Conflict Zones, VR Documentary Storytelling and Confronting Censorship

Sam Wolson Director Sam Wolson will explore some of the challenges
in VR documentary storytelling in this talk, drawing from firsthand
experience shooting We Who Remain in a Sudanese war zone.
How can VR be used to combat censorship and oppressive regimes? How
do you create a narrative in a medium whose language is not yet
established? How do you get VR films out to the world? We Who
Remain, which premiered this year at the South By
Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, is the first
character-driven immersive documentary shot in an active conflict
zone. The 15-minute film weaves together the lives of four
people – a student, a rebel soldier, a journalist, and a
mother – persevering in war in the Nuba Mountains of
Sudan. The film is a co-production between Nuba
Reports, a pioneering journalism initiative that produces
films and news from the front lines of Sudan’s conflict zones,
and Emblematic Group, one of the world's foremost creators of
immersive virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, in
collaboration with The New York Times, AJ+ and ARTE.