Film director Anca Damian's first new-media project will be presented at the Goethe Institute

In Search of Paradise A.R. is an augmented reality exhibition accompanying Anca Damian's latest feature film, The Island(2021). The exhibition can be visited at the Goethe Institute in Bucharest from Thursday, October 27 until Saturday, November 19, according to News.ro.

After a festival tour including Big Screen Competition Rotterdam, Goteborg IFF, International Competition at Annecy IFF, Busan IFF (and over 50 festivals so far), The Island will be in Romanian cinemas starting November 11.

Based on the book Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, Romanian writer Gellu Naum tackled the themes of adventure, shipwreck, and loneliness in his characteristically surrealist style in his play The Island (1979). The text has seen various adaptations, but the concert-theater project conceived by Ada Milea & Alexander Bălănescu Quartet was one of the most successful. Commissioned by Oxford Contemporary Music, the show premiered in 2006 at Wesley Memorial Church in London and subsequently enjoyed great success in Romania.

Inspired by this adaptation, Anca Damian devised her animated film - a post-modern musical that reworks the theme to contemporary realities: climate crisis, refugee issues, and revisiting colonialism from a 21st-century perspective.

The immersive exhibition invites the audience to dive into the film's dreamlike visual universe, using new technologies to augment key scenes from the film - starting with Robinson's hut, going towards the ocean, and then on to the Tower of Babel where the Carnival of Pleasures takes place.

"At the intersection of the arts, The Island has is a universe that wishes to be experienced, not just watched. Through the augmented reality exhibition, the viewer experiences the search for paradise alongside the film's characters, he himself becoming part of the universe," says Anca Damian.

The exhibition is free and can be visited at the Goethe Institute (Calea Dorobanți 32, Bucharest) on Thursday and Friday from 16:00 to 20:00 or on Saturday from 11:00 to 17:00.

The works can be explored in augmented reality via the In Search of Paradise A.R.