The NewImages Festival - one of the biggest gatherings dedicated to new immersive forms - is returning to the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris for an irresistibly tantalising 9th edition. Between 8 and 12 April, the event steered by Michele Ziegler will showcase 3 works which are freely accessible to the general public (12-year-olds and over) and which span virtual and augmented reality, interactive works, immersive performances, visual universes and 360° dome creations. The selection will explore themes such as the ecological crisis, LGBTQIA+ identities, consciousness, the experience of illness, social realities, and cultural and ritual heritage.

Three competitions will grace the agenda. Standing especially tall among the 18 works in the XR Competition are A Long Goodbye by Kate Voet and Victor Maes (Belgium/Luxembourg/Netherlands), Nazar by Lara Kobeissi (UK/Lebanon), The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up by Singing Chen (Taiwan/Germany), Dark Rooms by Mads Damsbo, Laurits Flensted Jensen and Anne Sofie Steen Sverdrup (Denmark/Taiwan/Germany), The Baby Factory Is Closed by Deepa Mann-Kler (Northern Ireland/UK) and the French productions Reframing Queer Exile - Chapter 1: Victoria by Em Rose Hamilton, Indulto by Mélanie Courtinat, Yesterday Maybe by Matthieu Van Eeckhout, Where the Sun Never Sets by Elise Morin and Crafting Crimes: The Mona Lisa Heist by Chloé Rochereuil. They’re joined in the showcase by works hailing from the USA, Brazil, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Tanzania.

Devised for a dome screen, the Dome Competition will propose 11 spectacular works capable of transforming audiences’ perceptions. Central to this line-up are the French productions Les Lapins Trois-Oreilles by Michel Ocelot and Laurent Perez del Mar and Entrez dans la danse by Julie Desmet Weaver, Eugénie Andrin and Claire Allante, not to mention Denmark’s Reality Looks Back by Anne Jeppesen and Omid Zarei. The section also includes works from Taiwan, Peru, Chile, Colombia, a co-production involving South Africa and France, another carried by the UK and Zimbabwe and a third by the US and Italy.

The Virtual World line-up will present seven works, including French-Estonian title Frustrain: Trainman by Pavel Pavlyukov, Georgii Molodtsov, Anna Pimen and Oleg Radchenko, British offering Strangeways by Adam Lieber and Chris Bianchi and productions hailing from China, the US, Australia, the UAE and Curaçao.

The jam-packed NewImages Festival will also offer up a Panorama section (11 immersive works exploring the notion of boundaries) and a Wild Card line-up (revolving around young creation and artistic innovation, providing a space in which students and teachers can experiment).

Geared towards professionals, the Industry Days sidebar is set to unfold between 7 and 10 April, hosting conferences, workshops and two XR Markets drawing together artists, producers, broadcasters and specialists from the immersive sector. Speakers will notably include Liz Rosenthal (of the Venice Biennale), Shari Frilot (Sundance), Mike Salmon (Venice Immersive) and Jordana Leigh (Lincoln Center).