March 2024
Interview with Zoé Terouinard - “Après une formation de cinéaste tout ce qu’il y a de plus classique, cette grande curieuse s’est tournée vers la VR avec pour objectif d’apprendre, encore et toujours, et de partager sous une autre forme des histoires, inédites ou méconnues. Rencontre avec une professeure qui s’ignore”
Reported by Stuart Kemp, “A talk at the Geneva Digital Market explored the impact of female gaze and the male gaze in immersive projects” moderated by Laetitia Bochud, with Mariana Cadenas, Pascaline Sordet and myself sharing our thoughts on the subject.
October 2023
Screendaily - Geneva film festival unveils juries for 2023 edition
“Curators Nora Nahid Khan and Giovanna Fossati, and journalist Keith Stuart make up the Future is Sensible competition jury; with XR professionals Gaelle Mourre, Jay Kim and Alexandra Gerard sitting on the international immersive experience competition jury”
September 2022
The National News Festival Review
“Venice Immersive provides a glimpse into the future of film and much more (…) Appearing at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, (Hi)story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow, directed by Quentin Darras and Gaelle Mourre, is not exactly a film in the traditional sense.”
August 2022
The AR Post Review
“Today’s technology has paved the way for an immersive, interactive kind of storytelling that puts the audience front and center of a story and creates an entirely new perspective (...) This compelling narrative showcasing the life of Artemisia Gentileschi was created by a team of co-directors Quentin Darras and Gaëlle Mourre”
July 2022
Venice Film Festival Selection
(Hi)Story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow was selected as one of ten projects to feature in the 79th Venice Film Festival’s “Best Of Venice Immersive” line up.
July 2022
⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones reviews (Hi)Story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow during its exhibition at Burghley House: “This technically perfect and thrillingly flamboyant re-enactment of the extraordinary artist’s life is a great way to discover the pain and triumph of her often savage work”
June 2022
Directors UK Interview
“(…) how did Gaëlle get started in directing VR, and how does it differ to other forms of directing? We spoke to Gaëlle about her award-winning VR work below, and asked for her advice on getting into the sector, and the practicalities of directing with immersive technology.”
March 2022
(Hi)Story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow, won the SXSW 2022 Jury Special Recognition for Immersive Storytelling - “(Hi)story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow receives a Special Jury Recognition for Immersive Storytelling. This experience uses the medium of VR to transport us into history, revealing the story of a lesser known female baroque artist, her resistance to the patriarchy and determination in the face of adversity.”
March 2022
Voices of VR Podcast Interview
Kent Bye interviewed authors Quentin and Gaëlle ahead of their SXSW Jury Recognition for Immersive Storytelling. To listen to their conversation, and find more of Kent’s insightful and engaging interviews, click here.
March 2022
Forbes “New XR Experiences Shine At SXSW”
“The creators of these experiences are no longer practitioners of other time arts experimenting with a new medium. They are now experienced XR producers and directors with hard won experience and the confidence to wield this new medium in unique and dramatic ways.”
March 2022
The Austin Chronicle Interview
““The Light in the Shadow" provides an unparalleled interaction with visual art that makes it seem playful and relatable instead of remote and highbrow. Complete with beautifully-crafted, painterly renderings of Italian cities, moments of fantasy and whimsy, and a thoughtful retelling of Gentileschi’s dynamic life story, the program is as entertaining as it is educational.”
March 2022
XR Must Interview
Agnese Pietrobon interviews (Hi)Story of a Painting co-creators, Gaëlle Mourre and Quentin Darras, on their latest episode: The Light in the Shadow. “Presented at 2022 SXSW, the second episode of (Hi)story of a Painting celebrates the life and art of Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi, using an approach that makes art history more accessible and interesting especially for younger generations.”
December 2021
Eurofest XR
Award Winner “Most Promising Creator”
November 2021
Beat Magazine – Melbourne Fringe Focus
“Perhaps we’re all destined for Mechanical Souls, an interactive experience that partners the family ambience of Ang Lee’s masterful drama Eat Drink Man Woman with an escape room.”
March 2021
ScreenAnarchy SXSW XR Highlights
“I very much enjoyed Gaëlle Mourre and Quentin Darras's immersive 6DoF non-interactive art history lesson about Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte.”
