The Sydney Film Festival will launch on 8 June with its typically spectacular lineup of international and Australian films screening across the CBD. Yet if you journey outside of the city to the University of New South Wales in Kensington, you will find something else that is entirely different and more immersive than anything you are likely to see on the big screen this year.
Scenario, in the words of the iCinema Centre for Interactive Research that created it, is “a world first 360-degree 3D cinematic installation whose narrative is interactively produced by the audience and humanoid characters with artificial intelligence (AI). The title is a Commedia dell’arte term, referring to how the dramatic action depends on the way actors and audience interact”.
Written by Stephen Sewell (The Boys), is an experimental study for a research project supported under the Australian Research Council’s Fellowship and Discovery Projects funding schemes. In this exclusive interview with the director of the project, Prof. Dennis Del Favero, we speak about the installation, interactivity, co-evolutionary narrative and the future of cinematic storytelling.
Scenario screens daily throughout the Sydney Film Festival from June 8 through 19. Three free sessions will screen per hour, and bookings are essential.
The Sydney Film Festival runs from 8 – 19 June 2011 at various venues across the Sydney CBD. The program launch was on 11 May 2011. For the full program, please visit their website. Tickets are now on sale.
