ArtPower! and the Qualcomm Institute at the University of California, San Diego, are jointly exploring the future of movies with a four-day festival of screenings, interactive film-based performances and digital media workshops in April.
The Filmatic Festival, scheduled for April 24-27, aims to be a catalyst for creativity on campus and across the San Diego region while showcasing the creative media work of UC San Diego faculty, students and international artists.
Produced by ArtPower! and curated by some of San Diego’s leading film curators and media artists, the festival will explore the future of film and the evolving audience experience.
The festival was inspired by the notion that the future of movies will lie in immersive and interactive experiences, in which on-screen entertainment may be only part of the experience.
“Filmatic aims to explore hybridized, thought-provoking, yet entertaining media,” explained Rebecca Webb, curator of the festival. “Audiences are not content to sit passively in a theater anymore because so much of modern life and technology revolves around the ability to interact and create in real time.”
The Qualcomm Institute’s commitment to technological innovation and multi-disciplinary collaboration made it a natural fit for exploring the next generation of film experience. The institute brings together more than 350 faculty members and nearly 120 technical and professional staff, as well as hundreds of student students and researchers , to explore ideas ranging from brain science to robotics.
“Although interactivity has made its way increasingly into digital media such as gaming and even television, the movie industry has done very little to add interaction to the film-going experience,” says Ramesh Rao, director of the institute. “Organizers of the festival have put together an adventurous program that will clue viewers into just how quickly technology is going to refresh the art and business of film-making and movie-going in the 21st century.”
Tickets to the festival are available online at www.artpower.ucsd.edu, or in person at the UC San Diego Box Office in the Price Center Plaza.
The festival is part of ArtPower’s 10th anniversary season of dance, chamber music, jazz, global music and film.
— From an ArtPower! press release
