Artist and director Sophia Bulgakova premieres a new immersive ritual at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025
Ancient traditions are overshadowed over time by new, modern customs. There are also instances when heritage is systematically overwritten and erased by hostile powers. What if these traditions contain valuable experiences and views that make us better grasp the relationships and interactions between humans and nature? Is it possible to revive this? Artist and immersive director Sophia Bulgakova presents the premiere of OTHERWORLDS at the 2025 edition of IFFR, bringing a world of rhythm and colour based on age-old traditions to life. By using new technologies, brought together in an Extended Reality experience, Bulgakova asks what role technology could play in preserving cultural heritage.
OTHERWORLDS is a contemporary embodiment of an ancient pagan Ukrainian ritual, which honours the cyclical patterns of nature witnessed in the transition of seasons and, with it, the ever-changing flow of life. Following the passage from spring to summer, natural entities such as flowers, trees and ephemeral spaces will act as your guiding spirits through a cycle of communal growth and rebirth. Modern XR technologies bring to life engraved symbols, the scenic sounds of ancient instruments and ritual songs like Vesnyanky and Rusalni Pisni. These songs accompanying the work are integral to Ukrainian seasonal rituals, reflecting ancient connections to nature, mythology, and communal celebration.
Here there are no answers - your unique journey of movement and sensory experience connects everything. The production is inspired by the spiritual link between humans and nature, as in pre-Christian times when certain rituals helped bring people closer together in communities.
As an audience, you are invited to enter a ritualistic world where the experience of an altered reality invites you to move with others, in a journey between the present and the past. Rather than explaining specific cultural origins the ritual focuses on offering audiences an empowering, communal experience. Through this, director Sophia Bulgakova not only keeps Ukrainian heritage and knowledge alive, but creates sacred transformative experiences that are universal and ever-repeating. As the Ukrainian folk practices are continuously threatened with extinction by the modern world and invasive forces, this experience offers us the radical ability to remember the self-repeating cycles of life.
OTHERWORLDS is more than a traditional VR experience: participants become part of a communal experience in which they undergo a modern embodiment of ritual together through movement, spatial sound design and VR, designed as an immersive experience.
It’s with great pleasure that we invite you to the exclusive IFFR 2025 Art Direction press-visits of OTHERWORLDS taking place also on Friday 31 January, 12:00-14:00. Our team will welcome you to further explain the research and stories surrounding OTHERWORLDS, and of course meet the director. We kindly ask you to reserve a spot in advance. If you are unable to attend but would like to arrange a visit at another time, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Sophia Bulgakova (UA/NL) was born in 1997 in Odesa, Ukraine. She is an ArtScientist and interdisciplinary artist currently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. As an artist and director, she is working on the intersection between art, technology, and society, focusing on the relationship between light, perception, and imagination. Through various sensorial inputs in her installations and performances, she engages viewers, impacting their ways of perceiving reality and exploring new possibilities beyond it.
Bulgakova studied sculpture in Kyiv and then got a foundation diploma in Photography and Time-Based Media at the University of the Arts London in the UK. After that, she graduated from the ArtScience Interfaculty at the Royal Academy of the Art and Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the Netherlands. Her works were exhibited at CTM Festival (DE), Sonic Acts Festival (NL), FIBER Festival (NL), Baltan Laboratories (NL), Mediamatic (NL), and Ningbo City Exhibition Hall (CN), among other places.
Art Directions is the space where the festival steps out of the screening room and pushes the limits of what cinema can be. At galleries and artistic spaces across Rotterdam, encounter cinema in surprising forms: immersive media, performances, live music and visual art. More info: https://iffr.com/en/art-directions-2025
Press & Communication: Maarten De Bruijn | maarten@fiber-space.nl | +31623733910
Distribution & Sales: Marieke Nooren | mariekenooren@gmail.com | . +31645608987
About FIBER
FIBER is an Amsterdam based interdisciplinary organisation, that presents new developments in audiovisual art, digital culture and the experimental and deeper corners of electronic music. The team works year round with a vibrant network of artists, designers, researchers and developers, who aspire to introduce mind bending experiences to a broad audience. Special attention goes out to the support of up and coming talents across numerous creative disciplines.