""The tiny island of Lazzaretto Vecchio in the Venice Lagoon has a long history populated with ghosts - from its 15th-century days as a quarantine island for plague victims to its 1960s incarnation as an exile for stray dogs. Today its airy, low-slung buildings are home to the Venice International Film Festival's Immersive program, featuring 69 extended reality projects from across the world that are far evolved from the era of cardboard headsets.""
""The oldest film festival in the world is embracing this newest form of technology," McNitt says when we caught up with her in an ice-cream coloured hotel room at the Excelsior, where she was preparing for the red carpet. "Venice centring immersive storytelling alongside cinema by the greatest directors working today is not just validating - it means the artists don't have to create for a commercial audience, and are able to take incredible risks and push the boundaries of storytelling.""
""The artful, eclectic works that make up this year's selection range in length from six minutes to six hours, taking users into pulsing nightclubs and atop Hong Kong skyscrapers, mining for gold on far-flung planets and deep inside grief-stricken brains. Many are helmed by women: "A lot have been pioneers in this space because it's a new frontier that is kind of the Wild West, and anyone who has a vision can enter,""
Lazzaretto Vecchio has a layered history as a 15th-century quarantine island and later as an exile for stray dogs, with airy, low-slung buildings now hosting the Venice International Film Festival's Immersive program. The program presents 69 extended-reality projects from around the world that demonstrate technological and artistic advancement beyond simple cardboard headsets. Director Eliza McNitt brought the first part of her Spheres trilogy to the island in 2018 and won the grand jury prize; she later served as jury president. Selections range from six-minute pieces to six-hour experiences, with many helmed by women pioneers embracing the new frontier of immersive storytelling.
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