Virtual reality installation Carne y arena, by Alejandro González Iñárritu, caused a sensation in 2017 at the Cannes Film Festival, before a world tour which took it to the Phi Center in Montreal. Now the most important film festival is following in the footsteps of the Venice Film Festival and will offer from May 15 a first competition of immersive works (virtual reality installations, mixed reality experiences, video mapping and holographic works).
Among the eight selected projects, which were unveiled on Tuesday, we find the virtual reality theater experience Roaming, by Frenchman Mathieu Pradat, co-produced by the Montreal studio Normal; as well as Telos Iby Montreal choreographer and dancer Dorotea Saykaly and her lover, Danish director Emil Dam Seidel.
“It’s a huge honor! When we got the news, it was late at night and we were so excited that we went out for a walk at 1 a.m. It’s surreal to think that we will be in Cannes in a few weeks, in a new competition of this legendary festival,” rejoices Dorotea Saykaly.
The dancer and choreographer collaborated for eight years with the Compagnie Marie Chouinard before joining the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, in Sweden, where she met Emil Dam Seidel. The couple, who have been collaborating on various stage and cinema projects since 2019, have been living in Copenhagen for a year. His short film She (2022) toured around forty international festivals.
PHOTO HENRIK STENBERG, PROVIDED BY DOROTEA SAYKALY
Dorotea Saykaly and Emil Dam Seidel
Telos I, which will have its world premiere in Cannes, combines dance, visual arts and holographic projection. In the trailer, we see a hologram of Dorotea Saykaly, in a leotard, in a choreography in the middle of a glass pyramid perched on a large rectangular column. It will be possible, on the four sides of this geometric column, to see as many different choreographies, each lasting 24 minutes.
“It’s projected continuously. We want spectators to be free to enter as they wish, at their own pace, and to watch the work for as long as they want, independently, without any particular device,” explains the performer and choreographer, who wishes that Telos I could be presented one day in Montreal.
Camped in a geometric landscape (at the Tron), Telos I explores, according to its creators, the themes of human existence and digital consciousness, blurring the boundaries between the material and the immaterial. It is the story of a being created by artificial intelligence, who lost his reason for being after the extinction of humanity and who seeks to give new meaning to his existence, thanks to a body.
In mythology, Telos, which in Greek means reason for being, goal or result, is the son of Helios (the sun). “ Telos I merges two of our loves: mythology and science fiction! “, says Dorotea Saykaly, specifying that the work was created without special effects.
The choreographer and dancer will be passing through Cannes in mid-May. She is currently working with the Montreal Contemporary Dance School on a revival of one of her pieces, then she will perform a choreography in Antwerp in May, before preparing a choreography of her own in Italy.
Recently, his choreography Black Moon, created for Ballet Edmonton, was one of seven finalists for the Sadler’s Wells Inaugural Rose International Prize. In 2022 she received the award for Best Choreography for a Film at the Dance On Screen Film Festival in Graz and in 2021 she received the Emily Molnar Prize for Emerging Choreographer, which allowed her to create a new work for Ballet BC. She has also created works for the Danish Dance Theater and the Territorio V youth program in Lisbon.
In addition to the eight projects in the new immersive competition of the Cannes Film Festival, six projects will be presented out of competition. “These carefully selected immersive works showcase the avant-garde of this new art form, challenging established conventions, adopting new technologies and celebrating new artists as well as established figures,” the Cannes Film Festival said Tuesday via channel of press release.
Among these established figures, we find for example the actresses Jessica Chastain and Millie Bobby Brown as well as the legendary singer and “tortured poet” Patti Smith, headliner of Spheres, by Eliza McNitt. Other projects feature, for example, the voices of Cate Blanchett, Rosario Dawson, Colin Farrell, Tahar Rahim and Lambert Wilson. The winners of the immersive competition at the Cannes Film Festival will be revealed on May 23.
The Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 14 to 25. The Press will be on site.