David Bowie is featured in a groundbreaking extended reality (XR) documentary at the 10th edition of Venice Immersive, the Venice Film Festival’s dedicated program for new forms of storytelling. The event, held on Lazzaretto Vecchio—a repurposed island near Venice Lido—showcases 69 XR projects, including “David Bowie: Unseen Unheard,” a 3D documentary offering a personal portrait of the late musician through previously unseen images and archival material.

Directed by Denis O’Regan, who served as Bowie’s official photographer, the installation employs eight screens and 84 hidden speakers to present 12 Bowie songs alongside O’Regan’s narration and nearly 800 photographs. The project was developed with the cooperation of Bowie’s estate and aims to reflect the artist’s longstanding embrace of technology and multimedia experimentation. O’Regan noted that Bowie, who passed away in 2016, would have welcomed the innovative format, highlighting his history as a pioneer in blending music with visuals, theatre, and technology.

Venice Immersive celebrates its decade milestone while emphasizing its role as an evolving platform at the intersection of emerging technology and traditional cinema. Co-curator Liz Rosenthal emphasized the rapid pace of development in XR, expressing anticipation for the medium’s future evolution in storytelling over the next ten years. The festival has inspired similar XR sections at major international events such as Cannes, Geneva, and Toronto.

In addition to Bowie’s feature, this year’s festival includes a range of works addressing urgent global issues such as climate change. Among them are “Solwata,” set in the Solomon Islands by Felix Gaedtke and Gayatri Parameswaran; “The White Saboteur,” an interactive piece by Barthélémy Antoine-Loeff and Hugo Arcier; and “Out of the Ashes,” a documentary on California wildfires. Environmental and nature-themed projects also feature prominently, including “Galápagos: The Last Eden” and Disneynature’s “Wolf,” which offers a virtual exploration of Canada’s Ellesmere Island.

The program extends beyond ecological concerns with James Elliott Mizroch’s “Smithsonian Starstruck,” a virtual reality experience that immerses viewers in the process of star formation in outer space.

Reflecting on the festival’s evolution, Rosenthal noted that early editions of Venice Immersive were largely experimental or peripheral to major media properties. This year’s highlighted works, however, demonstrate a maturation of the medium, often accompanied by distribution strategies that allow the experiences to reach wider audiences internationally.

Venice Immersive will run through September 12, continuing to showcase the rapidly developing intersection of immersive technology and narrative art.