Elie Levasseur: The Future of Cannes XR & NewImages Festival

The debut of Cannes XR was certainly not the first event on immersive for conference veteran Elie Levasseur. As a Head of Programming behind Paris’ Cross Video Days for five years, he is used to scouting for the best XR work from across the globe. 

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Justine 0:00

So once again at Cannes XR and Justine Harcourt de Tourville and I am with someone very special, someone has a lot to do with Cannes XR I am here with Elie Levasseur did I say it right? Yes. Welcome. And thanks for inviting me into your own festival.

Elie 0:20

Thanks for having me actually.

Justine 0:22

Listen, Cannes XR, I've been getting a lot of positive feedback. I hope you've been hearing that. What have you. It's the first one.

Elie 0:31

Yes, exactly. In fact, we have this next session in the last five years, but this year we decided to split the lineup and have a dedicated section to everything about VR and AR technologies. And this is the new Cannes XR.

Justine 0:49

Well, what's really been great or what I've been hearing is the fact that we're all together contained in one space and it has made it really easy to connect with others and talk. Was that your intention?

Elie 1:03

Yes, of course. My intention was actually to gather the whole XR community and make sure that from all the value all along the value chain, I mean from the producers to the distributors that anyone can find some interest on on this section. And yeah for me every event starts with a community. So if you, if you realize that this kind of a mixer about, you know, different players in the industry, then all the people can find some interest. So this is, this is exactly what we want to do.

Justine 1:47

Yeah. And one thing I thought was pretty interesting is that for a lot of us, we have the opportunity to see a few more pieces and projects simply because there's an arcade here. Where did that inspiration come from?

Elie 2:03

Yeah, in fact I'll start this, this I took over the position was that's challenges actually Cannes XR wanted to position the event as a marketplace. And this is actually what is very different from other big festival like Venice, Tribeca, Sundance. And so the idea is, was not to have a VR competition and have a selection of projects. So we need to think something different. So my idea was, okay, maybe we can gather in into one library a lot of projects projects produced within the year. And so make it attractive for people like distributors or festival programmers, curators, a place where, you know, they can scout project matching was their own editorial line. So this is the idea of, of this arcade.

Justine 3:07

Well, it's worked. I finally was able to see some pieces that have been on my list for awhile. So that was pretty exciting. Thank you. Any other little things that you know, that you really put some effort into and thought then I'm not speaking about? I want to make sure that we all get to hear why contacts are with special.

Elie 3:27

Yeah. We, we introduce a few things. One of these things is the hub, which is let's say launch bar a place open to the public in the morning, but a place that can be privatized by anyone who would want to make a showcase follow up by an industry mixer, a cocktail. And this, the idea of this place is really to, okay if you want to together so some people around a project and make connection with the industry. This is the place to be while you can, you know. Yeah. show off what you're able to do. And the other thing was a, I think a good idea was also to to introduce some a summit. I mean, to split the line up with one topic per day. Right. So people can really, you know, have a focus and say, okay, this is for me, or this is not for me eventually. But was was that kind of lineup, it was more easy to gather some interest around one day. And also actually it was, it was a cool idea to bring some sponsors because sponsors like, yeah.

Justine 4:50

Orange and HP

Elie 4:52

Yeah, exactly.

Justine 4:55

We love them. No, I also appreciate the fact that many of these mixers included not crappy crappy drinks, but we actually had champagne.

Elie 5:04

That's cool.

Justine 5:04

That's what's cool about Cannes for sure. now the, the idea of having focused showcases was helpful. I know like location based entertainment, you know, as a whole theme. Yeah. Made it useful for people to indeed carve up their days that they are able to do some mixing and networking and also hit the things that they want to hear and also see things. So Yup. Tell us about NewImages. That's your next festival. Oh, can't we just say that it's a maybe a, a nice, it's complimentary to everything that we've done in comics are, yeah, I think so. So because,

Elie 5:46

Cannes XR is very much focused on narrative of course because this is a festival, NewImages is a much more open to a large diversity of format from video games to art installation. to of course narrative as well. But the cool stuff is, is really to have a place where we can gather museums, art galleries, broadcasters, lbe and it's all this mix of people. It looks pretty much interesting for me.

Justine 6:25

And I think, you know, that's a, that's a great compliment to what we have here at Cannes XR.

Elie 6:33

And you can see in the selection of projects here in the arcade, I think we have like 80% of three 60 videos and this is exactly the opposite at NewImages. So we very much focus on, on LBE and and yeah, and project designed for, for LBE distribution.

Justine 7:00

And when this happening?

Elie 7:02

From the 19th to the 23 of June

Justine 7:05

And it's in Paris, so no beautiful beaches like we have here now.

Elie 7:11

No but actually beautiful buildings and monuments. We're going to have some great parties on the rooftops with a view at 360 on Paris. And this is also some kind of pictures.

Justine 7:29

Yes. I can't be beat that either. Bravo la belle France for all of these great things as to offer us on top of these great festivals and so Cannes XR. It's happening next year?

Elie 7:41

Yeah. so yeah, we still have, maybe this is the first edition, so of course we will have to discuss what works, evaluate and uh, we will see what happened next year, but I'm sure that will be something about, about XR. `

Justine 7:59

This has been terrific. Thanks so much for being with us and having us Elie.

Elie 8:02

Thank you very much. Sure.