Venice Immersive is the Extended Reality section of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival (27th August – 6th September 2025) of La Biennale di Venezia.
Launched in 2017, the section represents the first competition and official selection for works in Extended Reality in an A-list festival.
Venice Immersive presented 69 projects from 27 countries:
30 projects in Competition, representing a selection of 21 world premieres and 9 international premieres of the world’s best immersive works.
34 projects Out of Competition, an international selection of the best works that have been released or premiered elsewhere since the last edition of the Venice International Film Festival.
Entries from the UK this year include:
The Time Before
by Leo Metcalf and Michael Golembewski
Ghost Town
by Fireproof Games
Lili
by Navid Khonsari & Vassiliki Khonsari
On The Other Earth
by Wayne McGregor
Constantinopoliad
by Sister Sylvester and Nadah El Shazly
Those immersive projects supported by the BFI include:
Dream of Belonging
by Emi Sfard and Irena Bauman, of That’s How The Lights Gets In
Poetics of Soil: The Wood Wide Web
by Ersin Han Ersin, of Marshmallow Laser Feast
Fear City Paradise
by Darren Emerson, of East City Films
Venice Gap - Financing Market
There is also good news from the Venice Gap - Financing Market, where even more broader screen experiences from the UK are being recognised and supported. The 12th edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market (August 29 – August 31, 2025) offered selected projects from Europe and around the world the opportunity to close their international financing, through one-to-one meetings with international decision-makers.
In 2025 the UK is one of the Venice Production Bridge Focuses, supported by British Film Institute; alongside Chile, supported by Ministerio de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio, Gobierno de Chile; and Morocco, supported by Centre Cinématographique Marocain.
Background on broader screen content at the Venice Biennale
The Venice International Film Festival was one of the first film festivals in the world to show an interest in Virtual Reality. The development of a VR Theatre in 2016 sparked enormous interest among the participants of the Venice Production Bridge. Starting in 2017, La Biennale di Venezia launched the first competition for works in Virtual Reality in an A-list festival, which was held for three editions, through 2019, on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio on the Lido, judged by an International Jury.
The online accessibility of Venice VR Expanded over two editions (2020 and 2021) represented a new commitment and a new challenge to guarantee that the Venice International Film Festival would continue to offer the experience of this new art form, even in times of required social distancing. In 2022 the section, renamed Venice Immersive, returned in person to the island. Since the very first years, the section has been recognised as a unique event in the field and the most significant annual exhibition of immersive arts and media.