London Film Festival Launches Video Games Strand Alongside Interactive Works

The BFI London Film Festival will launch a new strand for video games during this year’s edition, which runs from October 9 — 20.

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The video games strand will run alongside LFF Expanded, the festival’s programme of Immersive Art and Extended Reality works. Five video game projects will be free to access as part of an installation at Bargehouse at Oxo Tower Wharf on London’s Southbank. The five video game projects are:

• A Highland Song – follows the journey of protagonist Moira McKinnon, as she navigates the mysteries of the Scottish Highlands.
• Playing Kafka – the definitive Franz Kafka videogame, based on his life and work.
• Paper Trail – join Paige, a budding academic, as she untangles the puzzle of a foldable, paper world.
• Dome King Cabbage – an award-winning psychedelic visual novel about a cloud person named Mush making their way to interview for the role of ‘Dome King’.
• Closer the Distance – a deeply moving slice-of-life simulation in which players help a community to overcome collective grief in the face of a tragedy.

The festival’s traditional expanded projects will also run at Bargehouse as well as BFI Southbank, BFI IMAX, and Outernet London. The expanded lineup includes The Great Endeavor by Liam Young and a new immersive audio project by Darkfield. Scroll down for the full list of titles.

“LFF Expanded has become integral to the LFF experience and I invite audiences to go to the limits of their imagination and beyond with the programme this year,” Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival Director, said of this year’s titles.

LFF EXPANDED 2024 IMMERSIVE ART AND XR PROGRAMME:

IMMERSIVE INSTALLATIONS

LAST MINUTE – UK PREMIERE
12 – 27 Oct | Bargehouse | 30min | Artist/Studio: Adrien Mondot & Claire Bardainne | Ticketed

One moment in time, stretched to infinity: this poetic and captivatingly beautiful installation sets out to transform our perception of time and space.

What if this was the first minute of your life? What if it was the last? French artists Claire Bardainne and Adrien Mondot have created a space bathed in images and sound, capturing a singular moment at the threshold between death and life. Embark on a collective immersive journey through a hypnotising universe of music, light and interactive projections.

IMPULSE: PLAYING WITH REALITY – UK PREMIERE
12 – 27 Oct | Bargehouse | 40min | Artist/Studio: Anagram | Ticketed
What happens in your mind when you act on impulse? This project playfully explores what it means to live with ADHD.

This brilliantly inventive take on living with ADHD employs Mixed Reality to capture the visual cacophony of our thoughts and what it means to be neurodivergent. Through captivating gameplay, follow four outsiders whose rollercoaster of emotions leads them to a life on the edge. As the characters explore their thought patterns, you can uncover your own to reach a state of empathy and understanding.

ARCADE
12 – 27 Oct | BFI Southbank (outside Theatre Avenue entrance) | 30min | Artist/Studio:
DARKFIELD | Ticketed
Can a gaming avatar be conscious of its own actions? Find out in DARKFIELD’s latest adventure – a fully interactive choose-your-own-path experience with immersive sound.

Enter ARCADE’s world, where your decisions ultimately shape your journey. You can choose a side in a war-torn world, seek peace or even join a cult. Through spatial sound and sensory effects, you and your fellow audience members set out on a quest through an alternate reality, in which you begin to question your perception of free will and consciousness.

THE GREAT ENDEAVOUR – INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
11 – 27 Oct | Outernet (Free) | 10min | Artist/Studio: Liam Young | Free
Gigantic waves, raging storms and the largest construction project in Human history: this impressive cinematic experience envisions a future world where we achieve planetary transformation.

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To reach current climate targets, we must remove a gigatonne-scale of existing carbon from the atmosphere. Artist and filmmaker Liam Young approaches this monumental challenge with radical optimism. The Great Endeavour is a collaboration with scientists and technologists – set to a score by world-renowned musician Lyra Pramuk – that envisions a future world where we face up to our generation’s greatest challenge.

SUPERRADIANCE. EMBODYING EARTH – EUROPEAN PREMIERE
11 – 27 Oct | BFI IMAX Foyer (Free) | 20min | Artist/Studio: Memo Akten & Katie Peyton
Hodstadter | Free
Exploring the interplay of AI and dance, this riveting virtual simulation merges ethereal dancers with transhuman species, bringing them to life in an immersive ritual space.

This captivating multiscreen video and sound installation aims to deepen our connection to global ecosystems. Fusing artificial intelligence, dance and neuroscience, this otherworldly experience extends the viewer’s bodily perception, beyond the skin and into the environment. Located inside the foyer of the BFI IMAX, it invites cinemagoers and public audiences alike to engage with its mesmerising visuals and soundscape.

PLAYING WITH REALITY

Complementing the presentation of Anagram’s Impulse: Playing With Reality, this programme looks at neurodivergence as well as mental and physical health through a selection of XR experiences and installations, offering new perspectives on a pressing issue, and aimed at driving societal change

EMPEROR
12 – 27 Oct | Bargehouse| 40min | Lead artist(s): Marion Buger, Ilan J. Cohen | Free
An interactive narrative delving into the world of a father suffering from Aphasia and as his daughter grapples with his lost ability to find words.

Emperor tells the poetic story of a man who has lost his ability to speak, and his daughter’s quest to communicate with him. As she unravels his connection to words and memories, we join her on a surreal journey through aphasia, exploring themes of loss, age and enduring emotional bonds, all presented in black and white, and a traditional animation style.

MAMMARY MOUNTAIN
12 – 27 Oct | Bargehouse| 23min | Lead artist(s): Tara Baoth Mooney, Camille Baker, Maf’j Alvarez | Free
An intimate VR experience that explores ‘dis-ease’ within the body, through the lived experience of patients with breast cancer.

Meticulously crafted and developed in close collaboration with a team of scientists and researchers, this interactive experience tells the stories of patients’ healthcare struggles, with focus on breast cancer treatment. Audiences are led through a visual and sonic world that interweaves excerpts from survivors’ stories. It aims to invoke a more nuanced and holistic understanding of this sensitive topic.

SOUL PAINT – UK PREMIERE
12 – 27 Oct | Bargehouse| 27min | Lead artist(s): Sarah Ticho, Niki Smit | Free
Unfolding at the nexus of immersive technology, creative storytelling and wellbeing, Soul Paint delves into the richness of the embodied human experience.

Explore and express your emotions and bodily sensations through body mapping, 3D drawing and movement. Using cutting-edge interactive technology, this experience, narrated by Rosario Dawson, pushes boundaries and fosters new forms of embodied insight. It allows us to reflect on the diversity of human experience, both on individual and universal levels.

STIM CINEMA
12 – 27 Oct | Bargehouse| Lead artist(s): The Neurocultures Collective and Steven Eastwood | Free
This installation investigates the connections between repetitive stimming behaviours that are common in autism, the earliest forms of moving images and contemporary digital art.
Stim Cinema explores repetitive actions and autistic experiences by tracing the origins of cinema and its language. Coalescing neurodivergent perspectives, it offers new representations of autism, and it pioneers inclusive practices in moving image art. Co-created by The Neurocultures Collective and artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood, this project invites viewers to experience the joy in stimming and shared neurodiversity.

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