STORY DEVELOPERS

Aida Holly-Nambi
A Ugandan born and raised in Kenya, Aida Holly-Nambi is the Director of Arts and Culture for an Africa-wide LGBT digital media organization, None on Record, where she produces short films, live events, photography projects and the award-winning podcast AfroQueer. Prior to None on Record, Aida worked in London at Doc Society as the Outreach Director for Good Pitch Europe 2017, which took place in Copenhagen. She was the Outreach Director for Docubox: the East African Documentary Film Fund in Nairobi Kenya, where she put on Good Pitch Kenya in 2016. In 2014 and 2015, Aida worked as the Artistic Director of Maisha Garden, a multidisciplinary performance arts space, founded by filmmaker Mira Nair in Kampala, Uganda. She represented Uganda at the first Sundance Theatre East Africa Director’s Lab in Ethiopia in 2012, and, again in 2013, at the Sundance Theatre Lab in Utah. Aida was a story developer for the Venice Biennale College Cinema Virtual Reality program in January 2019 and sat on the International jury for the One World Documentary Film Festival in Prague in March 2019.  She has a dual PhD in Drama and Humanities from Stanford University in California. A lover of the arts, Aida is passionate about dream-making, innovating and storytelling.

Lee Tzu Mao
Born in Taipei (Taiwan), raised and studied in Vancouver, Canada. Studied in Communication design and visual arts. Mao is an independent creative artist and creative consultant in the fields of branding, commercial and creative innovation. She has worked on projects with corporate companies such as AUO, MediaTek, China trust, and Taoyuan Airport. For the past three years she has been working actively in the VR industry under HTC. Participated in numerous award-winning projects such as “The Deserted”, “5×1 Series”, “Inori”, “Gloomy Eyes” and more. Mao was also involved in creative aspects of the projects. She shares her expertise from creative conceptualizing and branding to help projects ideate, enhance, and evolve.

Celine Tricart
is an acclaimed storyteller who has developed a unique and recognizable style involving highly emotional stories and strong visual artistry. Her work was selected in numerous Academy Awards qualifying festivals including Sundance, Venice, Tribeca, SXSW, Austin Film Festival, HotDocs and more. Celine was the recipient of a Lion for Best VR Immersive Work at the Venice Film Festival, a Storyscapes Award at Tribeca, two Lumiere Awards by the Advanced Imaging Society, two Telly Awards and a Platinum Aurora Award amongst many other accolades.

Celine Tricart is a world-renowned 3D and Virtual Reality expert. As such, she worked on cutting-edge films including well-known franchises such as “Transformers”.  She wrote two books published by Focal Press and available worldwide, “3D filmmaking” and “Virtual Reality Filmmaking”.

In 2016, Celine founded Lucid Dreams Productions, a production company specializing in new technologies and bold, empowered and unapologetic storytelling. Celine co-directed and produced Maria Bello’s “Sun Ladies” VR documentary about the women Yazidi fighting ISIS in Iraq which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. For this, she had to travel through ISIS-held territory to meet the women soldiers at the border between Iraq and Syria and record their stories. “Sun Ladies” won Best VR Documentary at the World VR Forum and a Lumiere Award for Best 360 Film. In 2019, Celine premiered “The Key”, an interactive experience mixing immersive theater and VR which won the Storyscapes Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. “The Key” was described by the press as “one of Tribeca’s breakout successes.” Shortly after, it won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work at the 2019 Venice Film Festival.

CREATIVE TECHNOLOGISTS

Ioulia Isserlis

(19.08.1989 Moscow) is a Berlin based VR producer, director, writer and CEO of AnotherWorld VR. With strong roots in classical filmmaking, Ioulia dove full time into virtual reality production 5 years ago, finding inspiration in a new medium that enables the spectator to enter a cinematic universe and take an active role in it. She directed, wrote and produced PAGAN PEAK VR (2019), produced and co-wrote KOBOLD VR (2018), Project Jua (2017) and Wars of Thomond (2016). In the field of B2B VR productions, she worked with clients such as Viacom, Sky, Microsoft, Telekom, Siemens, ZDF and many more.

