Canadian Choreographer Dorotea Saykaly Selected For The 77th Festival De Cannes

Dorotea Saykaly & Emil Dam Seidel's holographic, mixed reality experience has been selected for the inaugural "Immersive Competition" at the prestigious Festival de Cannes, one of only eight projects to be honoured, and one of only two with Canadian creators.

Festival de Cannes, renowned for celebrating excellence in filmmaking, has introduced the Immersive Competition for the first time this year to recognize innovative projects pushing the boundaries of immersive storytelling and technology. The Canadian/Swedish/Danish co-production "TELOS I" has been chosen as one of the standout entries in this category, affirming its status as a pioneering work in the field of immersive art.

Dorotea Saykaly and Emil Dam Seidel, the creators behind "TELOS I", express their deep gratitude about the selection:

"Being selected for the Festival de Cannes' inaugural Immersive Competition is a tremendous honor. When you set out to become an artist, you know that the chance of making an impact or a living with your work is very slim. Receiving this prestigious validation of our work and vision is a great relief, a life dream come true. We are extremely excited and grateful for the opportunity to premiere TELOS I in this inaugural competition. To share our immersive work with audiences, artists and professionals coming from all around the world to be part of the Festival de Cannes truly is a very humbling honour."

"TELOS I" will have its world premiere at the festival, where it will be displayed from the 15th to the 24th of May at the Cannes Cineum together with the other seven works selected for the competition. As a part of the new Immersive Competition "TELOS I" will be competing for the Best Immersive Work Prize.

The official announcement of the selection was made by the Festival de Cannes earlier today.

A Holographic Experience

"TELOS I" offers audiences a transcendent physical experience, blending dance and visual art with film and holographic projection to explore themes of human existence and digital consciousness. Set in a mythical landscape in the digital age, "TELOS I" takes viewers on a journey through a holographic realm, inviting them to engage with a narrative that blurs the line between the material and immaterial.

This ambitious exploration in the "moving arts", a term coined by the creators themselves, is a collaborative endeavor between Canadian choreographer and performer Dorotea Saykaly and Danish film director, Emil Dam Seidel.

In this fictional work an artificial intelligence created to assist humanity finds itself in an unknown void after the extinction of humankind. Lost in its unlimited capacity to store, process and conceive data, the AI looks to its absent creators in the search of a new purpose. A call into form becomes apparent; a need to reach beyond its digital existence becomes a necessity.

Together Dorotea Saykaly and Emil Dam Seidel's collective vision is deeply rooted in creating immersive experiences that provoke a profound bodily connection, inviting audiences to rediscover instinct and explore the subconscious. In their own words they "create experiences that shake people out of their brain and into their body."

Dorotea Saykaly is an award-winning Canadian choreographer and performing artist whose stage and film works have been presented internationally.

Originally from Montreal, Dorotea has enjoyed a rewarding career as a dancer at the Compagnie Marie Chouinard as well as with the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani. Prior to her choreographic career Dorotea worked with renowned choreographers such as Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Sharon Eyal, Damien Jalet, Marina Mascarell, Marcos Morau, Marie Chouinard and Ohad Naharin.

Her work BLACK MOON was nominated for the Sadler's Wells Inaugural Rose International Dance Prize in 2024 and was amongst the top seven worldwide. In 2022 she was awarded Best Choreography for Film at the Dance On Screen Film Festival in Graz, Austria, and in 2021 she received the Inaugural Emily Molnar Emerging Choreographer Award, which came with the opportunity to create a new work for Ballet BC.

Since then, Dorotea has been working on personal and commissioned projects between Canada, Sweden, Denmark and everywhere else.

Emil Dam Seidel is an award winning Danish film director. In 2022 he received a Silver Screen Young Director Award at the Cannes Lions international Festival of Creativity for his short, interactive web-series, Courage to Act. The year before Emil directed and produced the acclaimed short film SHE, which had its international premiere at the Fotografiska Museum New York and later screened at more than 40 film festivals across the globe.

Before starting his own career as a film director, Emil assisted R. Thomas Vinterberg on the Oscar winning film Another Round and he later became Vinterbergs' 2nd Unit Director on the Tv-series Families like Ours. Emil's professional film career was kickstarted in 2013 when he assisted the Oscar winning director R. Susanne Bier on the film A Second Chance.

Learn more at https://competitionimmersive.festival-cannes.com/en/

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