makers’ confidence in their ideas, story development and better understanding their audiences and designing an experience that is understanding for the user.
In fact, many projects came with this idea that it’s the technical part that’s hard to navigate. They realized during the lab that while that may be the truth, it’s always about the story. So they really had the time to disassemble their stories and put them back together; for some projects the amazing idea was there, and they just needed to discuss it openly so they can practically build it in a more viewer-oriented way.
Lazaros Boudakidis, Head of XR Program: Immersive – All Around Cinema
With this more stable ground to stand on, they now know better what to ask for when finding their technical support or partners.
The last day of the lab was focused on external development and networking. In the morning, the participants presented their projects to other XR experts and industry.
The presentation session was followed by a public panel discussion with experienced XR producers and companies – Arnaud Colinart from Atlas V (and producer of MURDER IS HER HOBBY), Katherine Fremming and Konstantina Stavrianou – about different production experiences, a networking lunch and one-on-one meetings with industry representatives.
What makes the lab particularly unique is its integration into the already well-developed and accessible Agora programme of the festival. The XR lab participants join the traditional filmmaker community and industry for communal lunches and happy hours, allowing opportunities for inspiration and cross-fertilization. After all, everyone’s there to tell a story, even if the format might vary.
At the Agora awards, there were also awards for the lab projects. /IMAGINE FARWELL STATION won the BelDocs XR Academy Award (a spot in the Serbian doc festival’s XR Academy), and BITXO won the NewImages Festival Partnership (inclusion in the upcoming French market).
By the last day, it was impressive to see the increased confidence in their projects and more fully-formed ideas, as well as the genuine encouragement the participants had for each other in just a few days.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much the different teams cared about each other’s projects. Actually, the word siblings came out the last day, because they could really feel a family spirit in the lab environment. Everyone could have been focused on their own work, but they weren’t. And I think this was a very good job on the mentors side.
Lazaros Boudakidis, Head of XR Program: Immersive – All Around Cinema
The team will focus on improving the methods, content quality and takeaways for next year’s lab instead of expanding to TIFF’s November festival, but the International XR section at that festival can serve as an exhibition goal for finished projects.
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