Venice Immersive selection and competition announced

The selection of projects for Venice Immersive, the XR - Extended Reality section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival (2^nd – 12^th September 2026) of La Biennale di Venezia, is now complete.

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of Venice Immersive. Launched in 2017, the section represents the first competition and official selection for Extended Reality works in an A-list festival. The official programme will take place on the Venice Immersive Island (island of Lazzaretto Vecchio), just a three-minute vaporetto ride from the Lido di Venezia, on the following dates:

1st September (afternoon): press and industry preview
2nd – 12th September: open to all accredited visitors

Venice Immersive is entirely dedicated to the immersive arts and media and includes all forms of creative XR expression: immersive videos, virtual and mixed reality, virtual worlds and immersive installations. The Venice Immersive section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival will be held with the support of VRChat.

Venice Immersive will present 68 projects from 26 countries:

30 projects In Competition, representing a selection of 22 world premieres and 8 international premieres of the world’s best immersive works;
35 projects Out of Competition, an international selection of the best works that have been released or premiered elsewhere since the last edition of the Venice International Film Festival; this section is divided into:
   Best of Experiences, 9 projects
   Best of Worlds, 26 projects, created by independent artists from all over the world on the VRChat social platform, an ecosystem of virtual worlds presented in guided tours;
3 projects developed during the Biennale College Cinema – Immersive training program: 1 project produced thanks to the grant from this year’s tenth edition; 2 projects developed within the past editions of the international workshop.

The Venice International Film Festival was one of the first film festivals in the world to show an interest in Virtual Reality. The development of a VR Theatre in 2016 sparked enormous interest among the participants of the Venice Production Bridge. Starting in 2017, La Biennale di Venezia launched the first competition for works in Virtual Reality in an A-list festival, which was held for three editions, through 2019, on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio on the Lido, judged by an International Jury. The online accessibility of Venice VR Expanded over two editions (2020 and 2021) represented a new commitment and a new challenge to guarantee that the Venice International Film Festival would continue to offer the experience of this new art form, even in times of required social distancing. In 2022 the section, renamed Venice Immersive, returned in person to the island. Since the very first years, the section has been recognised as a unique event in the field and the most significant annual exhibition of immersive arts and media.

Accredited visitors to the Venice Film Festival will have access to all the titles in the line-up. There is also a dedicated Venice Immersive Accreditation reserved to people over 18 years of age that grants access to the projects of the section and is available in three formats:

2-DAY Venice Immersive Accreditation (€ 40): valid for 2 days
5-DAY Venice Immersive Accreditation (€ 60): valid for 5 days
11-DAY Venice Immersive Accreditation (€100): valid from 2^nd to 12^th September.

Information regarding accreditation for Venice Immersive is available on our website (https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2026/venice-immersive-accreditation)

The members of the international Jury of Venice Immersive are:

Paul Raphaël - president: (Canada) Raphaël is an Emmy® Award-winning artist and co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios, known for pioneering new forms of immersive storytelling. As the studio’s head of innovation, he helped develop the camera technologies behind Strangers with Patrick Watson, widely recognized as the first cinematic virtual reality experience and the project that launched the studio in 2013. Since then, he has co-directed and shaped the creative vision of more than 40 acclaimed immersive projects, collaborating with partners including NASA, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, The Jim Henson Company, Cirque du Soleil, and former U.S. President Barack Obama. He co-directed Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, filmed aboard the International Space Station and presented through the touring exhibition Space Explorers: THE INFINITE. His latest work, Interstellar Arc, now at AREA15 in Las Vegas, continues his pursuit of emotionally powerful, large-scale immersive experiences.

Négar Motevalymeidanshah: (Iran) Motevalymeidanshah is an Iranian director, animator, and visual artist working across animation, immersive media, and illustration. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Art and Architecture in Tehran and a master’s degree through the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master of Re:Anima. Her work explores perception, human vulnerability, and emotional storytelling through poetic, experimental visuals. She has received awards at international festivals, including the Venice International Film Festival (In 2025, she won Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize for her project Less Than 5gr of Saffron) and Kaboom Animation Festival. She has served as a jury member at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Alongside her artistic practice, she works as a concept artist, illustrator, and lecturer, and has given workshops at Aalto University and the University of Algarve. Her recent projects focus on immersive VR experiences exploring displacement.

