Moscow International Experimental Film Festival MIEFF and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art present their joint VR project: the innovative VR-film The Deserted by the Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang.
The director Tsai Ming-liang turns to virtual reality, expanding the borders of a VR film. The project is created by a pioneer of VR technologies—HTC company (HTC Virtual Reality Content Centre) together with Jaunt China. The original Chinese title of the fifty-five-minute-long film means House of Lan Re Temple and refers to a story about ghosts. Lan Re is an abandoned temple inhabited by ghosts and spirits. Three years ago due to poor health, Tsai moved to an abandoned house in the mountains together with Lee Kang-sheng, an actor in all of his films. They started to live closer to nature, they repaired the old house, cultivated the land, and they lived next to insects, birds and other creatures. “We were surrounded by other abandoned and ramshackle houses. Sometimes I got a feeling that nonetheless we do have neighbors, though we do not see them. I told Lee Kang-sheng “We live in Lan Re Temple”. The film premiered at the 74th Venice Film Festival within the virtual reality films program at the VR theatre on Lazaretto Island.
Tsai Ming-liang is the recipient of a number of prizes from prestigious European film festivals, including the "Golden Lion" of the Venice Film Festival. He was born on October 27, 1957 in the city of Kuching, Malaysia. At the age of twenty, he came to Taiwan. In 1998, he graduated from the Department of Drama and Cinematography of the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan, after which he worked as a producer, screenwriter and television director in Hong Kong. Among Tsai's achievements are the Golden Lion (Best Picture) for Vive L'Amour at the Venice Film Festival in 1994, the Silver Bear (special jury prize) in 1998 for the film River at the Berlin Film Festival, the FIPRESCI Award at the Cannes Film Festival for the film Hole, the Silver Bear for the best director at the Berlinale-2005 for the film Capricious Cloud, the Grand Prix of the 70th Venice Film Festival for the film Stray Dogs (2013).
HTC Vive Pro, a new system of virtual reality, will be used for the film demonstration.
VR project: The Deserted
Taiwan, 2017, 55 min. 18+
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang