VIDEO Elie Levasseur (Cannes Immersive) at Mestia International Short and Mountain Film Festival

He scouts immersive artworks from across the globe and has been appointed the Head of Immersive, a new section at Cannes International Film Festival, inaugurated just two years ago. Elie Levasseur reports to Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director at Festival de Cannes.

Levasseur is a busy man and difficult to catch these days. But Khatuna Khundadze, founder and director of Mestia International Short and Mountain Film Festival made the impossible possible and here he is giving a masterclass at Mestia International Short and Mountain Film Festival 28.07-03.08. He is the special guest of this festival edition after last year legendary mountaneer Reinhold Messner.

Not only is he "a genius" when it comes to immersive, and here I am quoting Romanian film director Ioana Mischie, who was last year included in the Immersive Competition at Festival de Cannes with her immersive artwork "Human Violins Prelude" and this year was together with Khatuna Khundadze one of the panelists at the World Woman Cannes Agenda organised by the World Woman Foundation.

Levasseur, and not only him, his entire family is also passionate about mountains. This all in favour for Khatuna, it did not take long to convince Levasseur and his family to come to Mestia,  as I found out in the exclusive interview with both of them, Levasseur and Khundadze.

While the booked out masterclass took place at the venue of the film festival, the Mestia Culture and Art Center, our interwiew took place in different and very special place, on a summit.

 I choose the highest tower in Ushguli!

Ushguli is famous for being the highest village in Europe where people live the entire year. Not easy to access, far away from influences from outside, it has  preserved many of the villages' medieval characteristics, including unique defensive tower houses, the so called Svan towers. Because of their preservation and traditional architecture, Ushguli, Mestia, and the surrounding area was recognized as the Upper Svaneti UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

At the interview and at his earlier masterclass Levasseur made clear where he positions immersive in our days. His masterclass was interactive as we the audience were inquired to envisage the destiny of immersive storytelling vs traditional filmmaking.

Is it a new genre of cinema, or rather the latest development and maybe the future of cinema? Or maybe none of this, is it after all a new art form, independ from the cinema?

What would you say? Where do you position immersive storytelling? 

Here you can find out what Elie Levasseur and Khatuna Khundadze said, watch theit interview.

The next occasion to meet Elie Levasseur? Might be soon, at Venice International Film Festival, where I will explore new realities on a little island close to the Lido, enterly dedicated to the immersive art!