DOK Exchange XR 2025
DOK Exchange XR Showcase
XR creators will present their projects selected for the showcase—resonating with themes like politics of memory, ethical design, and digital literacy—to a professional audience and a panel of six experts spanning research, funding, production, distribution, art, and technology. The format is a dynamic collective brainstorming session, inviting deep insight and the creativity of experts as they reflect on projects, exchange perspectives, and co-develop valuable solutions. Emphasizing openness, equality, and inclusivity, this approach supports the projects’ development and builds meaningful connections within the XR community.
Language
English
Access
Guests with a Festival and Industry Accreditation and DOK Exchange XR Conference Pass are welcome.
When & Where
Giorgio Vitale is a curator and technologist based in Berlin. In 2017, Vitale founded synthesis, a genre-defining cultural organization critically engaged with digital art. Over the past seven years, the gallery has produced more than 25 exhibitions of new media art in Berlin and abroad, both online and on the blockchain. Notable recent exhibitions curated by Vitale include MATERIAL POETRY at Haus der Elektronischen Künste (HEK), A Picture Can’t Take Me at SXSW '24, I KNOW at Feral File, and Symphony for the Metaverse at MEET Digital Culture Center. In addition to his work with synthesis, Vitale is recognized for his public speaking engagements at internationally renowned art forums. He has served as a mentor at NEW INC, at SXSW, and at arebyte Gallery. Furthermore, Vitale is a member of the International Selectors Committee at the Lumen Prize, where he assists in selecting the finalist artists for the competition.
This invitation-only online event connects leading XR voices, emerging creators, and international experts from across the world. Through a collaborative brainstorming pitch-mentoring session, projects can refine their presentations ahead of Leipzig and build valuable connections with our global expert community. Brief expert introductions and opportunity sharing create a welcoming, professional space to exchange insights, strengthen projects, and expand networks within the XR community. It’s also a more relaxed online format for introductions and sharing important updates from the XR field.
Language
English
Access
By invitation only. Contact us if you’re part of the XR community or industry and would like to join the meeting: exchange [at] dok-leipzig [dot] de (exchange[at]dok-leipzig[dot]de)
Save the Date:
Tuesday, 14 October, 15:00 (online)
Carmina Orozco López is a Mexican film professional based in Berlin with experience in international markets and festivals. She has worked at Berlinale’s European Film Market and the Guanajuato International Film Festival, and is currently Industry Delegations and Special Programme Coordinator at DOK Leipzig. She aims to create spaces that provide visibility and access to underrepresented filmmakers and producers within the international industry. Carmina is also a filmmaker and video artist, with a background in Film and Audiovisual Production and an MA in Documentary and Factual from Metfilm School Berlin.
(MR & AI Environmental Storytelling & Documentary )
An immersive MR documentary transforming passages from Taiwanese Indigenous writer Syaman Rapongan’s oceanic novel into waves and echoes, revealing the TAO tribe’s deep bond with the sea. Blending AI-driven speech, mixed reality, and projection, it fuses fiction and documentary to invite audiences on a shared imaginative journey through Syaman Rapongan’s poetic stories.
Based on the novel by Syaman Rapongan.
Themes: Taiwan's Indigenous Stories, Living Literature, Ocean Philosophy, Identity, Heritage Preservation, Fiction, Memory, Poetic Embodiment
Project Representatives
Kuan-Yuan Lai is a film director, producer, XR creator, and founder of Poké Poké Creative Studio in Taiwan. Trained in film in Taiwan and in animation/digital media at SUPINFOCOM, France. He works across stop-motion, documentary, CG animation, and immersive media. His practice reflects on environment, culture, memory, and identity–locally rooted yet globally resonant, often blending folklore, speculative futures, and traditions. His XR works include: “The Train Hamasen, Pneumo Hacker, Missing Picture: Tsai Ming Liang”. His speech-driven VR docu “Diving into Siraya” amplify endangered languages, shown at SIGGRAPH and BIFAN. He now explores XR adaptations of literature and heritage.
Credits
Kuan-Yuan LAI, Syaman Rapongan.Han-Yu Feng, Marco HUANG, Yenting HSU, Chin Lun KAO, Chang Ning-Shuan
Kuan-Yuan Lai / Poké Poké Creative, Syaman Rapongan
General Information
hei se de chih bang (temps)
Black Wings (temps)
Taiwan
Chinese (Traditional), English
Development
20 min
2026
Kaohsiung VR Film Lab
Website
(Music-Driven Documentary Experience, Interactive 6 DoF VR, Sandbox Mode)
A darkly funny, music-driven VR experience where users follow a talking nipple tassel through surreal desert landscapes to uncover the true story of a sex-trafficking survivor. Based on STORRY’s life and music, it blends spatial audio, interaction, and radical honesty.
