Biidaban: First Light is a Canadian immersive virtual reality film, created by Lisa Jackson and released in 2018. [1] The film places viewers in an immersive vision of a Downtown Toronto that has been reclaimed by nature, with vegetation and animals living freely inside the urban landscape, with narration in the indigenous Wendat, Mohawk and Ojibwe languages. [2]
Jackson has indicated that the film is not meant to be perceived as apocalyptic, but as a meditation on the importance of humans living in harmony with nature to build a positive future. [3] She created the film in conjunction with 3D artist Mathew Borrett, digital production agency Jam3 and the digital studio of the National Film Board of Canada. [4]
The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2018. [2] It received a special event screening at Nathan Phillips Square in September, [5] before having its official Canadian premiere at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. [6]
At imagineNATIVE, the film won the award for Best Interactive Work. [7] It won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Immersive Experience, Fiction at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019. [8]
Keram Malicki-Sánchez is an actor, musician, writer, filmmaker, interactive media and virtual reality developer, multimedia artist, and event producer.
The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is a charitable organization founded in 1988 by filmmaker Norman Jewison in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Originally launched as a film school, today it provides training, development and advancement opportunities for professionals in the Canadian film, television and digital media industries, including directors, producers, screenwriters, actors and musicians.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto in the month of October. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Aboriginal and First Peoples from around the world. The festival includes screenings, parties, panel discussions, and cultural events.
The Canadian Screen Awards are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media productions. Given annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, the awards recognize excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership.
Lisa Jackson is a Canadian Screen Award and Genie Award-winning Canadian and Anishinaabe filmmaker. Her films have been broadcast on APTN and Knowledge Network, as well as CBC's ZeD, Canadian Reflections and Newsworld and have screened at festivals including HotDocs, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Melbourne, Worldwide Short Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.
Tilt Brush is a room-scale 3D-painting virtual-reality application available from Google, originally developed by Skillman & Hackett.
Festival of International Virtual & Augmented Reality Stories (FIVARS) is a media festival that showcases stories or narrative forms from around the world using immersive technology that includes virtual reality, augmented reality, live VR performance theater and dance, projection mapping and spatialized audio. It is considered to be Canada's first dedicated virtual or augmented reality stories festival, and was the world's first virtual reality festival dedicated completely and exclusively to narrative pieces. FIVARS is operated by Constant Change Media Group, Inc. and VRTO.
Started in 2015 by Keram Malicki-Sanchez as a virtual reality Meetup Group in Toronto, VRTO launched the VRTO Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo in June 2016 – an international exhibition and professional conference exploring arts, culture and science through immersive technologies. Its inaugural year – held at the Mattamy Centre – featured keynotes from University of Toronto Professor Steve Mann, Hollywood film director Brett Leonard – director of The Lawnmower Man, Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano of the Canadian Film Centre and Phil Lelyveld of USC.
Indigenous Futurism is a movement consisting of art, literature, comics, games, and other forms of media which express Indigenous perspectives of the future, past, and present in the context of science fiction and related sub-genres. Such perspectives may reflect Indigenous ways of knowing, traditional stories, historical or contemporary politics, and cultural realities.
Amanda Strong is a Michif Indigenous filmmaker, media artist and stop-motion director based out of the unceded Coast Salish territory in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has exhibited work and her films have been screened at festivals worldwide, including Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, and the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
Nomads is a Canadian virtual reality documentary project, which was released in 2016 on the Samsung Gear VR platform. Produced by Felix & Paul Studios, the series consists of three short immersive video films exploring the daily life and culture of nomadic human cultures.
Nyla Innuksuk is a Canadian film director, writer, and producer, and virtual reality content creator. She is the CEO of Mixtape VR.
Gabo Arora is an American filmmaker, creative technologist and Founder/CEO of LIGHTSHED, a studio focusing on emerging technologies. He is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he is the Founding Director of the new Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technology (ISET) program and lab. Formerly, he was a Senior Policy Advisor for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN's first Creative Director, with over 15 years of field experience. He has directed, produced and pioneered a series of virtual reality documentaries for the United Nations that have premiered at film festivals, featured at the World Economic Forum in Davos, screened at the White House, and have exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art's inaugural program on immersive storytelling.
Edge of the Knife is a 2018 Canadian drama film co-directed by Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown. It is the first feature film spoken only in the Haida language. Set in 19th-century Haida Gwaii, it tells the classic Haida story of a traumatized and stranded man transformed into Gaagiixiid, the wildman.
Miyubi is a Canadian virtual reality film directed by Félix Lajeunesse and released in 2017. Produced by Felix & Paul Studios in conjunction with Funny or Die, the film is an immersive video comedy-drama in which the viewer experiences the dynamics of a dysfunctional family through the eyes of Miyubi, a toy robot the father purchased for his son as a birthday gift.
Jessica Brillhart is an American immersive director, writer, and theorist, known for her pioneering techniques in virtual reality filmmaking.
Traveling While Black is a Canadian-American coproduced virtual reality documentary film project, directed by Roger Ross Williams and released in 2019. An examination of racism in the United States, the film is an immersive experience which places the viewer inside the context of African-American travellers seeking safety and security with the help of the Negro Motorist Green Book; Williams has contrasted it with the 2018 film Green Book, labelling it as "a totally different story because this [Traveling While Black] is a story of life or death, and danger, and community, and all of those things. But it’s our story. It’s for us to tell. It’s not for anyone else." The film is based on a 2010 play called The Green Book.
êmîcêtôsêt-Many Bloodlines is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Theola Ross and released in 2020. The film documents the experience of Ross, a queer-identified Cree woman, and her partner as they pursue in vitro fertilisation treatment after deciding to raise a child together.
In the Land of the Flabby Schnook is a Canadian virtual reality animated short film, directed by Francis Gélinas and released in 2020. The film tells the story of a young boy who is afraid of the dark, and his older sister's efforts to help him overcome his fears.
Felix & Paul Studios is a Canadian creator of immersive virtual reality (VR) entertainment. The studio is known for its originals Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, and Traveling While Black.