VENICE, IT (July 30, 2024) – Today Anagram, the award-winning studio that brought you the Venice Immersive Grand Jury Prize-winning Goliath: Playing with Reality, along with co-producers Floréal and France Télévisions, have announced that Academy Award-winning Actor Tilda Swinton, will narrate the second installment in the Playing With Reality collection, Impulse.
Impulse: Playing with Reality is an interactive mixed reality documentary by May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy that explores ADHD and how you make sense of the world around you, told through the stories of four people coming to terms with the decisions which have chartered their lives.
Impulse will have its World Premiere as part of the 2024 Venice Immersive program at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. This is Swinton’s second consecutive time narrating for Anagram’s mental health collection. She previously narrated Goliath, which had its world premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in 2021.
“We are so excited to welcome Tilda Swinton back to our Playing with Reality collection for Impulse,” said co-director May Abdalla. “Tilda brings such an affecting presence to the experiences, gracefully guiding audiences through each individual narrative. Whether or not you’ve experienced stories similar to those told in Impulse firsthand, Tilda leaves you with a kernel of understanding.”
Swinton previously narrated 2021’s Goliath, which explored one man’s experience of psychosis. Goliath went on to win the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work at the 78th Venice International Film Festival (2021) and be nominated for the News & Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Interactive Media Innovation category (2022).
“Tilda is not only a titan, but a warm presence,” said co-director Barry Gene Murphy. “It’s imperative to be presented with something familiar in a work like this. Swinton’s voice and energy is one that delicately frames such personal stories, and we are delighted to have her back on board.”
The Playing with Reality collection uses a documentary storytelling approach to combine rigorous research with compelling narratives around mental health conditions. The employment of mixed reality plays with the audience’s relationship between the familiar and new, fostering a deeper understanding of mental health conditions. Impulse: Playing with Reality uses work with neuroscientists and psychologists, gathering 100+ hours of interviews on the severe end of the ADHD spectrum, in order to translate these experiences into a resonant story.
SYNOPSIS
What makes ideas real?
Exploring the extreme side of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Impulse brings together sharp-witted gameplay and dramatic first-hand accounts of people whose intense emotions lead them to a life at the edge. Leanne turns her world into a game to escape boredom. Omar’s chaotic mind focuses on mastermining risky heists. Errol creates a madcap persona to get respect. And Tara is on the brink – of giving up.
Their stories are brought home through mixed reality. Attempting to follow a train of thought, the stuff in your room sets off a chain reaction leading to all sorts of mayhem. Shadows on your walls become portals into labyrinthine worlds. Words spiral out into alternative meanings and possibilities.
Highlighting the inner life of ADHD, and the often-dismissed experience of the quiet girls, Impulse focuses on the thrill of acting without thinking and the power of uncovering your own patterns.
CREDITS
Impulse: Playing with Reality is a new work by Anagram, co-produced by Floréal & France Télévisions.
Impulse has been supported by Meta VR for Good, France Télévisions, CNC, Agog, City of Paris, and Unity Charitable Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation. Impulse was presented at the 2023 Venice Gap-Financing Market and Tribeca Creators Market.
ABOUT ANAGRAM
ANAGRAM is an award-winning creative studio specializing in interactive storytelling and immersive experience design that challenges the status quo. Experimenting at the edges of technology, our mission is to make thought-provoking and playful experiences that bring profound new perspectives.
We use physical and interactive storytelling across a number of contexts to challenge, inspire and influence the cultural discourse around present social and political issues.
Emmy-nominated and winners of the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Work at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival. Anagram have previously been awarded the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award, the 2019 Sandbox Immersive Art Award, part of the Best VR in 2019 at the Venice International Film Festival.
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@weareanagram
ABOUT FLOREAL
Founded in 2014, Floréal, based between Paris and Montreal and led by Avi Amar alongside producer Katayoun Dibamehr, is committed to discovering, supporting and sustaining talents with a singular gaze and solid artistic ambitions, both in cinema and immersive formats (XR). Since its creation, Floréal has produced or co-produced several works, including the highly acclaimed Minimum Mass (Cristal at Annecy 2020), The Hangman at Home (Grand Jury Prize at Venice 2020 and The Masque d’or at NewImages 2021), Goliath: Playing with Reality (Grand Jury Prize at Venice in 2021 and nominated for an Emmy Award – News & Documentary Award in 2022), Conann (Cannes – Directors’ Fortnight in 2023) and Maya : The Birth of a Superhero (Festival de Cannes – Immersive Competition in 2024).
www.floreal.io
