Directed by Taiwanese director Hsin-Chien Huang, the VR film “Bodyless” is selected for the 2020 Cinequest Film & creativity Festival in San Jose, California. The VR Experience session will showcase immersive and interactive VR films at KALEID Gallery (320 S. 1st Street, San Jose) from March 5th to March 8th. “Bodyless” combines traditional culture and beliefs with new technology, allowing audiences to be surrounded by a full three-dimensional 360 virtual world to interact and play with the world and characters as an active participant. Welcome to join the screening of “Bodyless” to enjoy the unbelievable immersive experiences.
“Bodyless” is co-produced by director Hsin-Chien Huang and Lim Giong, the renowned winner of Best Original Film Score award, Golden Horse. The storyline focuses on an elderly political criminal convicted under a governmental secret experiment, who ended up perishing in prison. He then became a ghost and descended into the underground world. As an old Taiwanese belief goes, after death, all ghosts will descend into the underground world. Only when July of the lunar calendar, which is called “Ghost Month” comes, the gates of hell will open for the ghosts to return to the living world to visit their families. Through the old man’s eyes, culture and nature intertwined into a rich spiritual world. However, the spiritual world started to decay by the invasion of mechanical force. “Bodyless” conveys how humans face the situation of existence, belief, and aloofness in the space-time which humans are ruled by digital technology-centered totalitarianism.
“Bodyless” has been selected for the “Venice Virtual Reality” competition at the 76th Venice Film Festival, the VR Experience at the 39th Hawaii International Film Festival, and the Cannes XR at Cannes Film Festival 2019. In the same year, it received the Special Mention award from Kaohsiung International Film Festival. Director Hsin-Chien Huang is a recognized Taiwanese new media artist, who is well-known for integrating virtual reality with interaction, performing arts, installation art, and power machine etc. into large new media productions. One of Huang’s artworks, “La Camera Insabbiata,” received the award for Best VR Experience at the 74th Venice International Film Festival.
Founded in 1990, Cinequest is an annual international film festival held in San Jose and Redwood City, California. Located in Silicon Valley known for its frontier technology, Cinequest combines arts and innovative spirit with Silicon Valley’s technology. It has gained a reputation as showing "the future of film" by Chris Gore's Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide, and was voted by USA Today readers as one of the best Film Festivals.
Over 100,000 attendees participate in Cinequest, including 1,100 artists, innovators, and youth from over 50 countries each year. Cinequest presents over 300 films and virtual augmented reality, over 130 of which are world and U.S. premieres. The 2020 edition of Cinequest will continue to present film, technology, as well as additional creative experiences such as fashion, writing, television, dance, art and design, in a form of creative summit, to display multiple dimensions.
For more information related to “Bodyless” in the VR Experience session, please go to https://www.cinequest.org/vr-experience-lounge; for more detailed information about 2020 Cinequest, please visit https://www.cinequest.org/.