March 2021
February 2021
Upload VR “How VR Showed Me La Grande Jatte Like Never Before”
“(…) arguably one of the most immersive and impressive experiences you can see in a headset today.”
"(…) an ingenious history lesson that uses immersion and intelligent techniques to paint a history of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. It’s also a powerful showcase of the importance of work like VR incubators like CreativeXR.”
"I could easily see an experience such as this helping thousands of people engage with and understand better the art the defines the world’s culture.”
June 2020
« Mechanical Souls is off-kilter. It’s self-aware and awkward in a good way, tongue-in-cheek, actually rather cheeky… a stab at revealing what we’re passing off as ‘human’ these days. (…) It’s about responsibility. We can escape to the distractions – plug in, switch off, for a while – but once we’re back in person facing our peers, do we concede to easy answers, dance around the questions, or tell the hard truth. »
February 2020
November 2019
“L’immersion est […] instantanée en entrant immédiatement à droite dans le Théâtre Pitoëff, la Maison communale de Plainpalais, pour la performance Mechanical Souls de Gaëlle Mourre. (…) Une façon passionnante de réfléchir sur des androïdes, avec un mélange entre les créatures du film et cet assistant, présent dans la salle, qui crée une tension de plus en plus forte.”
May 2019
Creative Economy Team on Mechanical Souls
“Amanda Murphy, BAFTA award winning Executive Producer of Storyfutures Academy shares her three takeaways from SXSW 2019 (…) Mechanical Souls, a rather more cinematic feel piece from Digital Rise and Serendipity Films about humanoid robots hired to assist with a fancy Chinese wedding, it did feel as though some great Storytellings were on show here.
Technically accomplished Mechanical Souls uses an AI driven narrative engine to deliver a one of a kind tailored experience complete with tracking shots (something I’d not yet seen in VR) which added an unnerving but clever edge.”
April 2019
Interview sur la création de Mechanical Souls
Interview for the CNC’s “création numérique” web page, going over the process of creation of MS as a first time VR director.
February 2019
Podcast interview with L. P. Lee (concept, co-writer), Céline Tricart (cinematographer) and Gaëlle Mourre (co-writer, director). For those who impatiently want to listen to what they have to say on Mechanical Souls, skip to 15:35.
February 2019
“Stepping into “Mechanical Souls” at Sundance’s New Frontier Central, I was expecting to be cut off from the world by a headset, swiveling in an office chair by myself and absorbing a linear narrative as it played out around me. What I got instead was a batch of new coworkers, a pineapple tea cake, and a story to investigate about a robot bridesmaid developing a mind of her own.”
February 2019
“Best Social Experience: Mechanical Souls”
“A handful of previous New Frontier projects have blurred the line between experimental art and live-action role-playing, and Mechanical Souls blends role-playing with VR video to strong effect.”
February 2019
“The branching storylines and live immersive theater of Mechanical Souls (Gaëlle Mourre, L.P. Lee et al) take what would otherwise be a straightforward 360 video story into a different realm.”
Onlike interview – Mechanical Souls (french)
January 2019
May 2018
April 2018
"(...) the score, cinematography and art direction at times share an allusion to classical paintings reminiscent of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (...) The Feast literally makes an eye-popping, mouth-watering meal of this metaphor - it’s quite remarkable to watch, evoking all sorts of conflicting emotions."
March 2018
UK Film Review – The Feast
"The Feast is a sumptuous mystery of the gluttonous kind, with an appetising premise and a rich aesthetic (...) Told with a delectable sense of mystery and suspense, director Gaelle Mourre (...) knows how to pace herself in order to get the maximum impact of this tale of greed and sin (...) Seeing the transformation over the course of The Feast and beyond is terrific cinema."
September 2017, p. 16
August 2017
"The Feast (...) sits somewhere on a spectrum between mystery and accessibility; somewhere spectacular. As a work of cinema, The Feast unites the mythic and modern."
September 2017
4.5/5 star rating
"The idea behind this gem is original enough to spark curiosity, and completely delivers. I was easily pulled into a world that was moving on and changing (...)"
7.5/10
"From the opening frames of Awakening, you can immediately tell the kind of quality you’re getting. (...) Mourre’s film is a great one."