Corine Meijers (Studio Biarritz) is on the Lido in 2023 with two projects at Venice Immersive. She is co-producer on Colombian-Belgian Juanita Onzaga’s Floating with Spirits, and lead producer of Steye Hallema’s The Imaginary Friend. As if this isn’t enough, she has also been presenting Iris van der Meule’s Gay Simulator in Venice Production Bridge.
Multi award-winning Colombian/Belgian filmmaker Juanita Onzaga makes her VR debut in the magical realist Floating with Spirits, selected for Venice Immersive 2023.
In the interactive work, the first such co-production between Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg, two sisters prepare for the Day of the Dead within the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. As they share stories from the past, laying flowers and lighting incense, they invoke the spirits of their ancestors who appear as swirling clouds of luminescence. The shamanistic dance that each performs is a prelude to a new revelation about Mazatec culture.
Dutch co-producer Corine Meijers of Studio Biarritz became familiar with the Oaxaca region while on a hiking holiday. She was then working at the Holland Film Meeting, before moving to Submarine Channel, where she began to cut her teeth in immersive production.
“I really experienced the mood of the mountains and the forests of Mexico, so when I got to hear about Juanita’s project at CineMart 2020, I immediately felt very close to it because that area is so magical,” she explains to See NL. “I wanted to work on it, not only because of the production team [Cassettes for timescape, Belgium] and not only the subject matter, but also because I had such a personal connection to it.”
Director Onzaga explains of her VR. “I spent years getting to know the sabedoras (knowledge people) from Mazatec indigenous communities in Oaxaca, México, listening, learning and sharing about their cosmogony and world vision…Inspired by their cosmogony, we built this sensorial and poetic ancestral futurism VR experience, to shake our perception of the real, to rewire the ways we connect with nature and the afterlife.”
Meijers oversaw the complex photogrammetry in Mexico, but also supervised the volumetric capture of the spirit dancers within the caves, as defined by their particle cloud systems. The team in the Netherlands was responsible for bringing all the elements together within the game engine Unity and Github.
“Floating with Spirits is Juanita’s first virtual reality project, one that she managed to set up within a 3-way construction, with companies in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which is not always easy, I think, especially if it’s your first time,” says Meijers, underlining that “while this might be the first Benelux co-production in virtual reality, it’s not going to be the last.”
Meanwhile, The Imaginary Friend is a surrealist, interactive and very cinematic virtual reality experience about a young boy with an anxiety disorder and an extremely vivid imagination. He also has a friend, namely you: the user/spectator. “The story is completely told from your point of view as this imaginary friend. You will be present in the story, through the imagination of the main character. At moments you might even feel responsible for him, since, because of you, he does things that cause him danger,” Meijers underlines in her notes for the VR. “It’s an accessible and heartfelt story about a boy learning to deal with being different.”
“VR is such an interesting medium, especially for me, because the player, the viewer, has such an important role. I had investigated point of view storytelling in all the VR pieces I made – but I also felt something was lacking,” director Hallema told See NL before Venice 2023. “You can never feel as much for yourself as for someone you are looking at.” Which was why invests in the viewer/player the status of ‘imaginary friend’ of a grieving kid who has recently lost their mother. “That’s a really interesting place for the player, but I also have a main character I can love and empathise with,” he added.
At the 10th Venice Production Bridge, Meijers has been discussing Iris van der Meule’s Gay Simulator, described as an interactive virtual reality artwork and video game which will immerse the user in the experiences of a lesbian girl.
“Gay Simulator is a virtual reality artwork and video game in which you, the player, get to experience what it’s like to be one of the most majestic and divine creatures alive,” van der Meule told Business Doc Europe in 2022. “It’s a playful and colourful and funny experience, but with a very serious undertone. The aim of gay simulator is to create awareness in a creative manner by showing the verbal and physical violence that lesbians are still confronted with today.”
“Next to these difficult situations, the player will also experience the positive sides of being a lesbian, such as the warm embrace of the queer community and visiting the annual celebratory Pride parade. All these elements are built in a linear structure of game levels that each player has to complete in order to finish the game,” she continued. “The story of Gay Simulator is about experiencing the coming out journey of a lesbian, and this journey starts by creating your own lesbian avatar through whose eyes you can experience the story, guided by a godly female voice.”
Meijers tells BDE: “We finished our market meetings today (September 4), Iris and I. People love the project! It’s original, its funny and playful, it’s personal and relevant. Gay Simulator has gained a place on the map of strong international VR projects to be released in the near future! Watch out for it in selection at next year’s Venice (fingers crossed).”
