Shadowtime

(Premiered at Venice Film Festival, 2023)

You are in two worlds at the same time. Your body is in the other world. But your heart is in this world.

‘Shadowtime’ is a word drawn from a new lexicon for the anthropocene. It is the feeling of occupying two irreconcilable times simultaneously. Making breakfast for a child, while knowing that in that child’s lifetime a species of flower that has existed for millennia has gone extinct. Driving to try and make work on time it occurs to you that the gas in your engine is the compressed bones of prehistoric creatures. 

‘Shadowtime VR’ takes these temporal incompatibilities and explores them in the realm of virtual reality and simulation theory. To exist in the virtual world is to have two bodies, four hands, two hearts. To exist in two worlds at the same time. Alma, a mysterious guide to this double world, leads you through questions around climate crisis, grief, and the provocation of the virtual as a retreat or shelter, or as a place from which to come to learn how to be in two places, two times, simultaneously. 

Directed by:
 Sister Sylvester
 and Deniz Tortum
Production Company:
 Institute of Time
Producers:
 Firat Sezgin
 Ecegül Bayram
Alma: Rawya El Chab
Lead Developer:
 Sjoerd van Acker
Music
: Alican Çamcı
3D Artist:
 Bats Bronsveld
AI Artist:
 Arjan van Meerten
Installation Artist:
 Doruk Çiftçi
Co Producers:
 Onassis ONX Studio
, Vallejo Gantner
, Jazia Hammoudi
, Prodromos Tsiavos

Screened at:
Venice Film Festival – Venice, Italy, August 28 – September 7, 2023
Amsterdam IDFA & Eye – Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 6 – 17, 2023
Thessaloniki International Film Festival – Thessaloniki, Greece, October 31 – November 10, 2023
Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF) – Geneva, Switzerland, November 1 – 10, 2023
Church of VR at VR Days – Rotterdam, Netherlands, January 2024
SXSW (South by Southwest) – Austin, Texas, USA, March 8 – 16, 2024
Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International – Frankfurt, Germany, April 16 – 21, 2024
Beijing International Film Festival – Beijing, China, April 20 – 27, 2024
Beldocs (Belgrade International Documentary Film Festival) – Belgrade, Serbia, May 8 – 15, 2024
Animator Festival – Poznań, Poland, July 5 – 11, 2024
Sheffield Doc/Fest – Sheffield, UK, June 12 – 17, 2024
Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) – Bucheon, South Korea, July 3 – 14, 2024
Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) – Melbourne, Australia, August 1 – 18, 2024
Netherlands Film Festival – Utrecht, Netherlands, September 27 – October 5, 2024
Kaohsiung Film Festival – Kaohsiung, Taiwan, October 18 – 27, 2024
Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival – Jihlava, Czech Republic, October 22 – 27, 2024
ART*VR – Czech Republic, October 15 – 20, 2024
Felix Meritis Amsterdam “The Known/The Strange” – Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 9, 2024
VR Days in Innsbruck – Innsbruck, Austria, November 23 – 24, 2024
Stereopsia festival Brussels, December 9th 2024

Installation at Venice International Film Festival, 2023.

Installation at EYE Museum, NL