The 2021 Tribeca Festival announced the line-up for Tribeca Immersive, a leading incubator for innovation and a global stage where top creators choose to debut their latest work. With Tribeca At Home and in-person experiences at outdoor venues across New York City, Tribeca Immersive will showcase cinematic and cutting-edge virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and participatory experiences by top artists who push the boundaries of storytelling with technology. The 2021 Tribeca Festival runs June 9-20.

Three unique sections of immersive content, some in-person and some virtual, are a part of Tribeca Immersive this year. For the at-home audience, VR experiences can be accessed via the Museum of Other Realities* (reaching a global audience for those with VR headsets). For those able to join the Festival in person this year, free outdoor participatory experiences are available to the New York community (from sculpture, immersive audio, augmented reality and a live participatory performance). Tribeca fans have come to know and love the Storyscapes collection, deeply immersive experiences, seen in-person at Spring Studios (50 Varick Street). Storyscapes projects are eligible for the juried Storyscapes Award presented by AT&T.

“Tribeca Immersive is committed to showcasing the power of new technology as a dynamic vehicle for storytelling,” said Jane Rosenthal, Co-Founder and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises and the Tribeca Festival. “The lineup this year will challenge participants to expand what they perceive as “immersive,” with projects both online and in-person.”

“2021 is the most dynamic year yet for Tribeca Immersive, especially as it relates to the diversity of experiences,” said Loren Hammonds, VP, Immersive Programming, Senior Programmer, Film & Immersive. “Attendees, both in-person and online, will experience everything from live AI performers and animated adventures to a location-based augmented reality memorial.”

At this year’s Storyscapes at Spring Studios, juried selections of deeply immersive in-person creations show off new trends and innovative work across multiple mediums that integrate various forms of location-based participation with interactive VR installations. The Storyscapes Award, presented by AT&T, honors artists who bridge the gap between technology and storytelling. Projects up for the award include: Critical Distance (Vision 3), Goliath (Anagram/Floreal), Kusunda (NowHere Media), We Are At Home (Floreal) and Lovebirds of the Twin Towers (Ari Palitz). We will also introduce two additional awards this season, in the form of Best Immersive Narrative and Best Creative Nonfiction Experience.

The immersive experience industry faced many challenges this past year. Yet the community was able to create innovative, fun, and thought-provoking content. The selections for the Tribeca Festival Immersive program exemplify the determination, commitment and future of the creative community.

Special curated Juneteenth programming highlighted throughout different verticals of the Festival will celebrate voices from the African Diaspora, with special emphasis on African-American artists, performers, filmmakers, and interdisciplinary creators.

*The Museum of Other Realities is available for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality users. Oculus Quest users can access using Oculus Link or the Virtual Desktop application that connects a wireless headset with a VR-ready PC.

2021 Tribeca Immersive Program

OUTDOOR INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES

Outdoor in-person Immersive installations will be located at various locations throughout NYC; these experiences are free and open to everyone throughout the Festival. Those available virtually can be accessed via the Tribeca Festival website.

Breonna’s Garden (World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Lady PheOnix Ruach Shaddai
Key Collaborator: Stuart ‘Sutu’ Campbell
She who plants a garden plants hope. Breonna’s Garden is an AR experience created in collaboration with Ju’Niyah Palmer to honor the life of her sister, Breonna Taylor. **Part of Juneteenth programming.
Outdoor location to be announced.

CURRENT(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Annie Saunders
Key Collaborators: Andrew Schneider, Jackie Zhou
Created by interdisciplinary artist Annie Saunders and her collaborators, CURRENT is an immersive soundwalk set in Lower Manhattan, conceived to invite both locals and visitors back to our public spaces. Outdoor location to be announced.

Discriminator(World Premiere) – Canada
Project Creator: Brett Gaylor
Key Collaborators: Darren Pasemko, Kent Hugo, Jae Perris, Hang Do Thi Duc, David Drury, Adam Harvey
An interactive documentary exploring facial recognition databases. A tale of how Internet culture’s early instinct to overshare helped to create technologies that are proliferating faster than the law can control. Discriminator brings audiences’ faces into the frame in a combination of AI, AR and animation.

The Group– Part One (World Premiere) – Netherlands
Project Creator: The Smartphone Orchestra
Being part of bigger groups again can be intimidating after the pandemic. This virtual reality experience takes the viewer on a crash course in social interaction.
Outdoor location to be announced. June 16 at 5pm ET.

Kinfolk(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creators: Idris Brewster, Glenn Cantave, Micah Milner
Key Collaborators: Erica Buddhington, Langston League, Angela Fan, Keenyn Omari, Joe Gordon, The Light Clinic
Kinfolk is an augmented reality app that highlights Black and Brown figures. The viewer can use Kinfolk to bring digital monuments to life through a phone/tablet, hear voice overs for each icon, see generative art emanating from every sculpture, and listen to an original afrofuturist jazz composition. Part of Juneteenth programming.
Outdoor location to be announced.

