“In the Shoes of a Fugitive Man,” thanks Vr
The Venice Film Festival is also a valuable laboratory of new languages. This is confirmed by Stay Alive my son, by Greek-American director Victoria Bousis, in competition in the Venice Immersive section. It’s a project based on Pin Yathay’s international bestseller that combines interactive storytelling, virtual technology and immersive experience, in which the viewer, aided by a visor equipped with a headset and an armband, travels into the soul of a man forced to make unspeakable choices, such as abandoning his sick child to escape the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. “We use the virtual world,” Bousis says, “to make people experience something unique. I wanted the audience, instead of just watching, to step into this old man’s shoes and share his experience there, where he lived it, experiencing his memories: in this world, the viewer’s brain starts to think he is the main character. I love traditional cinema, but I am convinced that it is necessary to tell human rights issues differently, especially to reach the younger generation. In this case we are talking about genocide in Cambodia, but the same can apply to the war in Ukraine.“
