Hélène Marteau
Contact - France Télévisions
Venice Immersive competition
Impulse : playing with reality
With the voice of Tilda Swinton
Impulse is one of the three projects, coproduced by France Télévisions' StoryLab, to have been selected for the Venice Immersive competition.
Impulse : playing with reality is a 40-minute interactive mixed reality documentary about how you make sense of the world around you, told through the stories of four people who are coming to terms with the decisions which have chartered their lives.
Synopsis
What makes ideas real?
Exploring the extreme side of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Impulse brings together sharp-witted gameplay and dramatic first-hand accounts of people whose intense emotions lead them to a life at the edge. Leanne turns her world into a game to escape boredom. Omar’s chaotic mind focuses on mastermining risky heists. Errol creates a madcap persona to get respect. And Tara is on the brink - of giving up.
Their stories are brought home through mixed reality. Attempting to follow a train of thought, the stuff in your room sets off a chain reaction leading to all sorts of mayhem. Shadows on your walls become portals into labyrinthine worlds. Words spiral out into alternative meanings and possibilities.
Highlighting the inner life of ADHD, and the often-dismissed experience of the quiet girls, Impulse focuses on the thrill of acting without thinking and the power of uncovering your own patterns.
Directors' statement
Social media would have us believe that we are all on a path of self discovery. Within the piles of information shared, a growing heap is dedicated to ADHD. Some celebrate the creative galaxy brain, but for those without support or easily dismissed as delinquent, lazy, and, to be truthful ‘unproductive’, ADHD can lead to a life of misery. 1 in 4 prisoners in the UK are likely to have ADHD. For many a diagnosis is an epiphany that reveals the invisible barriers they had been fighting. Working with neuroscientists and psychologists we gathered 100+ hours of interviews with people on the severe end of the spectrum. We looked for poetic connections to translate into a rich embodied story. Adrenalin-packed gameplay spoke to the needy dopamine-depleted brain. Mixed reality plays with your own relationship with the familiar and new. Through insight into what might drive these actions we hope to foster a deeper understanding of the lived experience of ADHD.
— Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla, Directors
Instagram: @impulse.xr
May Abdalla is a highly acclaimed director and artist known for using physical experience, technology and storytelling in ground-breaking ways. Her work brings poetic insight and meaningful interactivity to important contemporary issues with the aim of deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. After graduating with honours in Social and Political Science from Cambridge University, she directed a number of character-led documentary films internationally which were screened by the BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera and also selected for Semaine De Le Critique at Cannes.
She co-founded Anagram, a multi-award winning studio to explore the use of immersive technology in non-fiction storytelling. May is CEO and Artistic Director of Anagram, their work spans many forms ranging from a blindfolded experience about being lost that took place in a 6000 sq ft sensory set (Door Into The Dark, Winner of Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award 2015) to an augmented reality journey through a park leading you to uncover the intelligence of plants and the limitations of humans (Messages to A Post Human Earth, International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam, Immersive Non-Fiction, 2021).
Her work has been presented at the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia on three occasions (Nominated for Best Interactive 2021 and 2018 and Best of VR 2019) She was awarded the Grand Jury Award for Best VR as co-director along with Barry Gene Murphy for Goliath: Playing with Reality in 2021.
Barry Gene Murphy is an award-winning filmmaker and artist with over 20 years’ experience in animation, 3D and special effects, and more recently in mixed-reality works.
He has created visuals for Nike, Sky, Samsung, and for the Royal Ballet in association with Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta. Barry Murphy teaches animation at Plymouth University and his short film Two Wheels Good, which is the story of cyclists who
remember a world before cars, won a series of international prizes, including one for most promising director.
He has directed music videos for numerous bands, including White Lies. Barry’s first foray into the world of virtual reality was at the start of 2013 as a visual designer on Proteus, an interactive textual experience based on Ulysses by James Joyce.
Barry is Creative Director of Anagram where he was the artistic director and designer for Make Noise which premiered in the VR selection of the 2018 Venice Biennale and was nominated for the Future of Storytelling Bridging the Divide award. He co-writes
and directs the Playing with Reality collection with May Abdalla.
Directors : May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy
Producers : Anagram, Floréal et France Télévisions
The StoryLab
The StoryLab is France Télévisions' label for immersive content and innovative storytelling. Exploring the field of possibilities offered by XR technologies, the StoryLab shifts the boundaries of storytelling and experiences for the public. Using various genres and formats (documentary, animation, fiction...), always interactive and immersive, the StoryLab coproductions speak to issues that shape our society by offering new perspectives. Regularly awarded, the coproduction can be found on francetvlab.fr.
Clara Luc
Contact - France Télévisions