Pre-game
2025 · USA
Directed by Yvette Granata, Alina Nazmeeva
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative
A poetic mixed-reality deconstruction of virtual body production in animation and game engines, set against the backdrop of American football culture. By merging physical objects with an XR essay, the work investigates how digital bodies and spaces both reinforce and challenge societal norms around gender and embodiment.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Meta Quest 3 XR essay on digital embodiment shot next to Michigan Stadium — installation-art VR as critique of game-engine body production is in the right conversation. Whether it lands outside the headset is a different question; the Vimeo excerpt isn't the work.
An XR essay on digital embodiment using football spectatorship and Meta Quest 3 as material — this is the gallery-installation register more than the festival short, and conceived next door to the Big House gives it specifically Ann Arborite mischief. Important work in its own circuit, though the runtime is unmarked which complicates placement.
Mixed-reality essay shot inside a Meta Quest 3 about how digital bodies are constructed in game engines — using American football (and the largest stadium in the US, next door in Ann Arbor) as the frame for gender and digital embodiment. Conceptually dense; without a runtime I can't fully scope the commitment.
Festivals
- Slamdance Film Festival 2025