For this interview, we met Mathieu Gayet, a passionate and committed player in cultural XR. Having started out in film production, he moved on to digital communications and founded XRMust, a reference media for new storytelling formats. Today, he is also Industry Manager of the Geneva Digital Market for the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF), which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and has the particularity of addressing both the general public and professionals. A strategic look at a sector in creative turmoil.
1. What are the main focuses of XRMust, the media dedicated to immersive experiences that you created?
My career path is rooted in the audiovisual sector. I first did a Master’s degree in cinema, audiovisual and multimedia law in Lyon, which really gave direction to my professional career. This training opened the door to film production, where I worked for 3 to 4 years in Paris, mainly in project financing and administration.
At the same time, I was heavily involved in web writing, covering several festivals. Gradually, I entered a new phase of my career, focused on digital communications. I founded a communications agency with which we worked with a number of organizations, including several well-known festivals such as Arras, FIPADOC and Cinéma du Réel. It was also at this time that I began working on events linked to interactive formats, notably the I Love Transmedia festival at the Gaîté Lyrique, where I managed communications for four years. This enabled me to meet a large number of exciting creators and producers.
In 2017, I decided to take a trip to the United States and spend 10 days in Austin to attend the festival South by Southwestfestival, which has a strong interactive component. There, I was able to observe innovation in cultural immersion, and met many players in the sector, such as the Felix & Paul studio. When I got back, I was working for Virtuality, a trade show dedicated to new immersive technologies, and started thinking about setting up my own blog to explore this content in more detail.
2. What are the main focuses of XRMust, the media dedicated to immersive experiences that you created?
XRMust was born in the summer of 2018, with the idea of creating a space to document the works I was discovering: what creations existed, who made them, where they could be seen, and so on.
In addition to the magazine, I developed a database that I still maintain today. The site started modestly on a WordPress blog, but over the years I’ve taken training courses to learn how to manage a medium and found ways to make it grow.
XRMust has now been in existence for six years. In February 2024, we launched a major update, which has given the site a real boost. We now list almost 6,000 works and have published almost 800 articles. A team of journalists and freelancers also supports me in this work.
The site is dedicated to new media from a storytelling angle: we talk mainly about virtual reality and mixed reality, but we also cover other forms of immersive storytelling, such as mapping. We aim to explore this “new writing” in the broadest sense.
As a journalist, I had the opportunity to meet many professionals, festivals and institutions with whom I was able to collaborate. This is how I joined Immersity in 2019. More recently, in 2023, I was appointed Industry Manager for the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF). Within the festival, I look after the Geneva Digital Market in collaboration with Sarah Quintric, the operational manager. I’m also continuing my work with Immersity, XRMust, and accompanying several events by leading conferences.
3. Could you tell us about GIFF, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and more specifically the Geneva Digital Market, which is dedicated to audiovisual innovation and takes place from November 6 to 10?
GIFF is unique in that it covers the whole spectrum of audiovisual creation: series, cinema and new writing. We have three main competitions dedicated to these fields, with sub-categories to refine our selection. We attract a varied European audience – including the French, Italians, Germans and Swiss – to discover works carefully selected by our team and which are, I hope, at the cutting edge of innovation.
The festival takes place over ten days, with the emphasis on welcoming the general public. For immersive programming, we have a 650 m² exhibition space at the Salle Communale de Plainpalais, where this year some thirty works are on show. We also award a Grand Prix worth 10,000 Swiss francs for the best works. This year, we are also hosting projects from our partners, such as the NeoDoc collection, supervised by the Pôle de Création Numérique, to showcase their development.
The audience is very family-oriented and friendly, creating a particularly warm atmosphere. I think this is the case because we have a team dedicated to animation all year round. Outside the festival, they work on school projects and collaborate with events such as the Locarno Festival.
On the professional side, the Geneva Digital Market takes place over four days. This market for audiovisual innovation covers much more than virtual reality, and also explores advances in digital technologies, artificial intelligence and cinema. The program includes conferences with major players like MK2, AI experts, cinéforums, and case studies. We also have pitch sessions, including three this year, with a total of 33 projects presented. Here’s an overview of the sessions:
- The Suisse Interactive Sessions, showcasing Swiss projects,
- XR Coproductions Sessions, dedicated to international productions,
- The Migros Culture Percentage’s Story Lab, an important initiative that devotes 1% of Migros profits to supporting creative projects by helping them get off the ground.
Two projects particularly impressed me: Panorama de la bataille de Morat, an immersive experience based on a historical painting from the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève, and Golden Key, an interactive project created by Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser that won an award at SXSW. The latter combines artificial intelligence and participatory experiences, and its international success demonstrates the potential of this type of project.
This year marks a clear evolution in the narrative quality of the works presented. I’ve noticed a very inspiring artistic and conceptual maturity in the writing, and all VR technologies combined are showing a fine evolution towards more accomplished narratives.
Many thanks to Mathieu for this interview. To find out more, click here:
- XRMust: https://xrmust.com/fr/
- GIFF Geneva Digital Market
