Evolver

Directed by Barnaby Steel (Marshmallow Laser Feast)

Nominated for Cannes Films Festival Immersive Category, 2024

In collaboration with:
Natan Sinigaglia and Imaginary Friends, James Bulley, Henrik Oppermann and Daisy Lafarge.

Executive Producers: Edward R. Pressman, Terrence Malick, Nicole Shanahan, Nell Whitley, Mike Jones, Paula Paizes, René Pinell

Voiceover: Cate Blanchett
Director of Sound, Composer & Sound Designer: James Bulley
Sound Designer & Spatial Sound Artist: Henrik Oppermann
Music: Jonny Greenwood, Meredith Monk, Jóhann Jóhannsson & Yair Elazar Glotman, Howard Skempton

Scientific Advisors: Fraunhofer MEVIS, Jennifer Garrison (The Buck Institute), Kinda Studios, The Allen Institute for Cell Science

25 October–14 November 2024 (UK Premiere), Adventures in Consciousness, Oxford University, UK [link]
15–24 May 2024, Festival De Cannes, Immersive Competition, Cannes, France
23 November 2023–14 April 2024, Works of Nature, at ACMI, Melbourne, Australia
12 October–10 December 2023, Opera Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland
17 June–17 September 2023, Sublime at Wave Museum, Seoul, South Korea [link]
4–13 November 2022, Geneva International Film Festival, Geneva, Switzerland
June 2022 (World Premiere), Tribeca Film Festival, New York, USA [link]

Evolver is a collective virtual reality experience which drops audiences deep inside the landscape of the body, following the flow of oxygen through our branching ecosystem, to a single ‘breathing’ cell. Through this transcendental narrative, it becomes clear that breath not only sparks life, but also connects us to the natural world through the cycle of respiration.

Press and further information

“The best film I saw at Cannes? A 45-minute Cate Blanchett short” (The Times, 25 May 2024)

5* Review of Evolver at Tribeca in the Independent (The Independent, June 2022)