First Day: Ukrainian VR project will be presented for the first time at the 80th Venice International Film Festival

This year at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, which will be held from August 30 to September 9, the Ukrainian VR project Doba Persh/FIRST DAY, directed by Valeriy Korshunov and produced by Svetlana Korshunova, will be presented for the first time.

FIRST DAY is a full immersive, first-person VR experience that moves the visitor into the situation of the first day of a full-scale Russian invasion and allows them to try to relive the inner transformation that Ukrainians went through on February 24, 2022.

"We want to share the experience of the first day of the war with a wide audience who, as before, do not believe that such a thing is possible in their lives. This experience is about what allows Ukrainians to resist today, when everyone expected that we would not survive even 3 days. FIRST DAY tells about the inner transformation that we personally went through. About what allowed humanity to survive in the worst time in history - about helping each other, about our own choice to be not a victim of circumstances, but someone who can change them. We are not the first who had to go through a similar experience and, unfortunately, not the last" - says the director of the project Valery Korshunov.

FIRST DAY has become the winner of the Biennale Cinema College 2023. The project went through several stages of selection and improvement with international experts and mentors of VR and film industry, as a result of which it received a grant for realization and the opportunity to be presented at the 80th Venice International Film Festival already in 2023.

The project is based on stories of real people. The viewer will be able to see the houses of Borodyanka and Bucha, destroyed by the shells of the occupants. Together with a large number of artifacts of war buildings were scanned and further reproduced in virtual space.

Valery Korshunov, known for his projects about Chernobyl, began filming and scanning the consequences of the war back in the summer of 2022 to preserve, memorialize and further enable others to visit these places in person, in virtual reality. Modern technology already allows this to be done photorealistically, which is why immersive projects are among the most progressive areas of cinema.

FIRST DAY at the Venice Biennale will be presented with a large installation of 36 m2, on a separate Venice Immersive island among 43 other projects from 25 countries.

We are incredibly grateful to Biennale Cinema College for the opportunity to realize and present a project about the war in Ukraine at the Venice Film Festival. FIRST DAY is just the beginning of a great project that will memorialize our war and tell the stories of our people of peace. It is very important, because it will raise the level of empathy and understand us better, to see the history and destinies of people behind each destroyed house", - says Svetlana Korshunova, the producer of the project.

It is known that Korshunov's team is already working on the VR Borodyanka, VR Gostomel and VR Chornobyl projects, each of which will utilize different technologies and storytelling formats.

The Venice International Film Festival was one of the first film festivals in the world to launch the first competition for virtual reality works since 2017. In 2023, Venice Immersive already has its own separate island at the Venice Biennale, where 43 projects from 25 countries will be presented from August 30 to September 9, including the Ukrainian project FIRST DAY. Virtual reality today opens a new dimension of cinema, with its challenges and opportunities, which in the coming years will have an incredible impact on the entire film industry.

The presentation of the project in Ukraine will take place during the Venice Film Festival - September 7 at 11:00. At the closed press event press representatives will be given the opportunity to visit the virtual location of the project in VR-helmets, to communicate with the authors of the project and the founders of Venice Immersive in a live virtual format. Also, residents of Borodyanka and Gostomel who witnessed the occupation are invited to the project presentation and can share their impressions and experiences.

You can follow the Ukrainian project at the Venice International Film Festival in the project's social networks:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095340460700

Instagram: https://instagram.com/firstdayvr?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==