Liz Rosenthal

Venice Immersive is Venice International Film Festival's official programme for immersive content run by the Biennale di Venezia. It's the first ever competition section for immersive/ XR content in an A-list film festival. Venice Immersive has helped establish XR as a new artistic and entertainment form and has pushed the boundaries of exhibiting immersive works. It is currently the world's most extensive annual exhibition of Immersive Arts and is held annually across 5000m2 of exhibition space on the island of Lazaretto Vecchio off the Venice Lido.

Key responsibilities:

• Instrumental in the launch of the section in 2017 with co-curator Michel Reilhac and Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera, after curating a pilot exhibition in 2016 and the immersive section of the Venice Production Bridge Project Finance Market
• Annual curation of up to 70 works, including 30 world premieres across an extensive range of immersive/ XR formats and genres
• Curation and moderation of panels events and presentations related to Venice Immersive
• Design of the exhibition space, submission process, ticketing system
• Advise on future strategy and partnerships
• Selection of Immersive/ XR projects for the Venice Production Bridge Gap Financing Market and selection of leading international financiers and distributors to attend the market to take meetings with the projects
• Representing Venice Immersive at international industry events, talks and festivals and in the press

I've led the strategic development for many award-winning immersive projects. I've been involved in creative strategy and development, introductions to finance, distribution partners and talent and helped to negotiate contracts. I advise on positioning, distribution strategy and press.

My credits include the following projects:

• Soul Paint by Sarah Ticho & Niki Smit (Winner SXSW Special Jury Prize, 2024)
• Maya: The Birth of a Superhero by Poulomi Basu & CJ Clarke (Winner Tribeca Immersive Special Jury Prize, 2023)
• Child of Empire by Sparsh Ahuja & Erfan Saadati (Winner XR History Award 2022)
• (Hi)story of a Painting by Gaëlle Mourre & Quentin Darras (Winner SXSW Special Jury Prize, 2022)
• Goliath: Playing With Reality by May Abdalla & Barry Gene Murphy (Winner Grand Jury Prize, Venice International Film Festival, 2021)

CreativeXR was a unique immersive content incubator and accelerator programme for the arts and culture sector, managed by Digital Catapult and Arts Council England. The programme gave leading UK creative teams the opportunity to develop concepts and prototypes of immersive content and offered access to early stage finance, facilities, industry leaders and commissioning bodies, and the opportunity to pitch for further production funding within the programme. 60 immersive projects were developed over 3 cohorts.

Key responsibilities:

• Spearheaded strategic development and programme design
• Recruited expert mentors and selected participating projects
• Mentored all projects on creative development, finance and distribution strategies
• Designed an annual showcase and project finance market for the projects. Selected and attracted key international financiers, distributors and exhibitors to attend and meet with relevant projects
• Introduced potential partners and financiers to the programme
• Represented CreativeXR at key national and international industry events
• Mentored and trained Digital Catapult team

Power to the Pixel was set up to help international creators, producers and media organisations adapt to new media formats, evolving technology and audience behaviour.

The two main programmes that I designed and led over 10 years were:

• Power to the Pixel: The Cross-Media Forum in association with BFI London Film Festival. The Forum ran for 9 years and included the first ever interactive and immersive project finance market, a conference and a think tank for international financiers and distributors. In 2015 I created Virtual Stories, the first VR Exhibition in London in partnership with BFI London Film Festival.
• The Pixel Lab - a project-focused incubator and residential programme that helped develop over 100 interactive and immersive projects.

Both programmes were supported by Creative Europe. I developed partnerships with over 100 international media companies and funds to support the programmes.

As a strategic consultant I have advised festivals, governments and media organisations on audiovisual innovation and have designed events in the US, Europe and Latin America.

Digimart was the first conference, think tank and networking event that brought together visionary figures from the film and Internet sectors to discuss the future of the audiovisual industries. The event was held in 2005 and 2006 in Montréal.

I advised on the design of the programme, selected speakers and moderated sessions.

Next Wave Films was a Santa Monica based company of the Independent Film Channel US from 1998 to 2002. The company was a pioneer in the production, finance and sales of low budget features and digital filmmaking. The company financed and sold 13 feature films including Christopher Nolan's Following (Winner: Tiger Award, Rotterdam '99, Silver Hitchcock, Dinard '99), Joe Carnahan's Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane, Kate Davis' Southern Comfort (Grand Jury Prize, Sundance '01), Amir Bar-Lev's Fighter (Best Documentary, Karlovy Vary '00), Josh Aronson's Sound and Fury (Grand Jury Prize, Sundance '00, Academy Award nomination '01).

I set up and ran the UK office and was involved in the production, sales and distribution of Next Wave's titles outside of the US.

The New British Expo was the industry section and market for UK films at Edinburgh International Festival. I managed the programme for the section including programming market screenings, events, publications and meetings.

DOM was a animation, arts and music festival that ran for two years during the Edinburgh Festival. I was programme director and producer for the first edition. I was involved in programme design, fundraising, and managing staff.