For the 5th consecutive year, VRDays Europe and IFFR Pro – International Film Festival Rotterdam – are working together to promote new forms of visual experiences. The IFFR Pro x VRDays collaboration started in 2016 and officially becomes IFM Content for this 5th year.
The Immersive Funding Market brings together talented startups, content creators and researchers with international investors. On November 4-5, three different events are organised: IFM Content, IFM Research and IFM Startup. IFM Content is an opportunity for content creators to meet partners and obtain financing for their upcoming projects.
11 projects have been selected by a jury from IFFR Pro, VRDays, and guest juror Wendy Bernfeld from Rights Stuff, to take part in IFM Content online on November 4-5. The official selection highlights projects from Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. This year’s creators are working across a wide range of media including 360 film, 6DoF VR, AR, Live Performance, and Interactive Games.
The IFM Content lineup includes: Deusa das Águas, from Brazilian director João Paulo Miranda Maria and Oscar nominated producer duo Justin Pechberty and Damien Megherbi; Welcome to the Other Side, a live interactive musical and social XR experience produced by VRrOOm founder Louis Cacciuttolo and following the Jean-Michel Jarre’s concert at Notre-Dame performed to over 10,000 people in VR; nerd_funk, a French-Dutch collaborative project between Ali Eslami and video installation artist Mamali Shafahi developing 3 new chapters of their ongoing project; City of Foxes, an experience at the crossroads of VR and immersive theatre that questions our relationship to oppression, from director Nihaarika Negi, among many other XR creations.
Among the 11-project IFM Content selection, four projects will be invited to IFFR Pro Immersive during the IFFR Pro Days. The next edition will take place online from February 1-5, 2021. The four projects will be selected by CineMart manager Inke Van Loocke, VR programmer Bregje Benecke and IFFR Pro Immersive Jolinde den Haas.
“IFFR Pro helps creators make new connections to realise their projects. At IFFR we foster innovation and love to be at the forefront of these developments by stimulating adventurous creators with great ideas.” Jolinde den Haas, IFFR Pro Immersive
IFM Content is a virtual event conducted online, as part of the New Horizons 6th edition of VRDays Europe. It consists of a guest presentation from Will Saunders (Storyfutures), livestreamed pitches from project creators, and matchmade 1-to-1 meetings with industry decision makers and takes place 4-5 November, 2020.
More Information: https://vrdays.co
Stichting Dutch Virtual Reality Days was founded in 2015 with the goal to stimulate the production of VR content and to offer a platform for VR professionals and facilitate knowledge sharing on VR in Europe. In October 2015, the Stichting organised the first edition of VR Days. Its success was enormous: sold out and with extensive media attention. In 2019, VRDays began a collaboration with the largest VR/AR exhibition in Europe, Laval Virtual.
The 6th edition of VRDays is co-organised with Laval Virtual, and co-funded with Creative Europe, Creative Industries Fund NL and the City of Amsterdam.
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature films, short films and media art. The festival’s focus is on recent work by talented new filmmakers. However, there is also room for retrospectives and themed programmes. IFFR actively supports new and adventurous filmmaking talent through its co-production market CineMart, its Hubert Bals Fund, Rotterdam Lab and other industry activities.
Throughout the 21 years of its existence, Laval Virtual has established itself as a major facilitator for organisations in the VR/AR and immersive tech sector. It gathers and leads a community of professionals through the organisation of events and conference programmes in Europe and Asia and provides various information services.
In 2020, Laval Virtual organised a virtual version of its annual exhibition, with conferences and networking moments over 3 days. The Laval Virtual World welcomed 11,200 people from 22nd to 24th April 2020. The next exhibition will take place in Laval, France from 14th to 18th April 2021.