Unframed Collection partners with NUMIX Lab, an itinerant European event that brings together immersive creation professionals in dialogue with cultural institutions across the continent. The 6th edition in 2025 brought together 459 participants from around the world across 16 venues in Budapest, Veszprém, Vienna, and Linz, fostering exchanges between Europe and North America around immersive cultural practices.
On this occasion, we met Katharina Weser, co-founder of Reynard Films and Yaga Studio. Through these two complementary structures, she has developed a distinctive practice at the crossroads of traditional auteur cinema and immersive storytelling in virtual and mixed reality. With a background in documentary filmmaking and a strong commitment to authenticity, she explores hybrid formats that use technological innovation not as an end in itself, but as a means to intensify emotion and renew the way stories are told.
In this interview, Katharina Weser reflects on her artistic approach, her recent projects blending documentary, animation and immersion, as well as the technical, financial and narrative challenges specific to XR works. She also shares her vision for the future of immersive storytelling – rooted in artistic rigor, technological exploration, and fidelity to narrative.
Very often, viewers cry inside the headset – and I have never seen so many people cry in a cinema while watching a documentary. That shows how immersion can intensify emotional experience.
– Katharina Weser
You develop and produce hybrid narratives that push the boundaries of storytelling. Could you share one or two recent immersive or audiovisual projects that illustrate the artistic direction you are pursuing?
Katharina Weser – What deeply interests me is finding new ways to tell sometimes very traditional stories. A project I particularly love is Emperor. In my view, it is a documentary – animated and interactive, certainly – but first and foremost a documentary. Genre matters to me: it tells a true story, inspired by a real person. Telling it in virtual reality was, in my opinion, the best possible way to do so. It is an extremely emotional story, and VR is a medium that works exceptionally well with emotion. Very often, viewers cry inside the headset – and I have never seen so many people cry in a cinema while watching a documentary. That shows how immersion can intensify emotional experience.
More broadly, what drives me is the exploration of new technologies and new narrative forms. I also co-produced The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up. It is an adaptation of a book, so structurally it is quite classical. I consider it cinema in virtual reality: it is a film in which you can move around. The viewer chooses the viewing angle, yet remains fully immersed in the story from beginning to end. You can move very close to the actors, navigate through the space, and feel the dramatic intensity. Today’s technologies allow us to achieve an extremely high level of quality and realism. This particularly interests me because I come from documentary filmmaking: the relationship to reality always remains central in my work.
From your experience as a producer, what are the main challenges creators face today when developing XR or hybrid works?
K. W. – The challenges are partly the same as in traditional cinema. Funding is difficult to secure, and in Germany, cultural funding is currently more limited than before. This complicates matters for all creators, whether working in film or XR.
In addition, there are technological challenges. We almost always work with teams who have never produced this type of project before. But in reality, it is nearly impossible to find “highly experienced” teams when you are developing something genuinely new.
Personally, I enjoy these challenges – sometimes I even seek them out. I am currently developing a new documentary using gaussian splatting technology. We are trying to make it work in a standalone version. This approach opens up entirely new possibilities: it allows you to go to places that are otherwise inaccessible and truly be present there in virtual reality. I find it fascinating to see how technology evolves and becomes increasingly realistic.
Looking ahead, what formats, technologies or international collaboration models do you believe will shape the future of immersive storytelling, and how do you see Reynard Films contributing to that evolution?
K. W. – I have remained committed to highly artistic projects, because that is what truly interests me. Of course, the market plays a role, but I have chosen not to develop small online games, even though it could be financially viable. That is simply not my direction.
Today, I am exploring different paths: immersive projection, multi-user VR, and our next project, which is particularly close to my heart – a theatre piece adapted into an immersive format.