STORY DEVELOPERS

Aida Holly Nambi

A Ugandan born and raised in Kenya, Aida Holly-Nambi has a dual PhD in Drama and Humanities from Stanford University in California. 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 co-wrote and starred in the 2014 short film Missing and directed the play Desperate to Fight, which featured in festivals around East Africa. Aida was a 2014 fellow for the International Society of Performing Arts; she is a contributing writer to academic anthologies, and occasional arts journalist for Mail and Guardian Africa. Aida worked as the Artistic Director of Maisha Garden, founded by filmmaker Mira Nair in Uganda, where she produced and co-directed with Nair a short film for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale Italian Pavilion. Aida was the Outreach Director for Good Pitch Kenya 2016 and Good Pitch Europe 2017, while she worked for Doc Society in London. Currently, Aida is the Director of Arts and Culture for an Africa-wide LGBT digital media organization, None on Record, where among many projects, she produces the podcast AfroQueer.

Naomi Roth

Naomi Roth launched Virtuality for Reality in 2016, an international online open-door community bringing together professionals, researchers and VR directors (over 1 800 members) inspired by VR for good. She was invited the same year to co-create an innovation lab (on VR/AR/AI technologies) for a multinational startup, XXII GROUP, then worked inside the laboratory on the elaboration of new lines of research.

As of today she gives lectures at French Universities and collaborates to research action projects destined to understand how environmental influences affect our choices and behaviour.

Gino Ventriglia

Screenwriter and script consultant for cinema and television. He’s a tutor and pitch trainer on international development programs, TorinoFilmLab and SeriesLab among the others. He teaches drama and serial drama writing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the Italian National School of Cinema.

VISUAL ADVISORS
Avinash Changa

Founder, CEO WeMakeVR. Immersive Experiences writer and director. Avinash Changa, WeMakeVR’s founder, is an all-rounder in the field of digital concepts and production techniques, and a true VR-evangelist. Since fouding WeMakeVR in 2013 he’s become a much-requested speaker and guest for international conferences, TV-programs and other media covering Immersive Media. Highlights include BBC News Live, MIT’s EmTech, The Next Web, CodeMotion, and the Guangzhou International Innovation Festival in China. He often speaks about the role of Immersive Technologies such as AR, VR and MR in the future of other industries, and he’s passionate about it’s untapped potential His mission is to bring meaningful applications and content to the world that improve quality of life for everyone.

Coline Delbaere

Graduate of Political Sciences, specialising in “cultural expertise”, during her first years of professional international experience, Coline began as a multi-disciplinary cultural programmer, and also worked as a producer for a record label, later for a theater company, and also on film shoots.

In 2017, she joined DVgroup, where she works with original content for virtual reality productions in which actors from a multitude of artistic disciplines are involved, with the aim of contributing to the development of new forms of storytelling.

She takes a leading role in many immersive virtual reality theater installations, which are renowned for their international success. This can be seen in the case of Alice, the Virtual Reality Play (2017), by Marie Jourdren and Mathias Chelebourg, The Horrifically Real Virtuality (2018) by Marie Jourdren, The Roaming: Wetlands (2018) by Mathieu Pradat, Umami (2018) , by Thomas Pons and Landia Egal, and PLAY! (2018) in collaboration with the choreographers of I could Never be a dancer and the musician Roscius. Of which, four of these five projects have been selected in the last two editions of the Venice VR competition.

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 the Creative Director and Founder of Satore Studio. Born in Reading, Berkshire, Tupac obtained his BFA, from Creighton University under the guidance of John Thein and National Geographic Photographer Fr. Don Doll, SJ.

He has provided production design, visuals and lighting direction for Elton John, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi, Beyoncé, Coachella Music & Arts Festival, Nederland Dans Theater, UNKLE, Xu Bing at the V&A Museum, the Serpentine Gallery and the Old Vic Tunnels. Tupac has also become renowned within the fashion industry having worked on fashion shows for Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Moschino and Thomas Tait, among others. As an artist, he has exhibited in Mexico, US, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia and the UK, as well as being an official entry of the Morelia Film Festival with his multidisciplinary piece “The Gentleman, the Mermaid, Mexican Cinema, Lotteria!!!” originally created for the British Council as part of the Cultural Olympiad during London 2012.

