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The Venue, an animated VR360 film by Evan Siegal and Maahir Shah, had its world premiere at the Kaohsiung Film Festival in Taiwan on 9 October 2026.
It plays in the 360 Cinema at VR FILM LAB. Up to 30 people wear headsets and watch the 21-minute film at the same time. The festival scheduled 24 screenings, running to 26 October.
VR FILM LAB has run as a VR360 cinema since 2018. In France, Traverse is putting VR into existing cinemas on a ticket split.
VR FILM LAB is in the C9 Warehouse in Kaohsiung’s Dayi Pier-2 Zone. The Kaohsiung Film Archive runs it. Besides the 360 Cinema, the venue has two interactive zones, and it programmes four themed seasons a year.
“Unlike a traditional VR installation where audiences experience a work individually, this setup allows 30 people to put on headsets and experience the film simultaneously,” Siegal, the film’s director, told The VR Collective in an email.
One seated audience watches each screening. The festival runs The Venue once or twice a day.
Siegal said The Venue is a stereoscopic 360-degree animated film. The whole film was animated and rendered in Unreal Engine 5, he said, with Epic Games’ MetaHumans for the motion-captured characters.
In the film, a clinical trial briefly ends participants’ lives. They arrive at a nightclub in the afterlife, where souls party before being reincarnated. The score is “an original electronic music project by DJ/producers thought cabinet and 5önikk,” Siegal said. The names are his and Shah’s musical aliases.
Siegal is a Los Angeles filmmaker, 3D artist and musician. He is Lead 3D Artist for the Coachella Innovation Team and has worked with pgLang, 88rising, Atlantic Records and YSL. Shah is a Bombay-born, Los Angeles-based DJ and producer.
The festival rates The Venue PG 12+ and warns of flashing lights.
The Venue is one of 29 works from 16 countries in the festival’s XR International Competition. Eight are VR360 films and 21 are interactive. The jury is Antoine Cayrol, co-founder of Atlas V; Anaïs Emery, vice president of the Fondation pour la création numérique; and Wu Dar-kuen, director of Taiwan’s C-LAB.
The nominees include Small Creative’s Everest, the First Ascent, which Eclipso added to its Manhattan venue in September.
The festival programmed The Venue the way a cinema programmes a film, at fixed screening times with one seated audience each. Siegal said he and Shah are developing The Venue as “a larger universe, with plans for future installments.”
What is The Venue? An animated VR360 film by Evan Siegal and Maahir Shah, set in a nightclub in the afterlife. It runs 21 minutes and premiered at the 2026 Kaohsiung Film Festival.
Where is the VR360 cinema showing The Venue? The 360 Cinema at VR FILM LAB, in the C9 Warehouse at Pier-2 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The Kaohsiung Film Archive runs the venue.
How many people watch a VR360 cinema screening of The Venue? Up to 30 per screening, all wearing headsets and watching at the same time.
How was The Venue made? It was animated and rendered in Unreal Engine 5, with MetaHumans for the motion-captured characters. It is a stereoscopic 360-degree film.
