The 12th edition of the Geneva Digital Market (GDM) has been hailed a success by organisers following a change in venue that brought all the industry activities under the same roof as the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF), which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
“We could welcome everyone in this incredible building and theatre and GDM participants can easily access our virtual territories exhibition space in the building,” said GIFF artistic director Anais Emery. “It has made everything easier for creators, producers, developers and entrepreneurs to meet.”
The aim was to put immersive industry reps in the same space as film, TV and social media platform producers and creatives in the GIFF’s main venue of the Théâtre Pitoëff.
GDM head of industry Mathieu Gayet, who returned for his second year, pointed to an uptick in buzz and energy after GDM events, with attendees gathering outside the 200-plus seat auditorium to talk future projects and deals.
“The GDM is recognised for its tailor-made market, carefully selecting projects and decision-makers, and maintaining a focused, efficient schedule,” Gayet says. “This year it had to be like a Swiss train, running on time.”
The theatre space was used by GDM during the day before being returned to a showcase cinema screen for GIFF’s evening screenings. There was no room for overruns and helped focus contributor minds.
“We put a lot of energy into recording everything to put on our replay system online so content was visible for all accredited people so no one had to miss anything,” Gayet noted. “With the tailor -made conferences we worked hard with the speakers ahead of time to get incorporate content on screen to record it as television.”
Gayet points to the themed nature of the activities and hand-picked participant lists – “we want to have those people with the highest quality projects, working at a decision-making level here” – driving GDM towards a more efficient place for Europeans to do business.
Funding
With Switzerland becoming a deep-pocketed funder of future tech, emerging audiovisual techniques from immersive to AI and beyond and scripts of all shapes and sizes, GDM finds itself well-placed in the heart of Europe to provide co-production opportunities to attendees from neighbouring countries and beyond.
France-based Alexandrine Stehelin attended the GDM sporting two hats – one as a producer with Paris-based immersive company Lucid Realities, an immersive and interactive production and distribution company; the other as a representative for Unframed Collection, one of the first VoD platforms dedicated to the distribution of virtual reality experience in the cultural field of museums, heritage sites, galleries and art centres, media libraries.
For Lucid Realities, Andres Jarach and Gordon’s project’s Origin(s) was showcased in the XR Coproduction Sessions, the GDM’s meeting place for producers and creators of immersive experiences (VR, AR and MR). A multi-user immersive and collaborative experience, Origin(s) asks the audience to dive into Charles Darwin’s expeditions such as to the Galapagos Islands, collecting samples and making the discoveries that lead his workl.
“GDM provides the perfect opportunity to talk to potential Swiss partners about working on French and English -speaking installations,” Stehelin noted.
The same strand also features Marta Becket’s Death Valley from Geneva-located digital dance studio Studios44/MocapLab, headed by internationally renowned dance artist Gilles Jobin and Susana Panades Diaz. An augmented documentary, Jobin’s project tells the tale of the theatre painted by hand by the late dancer, choreographer, musician and painter Marta Becket in Death Valley Junction in the Mojave desert in California.
Jobin believes the immersive sector needs to get to a point where it is treated as an art form. “We need Immersive to be considered as a standalone art form and be critiqued and written about with authority.”
Audiences are hard to come by. “No-one is watching right now so why aren’t we doing more daring things?” Jobin suggested with a wry smile. “Then people will sit up and start to take notice.”
The GDM closed on November 7; GIFF runs until November 10.
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