Tupac Martir has been referred to as a “light magician”, a “creative visionary”, and an artistic genius. He’s gained recognition for his own ground-breaking productions, which merge many art forms to create captivating multimedia experiences. Martir has evolved into a multimedia artist whose work spans the fields of lighting, projection and video, sound design, music and composition as well as choreography and costumes. His tools range from puppetry and stop-motion animation, to digital lighting and media servers, to Mogees (a new music-making software that’s not yet on the market). His acclaimed dance opera “Nierka” incorporated video and projection with dance, music, and lighting – including costumes embedded with LEDs controlled wirelessly as part of the performance and the first show ever to use CAST software.

CREATIVE TECHNOLOGISTS

Carl Guyenette

An empathetic, technological polymath that harnesses imagination, creativity, engineering and method to manifest dreams into digital reality. Founder and Creative Technologist at Hyperspatial.io.

Amaury La Burthe

After a few years in the computing industry Amaury La Burthe turned to his true passion: he followed a Masters in Acoustics and Signal Processing Applied to Music at IRCAM in Paris. He then worked as an assistant researcher for Sony Computer Science Laboratory (Sony-CSL) and as Lead Audio Designer for video game company Ubisoft. Through his professional experiences he developed a dual expertise: scientific and artistic knowledge in the field of sound design and speciality in the creation of interactive material. Amaury worked for Sony on various music browser prototypes and recently for interactive music prototypes. He also worked for Ubisoft as audio designer on Prince of Persia: Warrior Within & Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and as lead audio designer for Splinter Cell: Double Agent & Farcry 2.

Leen Segers

A Brussels-based software entrepreneur and WebXR expert. For almost 10 years she worked with several B2C and B2B2C technology startups in Ghent, London, and Brussels. Since 2011, she has been focused on the democratisation of rich media across platforms and devices, which led her to start LucidWeb in 2016. As immersive computing will revolutionise communication, entertainment and education, democratisation will be key. She is therefore the biggest advocate of browser-based experiences to reach immersion at scale. Leen is also co-founder of Women in Immersive Tech Europe.

VR LAB COORDINATOR

Marc Lopato

INSEAD MBA Engineer, Marc worked 7 years in Industrial Supply Chain in Japan and France.

He then started his own company and worked 6 years as a professional tourist guide and interpret.

With his strong international background, Marc joins Diversion cinema in 2016 to manage its Operations and Business Development.

Diversion cinema specializes in showcasing and distributing immersive content.

It creates and operates virtual reality showcasing spaces for companies and cinema festivals.

In 2018, it launches a Distribution division and acts as an international sales agent for 360 videos, VR and interactive experiences, with the aim of bringing the best narrative content to audiences worldwide.

VISUALIZER

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.“

STRATEGY – MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION

Rajiv Rainier

Rajiv Rainier is an executive at CEEC Inc. providing strategic advisory and management consulting services. CEEC’s clients include La Biennale Di Venezia, Ca’ Foscari University, Timely and Volumation. Prior to CEEC, Rainier served as Vice President and General Manager at Sony Corporation and Sony Entertainment Inc. working across Sony Electronics (USA), Sony Computer Entertainment (PlayStation), Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment. As part of Sony Corporation Rainier led strategic corporate projects with Sony’s global alliance partners focused on business development, new product planning and launch. Examples of successful products and service launches include the Sony Internet TV (in collaboration with Google), Sony mylo Personal Communicator and Sony ImageStation Mobile. As part of Sony Entertainment Rainier led and supported the strategic planning, development and distribution of Sony Pictures Virtual Reality experiences that include Spider-man Homecoming, Ghostbusters, Passengers, Jumanji and Emoji. Successful Sony Music experiences launched include VR productions from artists including Pentatonix, Kygo and Chainsmokers. Prior to Sony, Rainier was a management consultant at Deloitte & Touche and executive at the world’s first commercial internet service provider UUNET (now Verizon). Rainier earned a master’s degree from New York University attending the Tisch School of Arts and Stern School of Business and has completed executive programs from Stanford University (Graduate School of Business), Harvard University (Harvard Business School) and Singularity University (Exponential Technologies). Rainier has filed and contributed to over 20 patents in fields including consumer electronics, robotics, AI and the internet.

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.