Kate Voet: (Belgium) Belgian director and writer. Voet studied English literature, linguistics and theatre studies in Amsterdam, took courses in business management in Brussels, and studied film directing and screenwriting in New York City and Brussels. Her work often centres on characters who challenge societal norms, with recurring themes of loss and the solitude of the mind. She gained international recognition with A Long Goodbye (2025), co-written and co-directed with Victor Maes. The film premiered in competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, where it won a Lion for the Venice Immersive Achievement Prize. Since its release, A Long Goodbye has won 9 awards and screened at major international festivals including SXSW, Busan, Annecy, IDFA and Beijing. Its distinctions include Best XR Film at Clermont-Ferrand, the Golden Alexander Award for “The Immersive: All Around Cinema” at the Thessaloniki IFF, and the Agog Immersive Impact Award at SXSW.

The 2026 Venice Immersive Jury will award the following prizes:

Venice Immersive Grand Prize
Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize
Venice Immersive Achievement Prize

AMSTERDAM 1652: THE HANDS OF THE CITY
by NIENKE HUITENGA-BROEREN
Netherlands, France / 37’ / virtual reality, installation

ANOKHYA: THE ORIGIN
by ANAND KISHORE
India/ 27’/ virtual reality

ARTOU
by ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO
France, Mauritania, Luxembourg / 27’ / virtual reality

BACK TO THE EXPERIENCE
by JESSIEN HUANG
China / 40’/ virtual reality, world

BEING IN YOU
by MICHAŁ STANKIEWICZ
Poland/ 18’/ virtual reality, installation

BOWIE: UNSEEN UNHEARD
by DENIS O'REGAN, NICK RYAN
UK / 25’ / immersive installation

DISNEYNATURE’S WOLF: AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
by JEFF WILSON
UK, USA, Canada/ 20’/ immersive film

EMPIRE AT SEA
by PETER FLAHERTY
USA/ 22’ / installation, mixed reality

EVEREST: THE FIRST ASCENT
by JEAN DELLAC, BENJAMIN AURICHE
France / 37’ / installation, virtual reality

EYES OF SHAME (GÉDOS AKYS)
by TOMAS TAMOŠAITIS
Lithuania, France, Croatia / 40’ / virtual reality

FINDING FRIDA
by HILDE K. KJØS
Norway, Netherlands / 41’ / virtual reality, installation

GALAPAGOS: THE LAST EDEN
by ANTHONY GEFFEN
UK / 60’/ XR glasses, installation

HONEYBOYS
by TIBOR DE JONG
Netherlands, Belgium / 36’ / virtual reality

NEL BLU
by FINS
USA/ 60’/ virtual reality, world

NEVATARS
by ANDY SERKIS, JOSH YOUSSEF
UK, USA, Argentina / 31’ / XR glasses, installation

NOTHING TO SEE HERE
by CELINE DAEMEN
Netherlands / 8’/ installation

NOX
by RIO NAKADA
Japan / 20’/ virtual reality, installation

OCTOPOCALYPSE
by MAX SACKER, ARITE SZADKOWSKI
Germany / 20’/ immersive installation

ÔL (HAUNTS)
by LUCY HAMMOND, TOMOS CHETWODE-BARTON
UK / 15’/ virtual reality

OUT OF THE ASHES
by RORY MITCHELL, NONNY DE LA PEÑA
USA/ 26’/ virtual reality, installation

OUTRENOIR
by GORDON
France/ 12’ / virtual reality

RAJ’IN (WE SHALL RETURN)
by FAIZ ABU RMELEH, KEREN MANOR
Germany, Palestina / 24’/ virtual reality

SHIFTING CONNECTIONS
by TUNG-YEN CHOU
Taipei/ 12’/ mixed reality, installation

SMITHSONIAN STARSTRUCK: AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
by ELLIOTT MIZROCH
USA, UK / 38’/ virtual reality, installation

SOLWATA
by FELIX GAEDTKE, GAYATRI PARAMESWARAN
USA, Germany, Solomon Islands / 25’/ installation, mixed reality

SUNSET MOTEL
by GILLES JOBIN
Switzerland, France/ 20’/ virtual reality

THE PIGEON RING
by YUQI ZHANG
China/ 35’/ virtual reality, installation

TOMORI
by MISA HARU
Japan / 20’/ mixed reality, installation

ULRICA
by HONGBO CAI
USA, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia/ 20’/ immersive installation

YESTERDAY MAYBE
by MATTHIEU VAN EECKHOUT
France/ 16’/ virtual reality

International selection of the best works that have been released or premiered elsewhere since the last edition of the Venice International Film Festival.

