The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, announced additional programming to take place at Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios including DEFCON’s renowned hacking conference, Oculus Story Studio’s virtual reality experience, a special event with A$AP Rocky, and industry discussions in partnership with leading cultural institutions—“Tea Talks”. Additionally Chris Milk has been named the inaugural featured creator at Spring Studios. Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios, located at 50 Varick Street, will be open for the Festival from April 16 – 26.
DEFCON, the world’s biggest, longest-running underground hacking conference, will, for the first time ever, bring their famous Villages–interactive spaces stocked with gear, projects, and brilliant humans–to the Festival, where visitors can immerse themselves in hands-on activities, and open-ended experimentation designed to bring out the hacker in everyone. Inspired by film and current events, Festivalgoers will be invited to explore and participate in hack-type scenarios to further illustrate the importance of technology, security, and knowledge in this digital age. A special talk by founder Dark Tangent will kick start the festivities, which begin on April 23, and continue through April 25.
Oculus Story Studio is a small internal team of film and game developers dedicated to exploring “immersive cinema”–real-time story-driven VR experiences that let the viewer step inside and actively participate in the story. Their goal is to learn more about cinema and storytelling in VR and to share that knowledge with the film community.
Oculus Story Studio will showcase its short (6.5-minute) experience called “Lost” using the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype. “Lost” takes the viewer on a journey to a moonlit forest inhabited by an unexpected creature. The piece is directed by Oculus Story Studio’s creative director Saschka Unseld, who was also the director of Pixar’s short film “The Blue Umbrella.”
Chris Milk will be the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival Featured Creator at Spring Studios throughout the Festival. Chris Milk is an American artist, director, and entrepreneur. He is well known for his trailblazing interactive projects like “The Wilderness Downtown” and “The Johnny Cash Project” and for his large scale installations, “The Treachery of Sanctuary” and “The Exquisite Forest” (which was featured in Storyscapes in 2013). He is now working on groundbreaking virtual reality projects through his new endeavor, Vrse, with a collective of artists, technicians, thinkers, and innovators in the field. Chris brings a sense of artistry, craft and beauty to the virtual reality space. A selection of his VR projects will be featured throughout Spring Studios including “Evolution of Verse” and “Clouds Over Sidra.”
Rap phenomenon, director and style icon A$AP Rocky will join journalist/curator/creator Elliott Wilson for a Tribeca Talks event on Tuesday, April 21, sponsored by Hennessy V.S. Native New Yorkers Rocky and Wilson will talk music, life–and the role that storytelling, directing and music videos played in his rise to Global Hip Hop royalty. The event–which will be filmed to air on WatchLOUD.com–is part of the critically-acclaimed CRWN series, a live + mobile + social experience, which has hosted Drake, Nicki Minaj and Kendrick Lamar.
Throughout TFF, key cultural organizations will participate in a series of discussions on the business and burgeoning creativity behind the scenes of the film industry —Tea Talks at Spring. Each group will bring their unique perspective to intimate conversations taking place in the Festival lounges at Spring Studios. Curating companies include The Blackhouse Foundation, Creative Future, The Film Foundation, IFP, Kickstarter, and NYWIFT.
In addition, IBM’s Alexa Swainson-Barreveld, and GE’s Alex Tapper were added as participants in the Tribeca Talks: Imagination series on April 22. Access to the full Tribeca lineup at the new downtown creative hub is available via the Spring Pass. Passes are now available on early bird sale here. TribecaFilm.com.
