23/03/2021 - French author and director Abel Kohen created an immersive VR experience based on two female protagonists voiced by Charlotte Rampling and Dominique Tipper

A scene from Biolum (© IKO/Reynard Films/Prefrontal Cortex)

At this year's SXSW (16-21 March), there was a special section reserved for VR. The selection of the Virtual Cinema Competition included the German-French co-production Biolum by Abel Kohen and Jon Rowe.

Kohen is a French author and director focusing on animation and visual effects. Besides his own short-film projects, he has contributed to notable productions such as the Netflix series Black Mirror and the BAFTA-awarded series The Amazing World of Gumball by Cartoon Network. Rowe is an English scriptwriter and the co-author of Biolum, and, since 2007, he has been working in the field of scripted drama and has contributed to several productions for the BBC. He served as script executive on the BBC1 series Silent Witness as well as for the series Britannia for Sky. One of his biggest projects was also working as a script executive on the adaptation of John Le Carré's The Little Drummer Girl [+see also:
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interview: Venia Vergou
series profile] by Park Chan-wook, starring Alexander Skarsgard and Michael Shannon.

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Both Kohen and Rowe have a predilection for the genres of fantasy and science fiction, and this also shines through in Biolum. They created an interactive, narrative VR experience that drags the viewer and user into a mysterious, underwater world. From the perspective of a female scientist called Rachael, we reach a depth of 850 metres below sea level and are shown the habitat of still-unknown creatures. There are parasites that take control of plants and fish, transforming them into new species, all of them producing light. While Rachael is clearly surprised by her discovery, her mentor and expedition leader, Eva, does not react the same way. As the adventure continues, Rachael realises that Eva has much bigger ambitions than she’d expected, and that her life may be in serious danger.

Biolum shows mesmerising pictures of the underwater world, paying tribute to the beauty of nature. It also broaches the topics of pollution and climate change, which are triggering the deterioration of certain species of flora and fauna. This science-fiction scenario depicts the human being not as the overall dominant protagonist that controls the world, but more as a tiny element in a more global “pond”. The driving force of the production is people’s well-known fascination for the Earth’s mysterious and awe-inspiring forces of nature.

As for the voices of the two protagonists, Charlotte Rampling (Dune, Hannah [+see also:
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trailer
film profile], 45 Years [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Andrew Haigh
film profile]) breathes life into Eva, and Dominique Tipper (The Expanse) becomes Rachael.

Biolum is a co-production between Iko (France), Leipzig-based Reynard Films and Halle-based Prefrontal Cortex. It was funded by France’s CNC, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and the FFF Bayern.