Themes: Survivor-led storytelling, Sex-Trafficking, Rewriting personal narratives, Gender, sexuality and stigma, Humor, Empathy through immersion, Powerless → Powerful.
Project Representatives
STORRY is a queer Lebanese-Greek multidisciplinary artist, 2× JUNO nominee, and survivor of sex trafficking whose work spans music, film, animation, visual art, and immersive storytelling. Using radical honesty, surrealism, and dark humour, she challenges stigma and inspires healing. A finalist on The Voice UK 2024, she has opened for Sting and Tom Jones. Her latest concept album “Chapter 2: Run” explores survival and liberation, and is accompanied by a short film and her upcoming 6DoF VR experience “Inside a Stripper’s Mind”.
Credits
Dina Koutsouflakis / STORRY
Elias Koutsouflakis / Curdle Games
Karimah Zakia Issa / KZI Films
General Information
Inside a Stripper’s Mind
Inside a Stripper’s Mind
Canada
English
Development
20–30 min
2026
(XR Sonic Monuments, Hybrid Documentary)
Sculptures built from sound and memory, carved by stories of a generation born in Belarus after 1994 – the year President Alexander Lukashenko came to power. These individuals have never known a reality other than the one shaped by an unchanging regime. Sonic portraits of Belarusian lives become living monuments, forming a fragmented, collective song of resistance.
Themes: Monuments, Collective Memory, Politics, Spaces of Identity, Postmemory, Political Oppression, Social Trauma, Oral History Sound Installation
Project Representatives
Multimedia artist born in Belarus in 1995, based in Warsaw. Her art examines identity, oppression, trauma, and spaces of memory. She works with photography, photogrammetry, point clouds, and digital scans. Author of video works, photo series, and VR experiences using volumetric film. She holds an MA from the Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and is a PhD candidate at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
Marcin Marczyk is a producer and creator with over 15 years of experience crafting immersive audiovisual experiences. His production credits include cinematic VR, 3/6DOF (Close, Solastalgia) projects. He has provided production support for immersive exhibitions across Poland and Venice, and collaborated with Marshmallow Laser Feast on the Polish edition of “Evolver”. Actively exploring the potential of AI in creative content, he also shares his expertise as a lecturer at the Łódź Film School and Wajda School, co-founder of StoryCode Warsaw, and an alumnus of Biennale College Cinema VR.
Credits
Pola Komorowa
Marcin Marczyk / Udyssey Creative Technologies
General Information
Kruchość Kości Niezłamanych
Fragility of Unbroken Bones
Poland
English, Polish, Belarusian, Russian
Early Stages of Development
30 min
2027
Website
(VR Animation Satire)
In a colonised underwater film studio, mythic sea creatures work under human control, their bodies and history distorted. Seen through young mermaid Oriana’s eyes, the user faces oppression and revolt. After a director’s abuse of power, mermaids and humans unite to reclaim their story and reshoot the film with a more authentic ending.
Themes: Egalitarianism, Gender, Film Industry, Stop-motion Clay Techniques in VR Storytelling, Myths, Music, Representation, Systemic Imbalances
Project Representatives
Markéta Magidová is a visual artist and director exploring children’s imagination, gender and social norms, and the interplay between mythology and the present. Combining 3D CGI animation with stop-motion clay techniques, she crafts worlds that invite reflection on our own. She teaches at the Faculty of Education, Charles University, and collaborates with ArteActa magazine. Her films screened at Annecy, Fest Anča, Anifilm, Bucheon, and Filmhaus Berlin (Best Experimental Film Award, 2024).
Graduate of the Department of Film Production at FAMU in Prague. Jiří has collaborated with producer Čestmir Kopecký at his production company, První Veřejnopravní, and has been part of the industry team at IFFR Pro. He is a producer under the Maurfilm moniker, producing short animated films such as “Weeds” (2024) and “Don't Blow it Up” (2022), which have been presented at festivals in Cannes, Karlovy Vary, and Annecy.
Credits
Markéta Magidová, Beck Gonzales
Jiří Pecinovský / MAUR Film
General Information
Efekt mořské panny
The Mermaid Effect
Czech Republic, Lithuania, France
English
Development
20 min
2026
Czech Audiovisual Fund, Lithuanian Film Fund, Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Département Charente, Kunsthalle Prague Gallery
Website
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the MEDIA sub-programme of Creative Europe. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
