Next-Level Sci-Fi Under the Dome in Fukuoka and Jena
At the Fukuoka Fulldome Festival, the sci-fi production A Leap into the Void, directed by Sergey Prokofyev, celebrated its highly acclaimed world premiere before an audience of around 200 spectators. Featured in a festival program highlighting the best productions of the past year, the short film was the only—and therefore exceptional—piece with a fictional narrative. Immediately following the festival, at the world congress of the International Planetarium Society (IPS), which takes place every two years at rotating locations, the foundation had the great honor of presenting a short lecture during the session on content production and technology. Alongside A Leap into the Void, Susanne Päch introduced two other productions featuring readings of Herbert W. Franke’s stories—a science fiction cycle in which the author, long considered a classic of the genre, confronts humanity’s greatest questions: Is there a creator? Does the evolution of the cosmos aim for growing complexity? Or do we perhaps live in a virtually created world? In addition to A Leap into the Void, these include the ultra-short title story of the anthology The Green Comet as well as The Evolution Game.
Starting this autumn, the foundation will make these productions available to interested fulldome operators worldwide free of charge—along with a one-minute audience survey titled Lost under the Dome? created by the foundation. With this survey, the foundation aims to gather initial feedback from viewers on the extent to which the impressive visuals might hinder the comprehension of a complex story in such pieces.
This extraordinary production will soon celebrate its European fulldome premiere at the FullDome Festival Jena. This year marks a very special occasion in Jena: this planetarium—located near the Zeiss company grounds where this projection technology was originally engineered and invented—is celebrating its 100th anniversary. To mark this historic centennial, the venue has undergone a comprehensive media-technological overhaul and will be ceremonially reopened in conjunction with the FullDome Festival.
But the FullDome Festival has its own reason to celebrate as well. Founded by Micky Remann, the festival is the world’s very first fulldome festival and is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Once again, the festival will present the coveted JANUS Award, widely recognized as the Oscar of the fulldome scene, to honor outstanding immersive productions of the last 12 months.