Immersive in Focus

Join us in this episode to celebrate the three UK immersive works in competition at Cannes with a conversation with their creative teams. Expect a fascinating discussion about art and technology, AI and storytelling, and creating bridges between different media. With Eloise Singer, director and producer of The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters; Yamil Rodriguez and Ivan Alejandro Diaz Cardenas, respectively director and agentic director of Gawd v. The People; Leigh Tanner Head of Global Partnerships at VIVE Arts and Pierre-Alain Giraud, director of Playing with Fire.

Speakers:

YAMIL RODRIGUEZ | Director
GAWD v. The People (Nilor Studio)

IVAN ALEJANDRO DIAZ CARDENAS | Agentic Director
GAWD v. The People (Nilor Studio)

ELOISE SINGER | Producer and Director
The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters (Singer Studios)

PIERRE-ALAIN GIRAUD | Director
Playing with Fire (VIVE Arts)

LEIGH TANNER | Head of Global Partnerships
VIVE Arts Playing with Fire (VIVE Arts)

Moderator:

LIZ ROSENTHAL | Curator, Executive Producer, CEO & Founder
Power to the Pixel and Venice Immersive

About the speakers:

 

YAMIL RODRIGUEZ
Yamil Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican American multidisciplinary artist who uses storytelling and AI-driven tools to bring people closer through shared, participatory experiences. Working across immersive cinema, performance, and installation, his practice explores memory, identity, and collective connection. He most recently co-directed tAxI and is currently developing GAWD v. The People.

 

IVAN ALEJANDRO DIAZ CARDENAS
Ivan Alejandro Diaz Cardenas works at nilor studio creating immersive experiences. Trained in Experience Design, they began as a fine line tattoo artist and tour guide, learning how attention, emotion, and memory move. After studying Creative Computing at UAL in London, they shifted into AI coding and software engineering to build interactive worlds you can step into.

 

ELOISE SINGER
Eloise Singer is an Emmy-nominated, multi-award-winning producer, writer and director, and founder of Singer Studios. Her work spans film, television, podcasts and immersive media, creating bold cinematic worlds from overlooked and untold stories. She is the creator of The Pirate Queen, an award-winning franchise expanding across immersive media, publishing and screen. Her projects include The Pirate Queen (2024), starring Lucy Liu, and Mrs Benz (2025), starring Daisy Ridley. Her latest work, The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters, premieres at Cannes in 2026. She has also executive produced Rare Beasts, directed by Billie Piper, and The Last Rifleman, starring Pierce Brosnan.

 

PIERRE-ALAIN GIRAUD
Pierre-Alain Giraud, French director and producer, co-founder of Novaya, known for his immersive experiences. He won the 2024 Best Immersive Work Award at the Cannes Film Festival Immersive Competition for Colored, co-directed with Stéphane Foenkinos. Giraud has collaborated with artists like Björk and Sigur Rós, and his work spans theatre and film. His projects have been featured at Sundance, Tribeca and BFI London.

LEIGH TANNER
Leigh Tanner is Head of Global Partnerships at VIVE Arts, a global arts initiative that supports artists and cultural institutions’ experimentation with new technologies. She previously served as the Deputy Director of Yuz Foundation, Shanghai as well as in the Research and Exhibitions Departments of the Shanghai Project, an interdisciplinary ideas platform launched at the Shanghai Himalayas Museum. She also founded Museum 2050, a platform and annual symposium for exploring the future of museums through the lens of China.

 

LIZ ROSENTHAL
At the Venice Biennale’s Venice International Film Festival, Liz was instrumental in launching Venice Immersive in 2017- the first and only official competition in an A-list festival for immersive arts. Under her curatorship, Venice Immersive has grown into the world’s most significant annual exhibition of immersive arts and media. Through her company, Power to the Pixel, Liz created the first ever international programmes dedicated to developing, financing and showcasing interactive and then immersive storytelling. Her acclaimed programme The Pixel Lab supported the development of over one hundred projects, while the Cross-Media Forum, run in partnership with the BFI London Film Festival for nine years, pioneered the first international financing market for interactive and immersive projects.

Produced by Lawrence Francis / www.premiercomms.com