JUPITER INVINCIBLE(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Ram Devineni
Key Collaborator: Yusef Komunyakaa
An augmented reality comic book about an African-American slave, Jupiter, who is suddenly given the power of immortality. Part of Juneteenth programming.

Knot: A Trilogy (World Premiere) – UK, United States
Project Creator: David Rosenberg, Glen Neath
Key Collaborators: Darkfield
Knot is a trilogy taking place in three different locations simultaneously. A cyclical story, tied up like a knot with no ends, is conjured into existence by a collective effort.
Outdoor location to be announced.

Polæ (World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Steven Schardt
Key Collaborators: Rob Auten, Lia Coleman, Devon Dolan, Emiko Inskeep, Ben James, Trevor Kerr, Rory McLean, Maya Pruitt, C. Andrew Rohrmann, Michael Taylor, Mei-Ling Wong
Polæ is an interactive science-fiction series for mobile devices depicting the future history of Adelaide Engelsen and her company. What begins with a cryptic series of articles and social media posts leads to a multimedia breaking news experience. The viewer’s decisions will determine their chances for survival when they come into direct communication with the artificial intelligence deciding the future.

Procession(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creators: Dustin Yellin, Elie Zananiri, Justin Durazzo, Callum Cooper, Dražen Bošnjak
Key Collaborators: Holly Houghton, Alyssa Cashman, Jacqueline Bošnjak, Jessica Brillhart
Procession is an interactive augmented reality artwork by Dustin Yellin set in a utopian world where human-created climate change wreaks havoc as the viewer watches and is implicated.
Outdoor location to be announced.

Republique, The Interactive Movie(World Premiere) – France
Project Creators: Simon Bouisson, Olivier Demangel
Key Collaborators: David Bigiaoui, Sara Brucker
Republique is an interactive film that plunges the participant into the emotions felt during an attack in the Paris Metro through three parallel storylines, letting you switch from one to another.

The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Lyndsie Scoggin
Key Collaborators: Deirdre V. Lyons, Stephen Butchko, Braden Roy, Christopher Lane Davis, Whitton Frank, Brian Tull, Andy Aloisio
The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite is a scripted, live-action experience performed in virtual reality. The project is inspired by the real stories of people suffering from dissociative identity disorder.

Un(re)solved(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Tamara Shogaolu
Key Collaborators: Michelle Mizner, Collyn Stephens, James Edwards, Ben Greenberg, Ko Bragg, Shantal, Zoe Todd, Katie Worth
Un(re)solved tells a story of lives cut short and examines a federal effort to investigate more than 150 cold case murders that date back to the civil rights era. Un(re)solved has an accompanying WebXR experience for at-home audiences that will be available on the Tribeca Festival website. Part of Juneteenth programming.
Outdoor location to be announced.

WarpSound Music Experience(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Chris McGarry
Key Collaborator: Authentic Artists
WarpSound is a first-of-its-kind, audience-interactive live music experience featuring virtual artists Nayomi, a lo-fi loving cyborg, and Dragoon, an energy drink-addled, half-iguana DJ, plus special guests including world champion turntablist A-Trak. Part of Juneteenth programming.
Outdoor location to be announced. June 16 at 5pm ET.

STORYSCAPES AT SPRING STUDIOS

Returning again this year to Spring Studios (50 Varick Street), these are in-person, larger-than-life and fully immersive experiences; tickets go on sale May 24.

Critical Distance(World Premiere) – United States, UK
Project Creator: Adam May
Key Collaborator: Chris Campkin
Critical Distance takes audiences into the world of the endangered Southern Resident orcas.
Audiences experience echolocation, connecting with an orca named Kiki and her family as their future is threatened.

Inside Goliath(World Premiere) – France, UK
roject Creators: May Abdalla, Barry G. Murphy
Key Collaborators: Dr. Michael Golembewski, Xandi Adderley, Armando Sepulveda, Leon Denise, Oliver Bancroft
A visual installation and VR experience, Inside Goliath is an intimate and visually compelling narrative of one man’s experience of living with schizophrenia and psychosis.

Kusunda(World Premiere) – Germany
Project Creator: Gayatri Parmesewan
Key Collaborator: Felix Gaedtke
How does a language fall asleep, and what does it take to awaken one? Kusunda shaman Lil Bahadur has forgotten his indigenous mother tongue. His granddaughter, Hema, wants to revive it.

Lovebirds of the Twin Towers(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Ari Palitz
Key Collaborator: Tim Dillon, Michael Frazier, Jake Black
An immersive experience telling the story of Carmen and Arturo Griffith, two elevator operators who fell in love, shared their first kiss, and would ultimately be saved by their co-workers at the Twin Towers. Through their memories we will see the best of us, then and now.

