While you can expect great films and music from SXSW, you can also expect to discover immersive art experiences, like those in the XR Experience Competition.

Check out a full lineup of the section below:

Astra
Director: Eliza McNitt, Producers: Arnaud Colinart, Aurélie Leduc, Screenwriter: Eliza McNitt
Astra is a cosmic ghost story that explores the mystery of life in the Universe through the death of a scientist on Earth. Uncovering the lost recordings of an Astrobiologist transports you on a quest through the cosmos to detect signs of life. (World Premiere)

Chief
Directors/Screenwriters: Kilma Lattin, Catherine Eng, Producer: Catherine Eng
Chief, Chairman, Chairwoman – these titles all describe tribal leadership and reflect the evolution of tribal culture, governance, and economics in this country. A rare portrait of gifted leaders who walk in many worlds. (World Premiere)

Detachment (Canada, United States, United Kingdom)
Directors: Roman Rappak, Luke Higgs, Producer: Anne McKinnon, Screenwriter: Roman Rappak
Told from the future, Detachment looks back at how technology has impacted our experience of reality and the journey of humankind. Detachment is a cinematic and interactive experience blending the boundaries between music video and video game. (World Premiere)

Eclipsing
Directors/Producers/Screenwriters: Andrew Schneider, Annie Saunders
Site-specific audio AR walk for headphones. Spatial sound is activated by location and time of day, and live interactions unfold, full of ‘was-that-part-of-it’ magic. Just another day and then suddenly, extraordinarily synchronous. Like an eclipse. (World Premiere)

The Golden Key
Directors: Marc Da Costa, Matthew Niederhauser
The Golden Key is an interactive machine learning installation that invites audiences to experience and intervene in the mythological dreams of an AI as it writes and visualizes a never-ending story. (World Premiere)

I’m Tired of Being Hypersurveilled
Directors: Tara Rose Morris, Heno
You wake up as Heno., held hostage in the S.Y.S.T.E.M. – designed to surveille your every thought. To escape, you must navigate through the immersive concept album I’m Tired of Being Hypersurveilled to find the exit – if there is one. (World Premiere)

Joseph Rouleau: Final Encore (Canada)
Directors: Émilie Rosas, Colas Wohlfahrt, Producers: Virgnie Jaffredo, Christine Falco, Screenwriter: Émilie Rosas
Through a posthumous conversation with Joseph Rouleau, director Émilie Rosas aims to dust off the world of opera and reveal Joseph Rouleau, a great pioneer of Quebec opera, revisiting his personal archives, memoirs and greatest solos. (World Premiere)

Last We Left Off (Canada)
Directors: The Expats: Connor Illsley, Jon Riera, Grayson Moore, Aidan Shipley, Producers: Cameron MacLaren, Peter Fisher, Connor Illsley, Jon Riera
When a group of friends hire a Dungeon Master to lead them through a tabletop role-playing game, they get more than they bargained for. As the lines between fantasy and reality blur, our characters’ inescapable pasts come back to haunt them. (World Premiere)

Madame Pirate: Code of Conduct (France, Taiwan)
Directors: Morgan Ommer, Dan-Chi Huang, Producers: Estela Valdivieso Chen, Jamie Lin, Screenwriters: Morgan Ommer, Dan-Chi Huang, Barbara Tran
Captured by fearsome pirates, a Chinese interpreter discovers the daily life and tribulations of the renegades. To survive she must deal with the pirate’s captain and her cruel husband. (World Premiere)

Maya: The Birth of a Superhero (United States, France, United Kingdom)
Directors: Poulomi Basu, CJ Clarke, Producers: CJ Clarke, Katayoun Dibamehr, Avi Amar, Amy Seidenwurm, Jeanne Marchalot, Ryan Genji Thomas, Screenwriters: CJ Clarke, Poulomi Basu, Manjeet Mann
An immersive story following Maya, an ordinary 21st Century girl, as she transforms into a uniquely female superhero whose powers derive from the process of menstruation. (World Premiere)

Reimagined Volume III: Young Thang
Directors: Melissa Joyner, Julie Cavaliere, Michaela Ternasky-Holland, Producers: Julie Cavaliere, Michaela Ternasky-Holland, Ryan Genji Thomas, Zoe Roellin, Screenwriter: Melissa Joyner
Concealed within a flat world of insects where humans are forbidden, a young girl, Young Thang, must embrace her full self to save the community she loves from a storm of her own creation. (World Premiere)

Soulpaint (Netherlands, United Kingdom)
Directors: Sarah Ticho, Niki Smit, Producer: Anna Firbank, Screenwriter: Sarah Ticho
SoulPaint is a VR experience that invites you to explore the relationship between your body and emotions. Paint and sculpt your embodied experience, step into your artwork and discover the hidden world of feeling inside you and every one of us. (World Premiere)

The Tent
Director: Rory Mitchell, Producers: Lou Doye, Sébastien Hameline, Screenwriter: Martha Marion
When a woman discovers that a mysterious tent has appeared in her front yard, she’s not sure what to do about it…but she’s definitely not going to call the cops. (World Premiere)

The Vortex Cinema (Germany)
Director: Max Sacker, Producer: Ioulia Isserlis, Screenwriters: Max Sacker, Ioulia Isserlis
When a cinema projectionist opens a magic portal into a shadowy dimension that lies beyond the silver screen they are cast into a whirlwind of thrills, action and suspense and become the main character of a film noir murder mystery. (World Premiere)

We Speak Their Names in Hushed Tones (Nigeria, South Africa)
Director: Omoregie Osakpolor, Producers: Ingrid Kopp, Steven Markovitz, Antoinette Engel
Family members of missing migrants who traveled through irregular migration routes to Europe struggle with anxiety, pain and unresolved hope. (World Premiere)

SXSW will run from March 8-16 in Austin, TX. You can purchase various badges on their website.

We will be covering SXSW, so be sure to follow along for further updates including reviews and event coverage!