Cannes Festival 2024: under the sign of immersion!

24 May 2024 Culture

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From 15 to 25 May, the Cannes international film festival presented the best of world cinema creation. For the French ministry of culture, this event is a crossroads for all issues of the cinema world, such as artificial intelligence and immersive cinema. The Cannes festival has thus created this year an “immersive competition” designed to put the spotlights on a new generation of international artists exploring new narrative experiences. The Université Côte d'Azur is a partner of the project.

The Cannes Festival (a.k.a. International Film Festival) is held every year in Cannes, on the French Riviera, for twelve days during the second and third weeks of May. The first festival was first held in 1946 is one of the three main international film festivals, with the Venice Film Festival and the Berlinale in Berlin. The Cannes Festival is however the most prestigious film reunion and most covered cultural event in the world.

Immersive Cannes

In addition to the official selection’s classics, says the French ministry of culture website, the Cannes Festival is always “at the forefront of innovation”. Indeed, the festival launches this year with the support of the CNC (National Centre of Cinema and Animated Image) a “new section dedicated to immersive experiences” including eight projects in competition. Such projects include collective virtual reality installations, mixed reality experiences and works by video mapping, a technique used to project videos on volumes and play with their relief.

The Ministry adds that this event will also be the perfect opportunity for the city of Cannes to announce the launch of the Cannes Immersive programme, sponsored by French artist Jean-Michel Jarre, with the support of the CNC. Dedicated to “be a global hub dedicated to immersive creations and the new artistic territory of Artificial Intelligence”, Cannes Immersive will integrate “an immersive cultural offer with Cannes events and create a permanent immersive venue to showcase the best of immersive and AI-generated creation”.

A reference hub in extended reality

In addition to the city of Cannes, the Université Côte d’Azur is “proud to announce its partnership with the Cannes Festival as part of a new competition dedicated to immersive pieces”. After having concluded an agreement with the Marché du Film, the Université Côte d'Azur can now participate in this new immersive competition, putting the spotlight over “a whole new generation of international artists who invent and develop new narrative experiences”. So, this is a true opportunity for the Extended Reality Research and Creative Center (XR2C2), a reference centre created by the Université Côté d'Azur.

XR2C2 is indeed the new Reference Centre in “extended reality” covering multidisciplinary activities of 13 university labs in this field. Eventually, the idea is to turn into “a hub that is structuring for regional initiatives in relation with immersive environments” in various fields: art creation, media studies, communication and information sciences and technologies, and more. Players in industry, training and research fields committed in this will have at their disposal “a platform of technologies, skills and knowledge” based in the George Méliès campus in Cannes.

All international talents of tomorrow’s cinema.

Beyond immersive reality, the objective of the Cannes festival is also to support all the talents of tomorrow’s cinema, including through three significant actions: the Festival Residence, the Fabrique Cinéma, and the CNC Talent. These initiatives confirm the international dimension of the Festival.

The device “the Cannes Film Festival Residence” supports young directors every year with the aim of accompanying them in the realization of their first or second film. This new edition brings together twelve filmmakers to whom the CNC will award two residents.

Same international dimension, says the ministry of culture, for the “Fabrique Cinéma”, aiming at promoting “the emergence of the creation of the countries of the South on the international market” and to promote filmmakers and producers. This year, nine feature film projects and one documentary project were selected.

Finally, six web creators are invited to the Croisette on the occasion of the new edition of “CNC Talent”, the Cannes residency organized by the CNC, in partnership with YouTube. The ambition her is to “develop bridges between different generations of creators and different scripts, the web and cinema”.