Best of Experiences

CRAFTING CRIMES
by CHLOÉ ROCHEREUIL
France, USA / 20’ / virtual reality

HOTEL INFINITY
by WILLIAM CHYR
USA/ 120’/ virtual reality

IN 36,000 WAYS
by KARIM BEN KHELIFA
Germany / 3’/ immersive installation

LITTLE NIGHTMARES VR: ALTERED ECHOES
by LUCAS ROUSSEL
France/ 240’/ virtual reality

OF WOMAN BORN
by NALINI MALANI
India/ 20’/ immersive installation

SPOMYNY
by SOPHIA BULGAKOVA
Netherlands, Ukraine / 20’/ immersive installation

SPYMASTER
by JEREMY MOIRANO
France / 240’/ virtual reality

THE AMUSEMENT
by EIKE LANGBEHN, MARC BARNES
Germany, France / 180’ / virtual reality

VOOOOOO---PEEEEEE---
by JIYUN PARK, HYEUNJOO WOO
South Korea / 20’/ virtual reality, haptics

Best of Worlds

DESERT PALMS
by TRISTAN SENIUK, JOHN GERARD
USA/ 32’/ immersive film
Supported by the BCC Immersive grant, 10th edition (2025/2026)

LIBRARY OF DREAMS
by ZHENYA RZHEZNIKOVA
Israel, Germany / 25’ / virtual reality
Developed during BCC Immersive, 8th edition (2023-2024)

THE WHITE SABOTEUR
by BARTHELEMY ANTOINE-LOEFF, HUGO ARCIER
France, Germany / 15’ / virtual reality, installation
Developed during BCC Immersive, 7th edition (2022-2023)

LA LAGUNA PARLA
by STEYE HALLEMA
Netherlands / 25’/ immersive live event

The 5^th edition of the Venice Immersive Market (3^rd to 9^th September), a part of the Venice Production Bridge, will take place on the Venice Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio).

The Venice Immersive Market is gathering all the Venice Production Bridge Immersive activities during the 83^rd Venice International Film Festival. These activities include: the presentation of immersive projects of both the Venice Gap-Financing Market and the Biennale College Cinema Immersive through 1-to-1 meetings; panels and networking events dedicated to immersive topics; an Exhibition Area for Institutions, public and private funds, the manufacturers, the VR production, distribution and sales companies, public and private funds supporting VR/XR/AR, VFX and post-production companies that are connected to Immersive content.

The Venice Immersive Island will also host an array of social events, including Venice Production Bridge Panels and Cocktails. It will also feature international booths, allowing attendees to personally experience titles and projects, meet with representatives of supporting firms, and engage with their various services.

In the Spazio Incontri Immersivo there will be, from 3^rd   to 9^th September, panel discussions and activities dedicated to the world of XR – Extended Reality.

In 2026 the VPB Focuses will be Greece, supported by Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre, and Switzerland, supported by Swiss Films.

The Island will also be the place where teams (producer and creator) of the Immersive projects selected for the Venice Gap-Financing Market will gather (4^th to 6^th September):

14 IMMERSIVE PROJECTS:
14 Immersive projects (8 from Europe and 6 from around the world), including fiction, documentary, animation film and other interactive installation-based experiences. All projects have secured 30% of their budget and have this financing in place. These 14 projects will deliver a live pitch at the Spazio Incontri Immersivo on the morning of September 4^th

11 BIENNALE COLLEGE CINEMA - IMMERSIVE PROJECTS:
11 projects, that have been developed during the workshop of Biennale College Cinema Immersive, 10^th edition, and that have reached different stages of development, pre-production and post-production.

The full list of projects selected for the Venice Gap-Financing Market is available on our website: (https://veniceproductionbridge.org/news/venice-gap-financing-market-2026-selected-projects)

Registered delegates with Industry Gold or Trade accreditation will be entitled to request meetings with the selected projects through our website (veniceproductionbridge.org) in the dedicated area to the VGFM.

The Venice Immersive Market will be the place where institutions, professionals, production, post-production and distribution companies, public and private funds linked to the Immersive world will convene.
The Venice Production Bridge is co-financed by the European Commission’s MEDIA Programme.