Tupac Martir

“I AM A PAINTER. I WAS TRAINED AS ONE AND ALTHOUGH I HAVE DEVELOPED INTO A CONCEPTUAL/VISUAL DESIGNER, WHEN I GO TO SLEEP, I DO AS A PAINTER. I BELIEVE THAT EVERYTHING I WAS TAUGHT DURING THAT PERIOD HAS SHAPED WHAT I DO AND HOW I DO IT “ -Tupac Martir

Tupac is a light magician, creative visionary and an artistic genius.
His internationally renowned work includes production design, visuals and lighting direction for acts and organisations such as: Elton John, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi, Beyoncé, Coachella Music & Arts Festival, Nederland Dans Theater, UNKLE and Xu Bing at the V&A Museum.
As an acclaimed lighting director in the fashion industry, Tupac has worked on shows for Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Moschino, Prada, Hugo Boss and Thomas Tait. He is a celebrated artist, with his work exhibited in Mexico, US, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia and the UK. More recently, Tupac Directed and produced “Cosmos Within Us”, a performative reality piece that debuted at the Venice Film Festival and won the “Spirit of Raindance Award” at the Raindance London Film Festival. At Satore Studio, Tupac leads an international team of creative minds to create ground-breaking work, mixing art and technology. Tupac founded Satore Studio as a place to explore and create powerful art and multimedia experiences combining – lighting, projection, video, sound design, music, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Steye Hallema
As the son of a magician Steye is determined to create magic with the newest technology. He started his career as a creative at the critically acclaimed multimedia theatre group PIPS:lab. After that he was creative lead at the Medialab from Dutch broadcaster the VPRO and worked as creative director for JauntVR EMEA. His VR music video What do we care4 was nominated for a UK music video award in 2015 and was a worldwide hit amongst virtual reality its early adopters. The Cinematic VR experience Ashes to Ashes which Steye directed won gold at the dutch VR Awards and was nominated for a Gouden Kalf (the Dutch Oscars). Weltatem – a Virtual Reality Opera game (in which the audience was thought how to sing) which Steye directed won two Dutch Game Awards. Steye specialises in making the audience play an important part in his experiences. Like, for example with his latest Smartphone Orchestra performance: The Social Sorting Experiment in which the audience (led by their own phones) experience how their own data is being misused by the big tech companies. At this moment Steye works as creative director for his own company WildVreemd, as Artistic leader for the Smartphone Orchestra and as Creative Director for the 4DR Studio’s, a volumetric video Capture studio in the Netherlands.

SOUND ADVISOR

François Fripiat
François has been a sound engineer for 10 years in the cinema industry. He worked in many different fields such as sound design, sound mix and sound supervision for many different feature films, ads, cartoons, documentary, etc…
Passionate about spatial sound for a decade, he founded the company Demute in 2015. Demute is an audio tech company with 2 departments that mutually inspire themselves :
Demute.studio is dedicated to sound creation and development for innovative media. The studio apply its expertise to VR / AR / Video Games and immersive experiences.  Demute.tech develops hardware and software that improve the feeling of immersion through sound. The lead project of Demute.tech is an AR Audio Technology called Ahia that transports you inside a new virtual audio world.

UX ADVISOR

Marc-Andre Nadeau
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST, Phi Center

Leading Phi’s technical and technological effective operation since 2012, Marc-Andre Nadeau makes sure the public’s experience is as fluid and flawless as possible. His work implies supervising the overall process, from the first preliminary stages to the actual exhibition in progress. This demands foreseeing potential issues as well as being able to intervene during the time the exhibition is open to the public. Marc-Andre’s role consists in implementing a close-to-transparent interface, accompanying the overall experience, and minimizing any interference. As neither technique nor technology should be obstacles, he has to come up with ideas to effectively blend gears, props and cables in the environment. His ten-year experience as a sound engineer at Sonart Studio provided him with a solid expertise at understanding the artist’s vision.

Marc-Andre’s role at Phi, beyond the material aspect, involves a profoundly human side, as mediators are at the core of the exhibition. He is in charge of supervising their task, giving them the emotional and educational clues for them to work with empathy and sensitivity. Provided with a deep understanding of the artist’s message, they can accompany visitors in the transition from one installation to another. To ensure they can concentrate on the human aspect of their role, Marc-Andre makes the interface they use as easy-to-understand and intuitive as possible.

As an intermediary between artists and the public, he makes sure the original vision is reflected as accurately as possible. In a constant effort towards creative excellence, both inside Phi and as part of external deployments, he has been working alongside creators to get a close understanding of their conception. He thus acquired a very precise knowledge of the creative process and the many ways to reflect it on the scenography. Due to his close proximity with artists, he developed and deepened his creative mind, often solicited to contribute to the very first stages of brainstorming, prior to the development phase.

