David Bowie enters 'extended reality' at Venice Immersive's 10th edition

David Bowie shares the bill with starmen, firefighters and Walt Disney wolves at the 10th anniversary edition of Venice Immersive, the film festival's pioneering section for virtual and extended reality works, the Guardian reported.

The documentary, which draws on hundreds of unseen images of the late musician, explores his legacy in a new dimension, using immersive technology to bring audiences closer to an artist who was, in the words of the Guardian's correspondent, "always a bit of a groundbreaker." The programme also includes virtual worlds addressing wildfires, wolves and the birth of stars, reflecting the medium's expanding scope beyond entertainment into environmental and scientific storytelling.

Venice Immersive began a decade ago as an experimental sidebar, and has since grown into a major showcase for a medium that festivals worldwide are still learning to programme. The inclusion of a Bowie documentary — an artist whose visual and sonic experimentation made him a natural subject for immersive treatment — underscores how far the section has come from its early days of tech demos and short-form experiments.

The environmental strand of this year's programme, featuring virtual worlds on wildfires and the birth of stars, aligns with a broader trend in European cultural production toward climate awareness. For Mediterranean audiences, where wildfires have become an annual summer threat, such works carry particular urgency.

The festival runs through mid-September, with Venice Immersive presenting its full programme of virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality works to an international audience of industry professionals and critics.