Rozsypne scattered (2019)
”This piece elects not to place you in a tv-familiar gun smoked chaos of a war zone, but in the centre of a calm and colourful field of towering sunflowers. In the company of an older woman in her kitchen, and with the voice over of a niece who loves her, the intrusion of tanks rolling through the fields, and the violence of shells falling from the sky is all the more stark.” - Verity McIntosh
Selected for the DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction @ IDFA 2019
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FORBES TOP 50 XR EXPERIENCES OF 2019
In the summer of 2014, the remote village Rozsypne in the Eastern-Ukrainian countryside found itself in the midst of a raging civil war, the lives of its inhabitants unsettled by the destruction, chaos and Russia-backed warfare at their doorstep. This war went along without much media-coverage and the suffering of Rozsypne only made international news after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down, killing all 298 passengers on board, and scattering debris, bodily remains and other traces of human life over the fields and homes of the village. (By chance, during research, we as creating team discovered that Rozsypne translates as scattered.)
The VR roomscale experience Rozsypne counters the often unbalanced international coverage of the event that centers on Western European lives, with a poetic window into the scattered life of Nina, an elderly woman of the village Rozsypne. The experience allows someone to move through the typical Ukrainian sunflower fields, witness the details of Nina’s austere but cozy home, and experience the feeling of this faraway reality up-close. It’s an extremely vivid and brightly coloured exploration of mourning and endurance, and common human feeling.
13 minutes, roomscale, RU/EN/NL
Listen:
ROZSYPNE in progress in VPRO Bureau Buitenland
ROZSYPNE in Met het oog op morgen
Interview with Voices of VR podcast
Read:
Interview met VICE
Deze 14 docu’s moet je zien tijdens IDFA in Parool
Nick Cunningham on Rozsypne project presentation during Holland Film Meeting
Deze zeven interactieve documentaires moet je zien! 2DOC