Virtual festival to explore VR storytelling

The Electric Africa Festival is presented by Electric South which is a South African non-profit organisation (NPO) based in Cape Town and is set to take place online 5 -11 November 2020, free of charge.

The NPO offers support, funding, production services, mentorship and exhibition services to a network of artist across Africa who explored their worlds through immersive, interactive storytelling using virtual and augmented reality.

According to Antoinette Engel who is the Electric South, Distribution Manager said this was the first online festival hosted by Electric South.

She said the festival will include daily webinars and panelists from renowned individuals.

The festival is geo-blocked to Africa, however, the industry programme is free and open to the public, available to audiences worldwide.

This includes Live talks with directors, producers, leaders in creative technologies, acclaimed artistic teams and the thinkers helping to ensure the inclusion of voices and stories in immersive media to come from the global South.

Panelists include Brian Afande who is the founder of Kenya’s BlackRhino VR, Judith Okonkwo from creation lab in Lagos, Nigeria, and Daliso Ngoma who is the founder of African Technopreneurs,” Engel said.

Engel said through a partnership with LucidWeb the program would be optimized for every viewers desktop, mobile phone and virtual reality headset giving a 360 functionality no matter the device.

“We welcome the support from some of our partners such as the South African Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, the National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa, the Bertha Foundation, and the French Institute of South Africa,” Engel said.

The Festival will be available to stream on the Electric South website.

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