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[FCE] Meet your descendants – and your future self! A trip to Venice film festival’s extended reality island | Movies | The Guardian

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Every year, the Venice Film Festival draws global attention as one of the world’s oldest and most respected film events. In 2025, a unique section of the festival, known as Venice Immersive, has once again taken centre stage. Held on the small island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, a place with a haunting history as a plague quarantine site, this part of the festival focuses on extended reality (XR) storytelling. XR combines virtual reality and other advanced technologies to create interactive experiences, allowing visitors to step inside stories. Whether it’s wandering through a fictional world, a lively nightclub, or even outer space, users become active participants in the narrative, making each journey deeply personal.

Since its launch in 2017, Venice Immersive has grown into a platform for groundbreaking creativity. This year, it featured 69 projects, including large-scale installations and virtual worlds accessed via headsets. Among the most striking works was Ancestors, where participants are grouped as families and shown images of their future descendants on their mobile devices. Another project, Blur, delves into complex themes of identity and cloning, even presenting users with a virtual image of their aged selves—a thought-provoking look into what lies ahead. Dark Rooms, meanwhile, immerses users in the vibrant and emotional world of queer subculture, blending technology with raw human feeling.

What makes Venice Immersive so significant is its vision of XR as the future of storytelling. While some worry that technology, particularly artificial intelligence, might overshadow human creativity, experts like jury president Eliza McNitt believe XR is simply a tool for creating unique, collaborative art. Even Hollywood is taking notice, with well-known directors like Doug Liman, famous for The Bourne Identity, exploring XR through projects such as Asteroid, a thrilling space adventure. This trend suggests that XR is not here to replace traditional cinema but to offer new ways of experiencing stories.

The impact of this year’s event is clear: XR is no longer just a novelty. It has matured into a medium capable of producing complex and meaningful works that link past, present, and future. As Venice Immersive continues to evolve, it is carving out a space where technology and emotion intersect, redefining how we connect with narratives. The question remains—how will this innovative approach shape the future of storytelling?

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1. What is the main focus of Venice Immersive at the Venice Film Festival?

  • A. Promoting traditional filmmaking techniques
  • B. Showcasing extended reality storytelling
  • C. Highlighting historical films about Venice
  • D. Celebrating classic Hollywood movies

2. What is unique about the location of Venice Immersive?

  • A. It is held in a modern cinema complex
  • B. It takes place on a famous tourist island
  • C. It is hosted on a site once used for plague quarantine
  • D. It is located in the heart of Venice city

3. What does the project Blur explore, according to the article?

  • A. The history of virtual reality technology
  • B. Themes of identity and cloning
  • C. The future of family relationships
  • D. The development of space travel

4. What is Eliza McNitt’s view on the role of technology in XR storytelling?

  • A. It threatens to replace human creativity
  • B. It should be avoided in artistic projects
  • C. It is a tool for creating collaborative art
  • D. It is too complex for most artists to use

5. How does the article describe the current status of XR storytelling?

  • A. It is still seen as an unimportant trend
  • B. It has developed into a meaningful medium
  • C. It is struggling to gain attention
  • D. It is unlikely to influence future cinema