We Are At Home(World Premiere) – Denmark, France and Canada
Project Creators: Michelle Kranot, Uri Kranot
Key Collaborator: Morten Andersen
“What does the hangman think about when he goes home at night from work?” We Are At Home is a VR installation based on the poem The Hangman at Home by Carl Sandburg.

VIRTUAL ARCADE

VR experiences are accessible through the Museum of Other Realities to those who have an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality users. Oculus Quest users can access the MOR using Oculus Link or the Virtual Desktop application that connects a wireless headset with a VR-ready PC. Tickets go on sale May 24.

Bystanding: The Feingold Syndrome(World Premiere) – Israel, Canada, Germany
Project Creators: Nim Shapiro, Roi Lev
Key Collaborators: AnotherWorld, KNGFU
Bystanding is an immersive docufiction sharing the confessions of people who witnessed a kayak-rower drown for four-and-a-half minutes and did not jump in.

The Changing Same: Episode 1(New York Premiere) – United States
Project Creators: Michèle Stephenson, Joe Brewster, Yasmin Elayat
Key Collaborators: James George, Alexander Porter, Rad Mora, Elliott Mitchell
The Changing Same is a magical realist, immersive, episodic virtual reality experience where the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial injustice in America. Part of Juneteenth programming.

Jailbirds(World Premiere) – Belgium, France
Project Creator: Thomas Villepoux
Key Collaborators: Fred Resmusat, Jef Dehouse
The Bwa-Kayiman prison is a modern hell. Yet, one inmate, Félix (Barry Johnson), is always happy. Chief Warden (Tómas Lemarquis) can’t stand it.

A Life in Pieces: The Diary and Letters of Stanley Hayami(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Nonny de la Peña, PhD
Key Collaborator: Sharon Yamato
This immersive media project brings to life the wartime diary of Stanley Hayami, a Japanese-American teenager imprisoned with his family during WWII at the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming.

Madrid Noir(World Premiere) – France
Project Creator: James A. Castillo
Key Collaborators: Antoine Cayrol, Luke Gibbard, Arnaud Colinart, Lawrence Bennett, Corentin Lambot, Craig Skerry, Dash Spiegelman, Yelena Rachistky, Albyon
With her uncle (Fernando Guillén Cuervo) declared dead, a disenchanted young woman (Godeliv Van Der Brandt) must delve into her memories to pick up his shadowy trail. Solving mysteries ain’t easy in a city lost to time.

Marco & Polo Go Round(World Premiere) – Canada, Belgium
Project Creator: Benjamin Steiger Levine
Key Collaborator: Item 7, Belga Productions, DPT
It is the morning of Marco’s 32nd birthday and he is confronted by his girlfriend, Polo, who has questions about the future of their relationship. By the end of the day, gravity itself will have turned their world upside down.

Mine(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Rise-Home Stories Project
Key Collaborators: Randall Dottin, Luisa Danta
When the sudden disappearance of water, their main life-source, threatens to upend a vibrant utopia, Blaze, an intrepid teen must save their community before it’s too late. Created through a unique collaboration of artists, land, and housing activists, Mine is an animated web series that explores the difficult and worthwhile fight for the community you love. Part of Juneteenth programming.

Missing Pictures Episode 2: Tsai Ming-liang(World Premiere) – France, Luxembourg, Taiwan R.O.C., UK
Project Creator: Clément Deneux
Key Collaborator: Kuan-Yuan LAI
Missing Pictures is an immersive documentary series that delves into the stories that were never able to make it on the screen. In this episode, viewers meet Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang.

Paper Birds Pt. 1 & 2(World Premiere) – Argentina, United States
Project Creator: German Heller
Key Collaborators: Federico Carlini, 3dar, Baobab, and Oculus.
Paper Birds is the immersive narrative journey of a young musician, Toto, who must cross over from the physical universe into the invisible world of inspiration. He must save his younger sister and confront his grandfather and mentor to unravel the hidden mystery of the paper birds.

The Passengers: The Kid(World Premiere) – Canada, France
Project Creators: Ziad Touma, Nicolas Peufaillit, Robert Hospyan, Coralie Majouga, yako (Jean-Christophe Yacono), Camille Duvelleroy
Key Collaborators: Oriane Hurard, Karen Vanderborght, Dpt, Mocaplab, Post-Moderne, Novelab, Maxim Roy, Sébastien Chassagne, Évelyne Istria, Ethann Bergua-Isidore
The Passengers is the story of strangers on a train who all have one thing in common: they are all facing a pivotal moment in their lives. Their real journey is internal and it is you who will embark on it, taking their place to help them make a crucial decision.

POV: Points of View(World Premiere) – United States
Project Creator: Alton Glass
Key Collaborators: Donovan DeBoer
LOS ANGELES 2025: After serving two years in prison for biometric hacking. Cassius Moore, a 21 year old black male, qualifies for early release under a new federal drone program. He is assigned to an artificially intelligent weaponized drone to follow him around and record his every move.Part of Juneteenth programming.