Marc-Andre has worked on all of Phi’s major projects. He has been in charge of the technical direction of the Centre’s recent VR exhibitions, namely Particules d’existence, Echo, Humain and Cadavre Exquis; he presented the virtual reality piece Ennemi (by director Karim Ben Khelifa), in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada; he was in charge of the technique and technology for Phi’s six-month presence at the Ca’ Rezzonico gallery in Venice, as well as the scenography on the Spheres installation, first showcased at the Phi Centre, before being presented at Miami’s Film Gate and New York’s Rockefeller Center. In 2019, Marc-Andre was also the technical director on multiple projects presented abroad, among which two VR movies at the Venice Film Festival (A Life in Flowers by Ryot studio and BattleScar by Atlas V Studio), as well as Gymnasia at the Tribeca Festival. Most recently, he accompanied the artist Diego Galafassi on the production development of Breathe, an augmented reality piece that will be presented for the first time at Sundance New Frontier 2020.

VISUALIZER | LEGO WORKSHOP

Paul Tyler
“Stories can be seen as systems, made up of simple or complex relationships between characters. Paul brings a highly analytical, creative and often humorous approach to reveal these complex worlds. 25+ years experience developing and producing concepts, strategies and projects within the cultural, public and corporate sectors. By applying a systemic mindset, he pinpoints the challenges, opportunities and mechanisms for choice-making within the systems in which we work, rest and play. He reveals the drives, dependencies and motives that fundamentally define the relationships between characters, contributors or users. This exposes the choices each makes, the values on which those choices are made and therefore what’s really at stake. All backed-up with a sharp editorial eye that focuses on logic, narrative, ethics and ultimately what makes people tick.
Nominated for a BAFTA (2005), BBC Creativity Award (2004) and Association of Online Publishers award (2005), Paul went on to win the Prix Jeunesse (2006) web award for originating, studio directing and producing the BBC’s flagship cross-media show BAMZOOKi. He co-designed the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology’s Digital Concept Development graduate programme in 2010 that focused on communication, commerce and marketing. He originates from London and lives and works out of Copenhagen.“

VR LAB COORDINATOR

Marc Lopato
INSEAD MBA Engineer, Marc worked 7 years in Supply Chain in Japan and France.
He then started his own company and worked as a professional tourist guide and interpret.
With his strong operational, cultural and international background, Marc co-founded Diversion cinema in 2016 and manages its Operations and Business Development.
Since 2018, Marc Lopato is a tutor for Virtual Reality Biennale College Cinema for Venice’s Biennale. Diversion cinema specializes in showcasing and distributing immersive content, it is always looking for new partners to exhibit VR, and ultimately help shape this emerging content market. Diversion set up and ran VR spaces for Venice VR, Marché du film in Cannes,  Locarno Film Festival, IDFA Doclab among others.

GUEST SPEAKER – MAX SACKER

Max Sacker (02.05.1983 Munich, Germany) is a filmmaker, VR creator, Co-Founder and creative director at AnotherWorld VR. Before specialising in virtual reality and immersive storytelling, he wrote and directed a number of award-winning short films and worked as a story consultant, post producer and VFX supervisor for feature films from Warner Bros. Germany. Max Sacker is the director of KOBOLD, a transmedia experience in the horror genre that premiered in competition at the 75th International Venice Film Festival and blurs the line between cinema and VR gaming. He is also Co-Director of PAGAN PEAK VR, which premiered at the 76th International Venice Film Festival. Anotherworld VR is a VR content creation studio from Berlin specialising in cinematic and interactive VR storytelling. Last year AnotherWorld VR executed the 6DOF post production and programming of  “In the Cave”  a  Biennale College final project which also had its premiere at the 75th International Venice Film Festival.

PITCH TRAINER

Stefano Tealdi
Born in South Africa in 1955, he graduated in Architecture and was head of audiovisual production at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy. He established Stefilm with others in 1985 where, to date, he develops, produces and at times directs, documentary features and series. Stefilm’s internationally acclaimed films include Leonardo, the man behind the shroud? (Silver Screen Award 2002), Porto Marghera – Venice (59th Venice Film Festival), Rice Girls (60th Venice Film Festival, MOMA fortnight 2003), Citizen Berlusconi (nominated Grimme Award – Germany 2004), Monstar United (IDFA 2009), Vinylmania (Official film Record Store Day 2012) and Char, No man’s land (Berlinale Forum 2013). EAVE graduate in 1992, he is the director of the annual Italian workshop Documentary in Europe and chaired the European Documentary Network EDN. He teaches at universities and master classes and tutors for EDN – European Documentary Network, Esodoc, Med Film Factory, Scuola Holden, Films de 3 Continents, Zelig Film School.