Nine-day residency to explore immersive VR storytelling with 12 diverse creators from Canada and the U.S.

Virtual Reality (VR) is capturing the imagination of documentary storytellers, journalists and visual artists all over the world who are eager to embrace an immersive medium that pushes new boundaries in non-fiction storytelling.

To support, explore and share VR knowledge and experience, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab (CFC Media Lab) and JustFilms | Ford Foundation have joined forces to present an innovative, experimental creative documentary lab for diverse creators from Canada and the U.S.

OPEN IMMERSION: A Virtual Reality Creative Doc Lab will bring together six Indigenous Canadian artists and six artists from the American South in CFC and NFB spaces in Toronto. Together, they will explore the possibilities of VR as a new storytelling platform.

“The pairing of Canada’s top Indigenous talent with notable American artists from culturally diverse backgrounds will ignite a timely new discussion on point of view and representation in a new storytelling medium,” said Anita Lee, Executive Producer, English Program (Ontario Centre) for the NFB. “The notions of ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ have never been more nuanced with the expansion of new technologies, and therefore capturing and representing ‘reality’ never more interesting, especially in the hands of artists whose voices are not often heard in the commercial industry.”

OPEN IMMERSION has been designed to immerse the participants in both the theory and practice of creating immersive, interactive media and to push the creative storytelling process. The talent and project lab will engage the 12 storytellers in an inspiring and rigorous hands-on creative development process comprised of keynote presentations, case study critiques, group sessions and peer collaboration.

“The OPEN IMMERSION Lab is our first foray with the National Film Board of Canada and the Canadian Film Centre. Our goal is to create a corridor of opportunity for visual artists to explore VR technology as the aesthetics of this new platform are being developed,” said JustFilms Director Cara Mertes. “Even though it’s very early days for VR, we are seeing how it can give socially-engaged storytellers a powerful tool to create immersive experiences with the potential to disrupt the entrenched social narratives that contribute to inequality.”

To view the artists participating in this lab and find out more on them and their projects please visit the CFC Creates Website.