LIBRARY OF DREAMS Selected for Venice Immersive at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival

2026-07-16 15:01

Venice, July 16, 2026 — Library of Dreams, a 25-minute interactive narrative VR experience exploring how the human psyche responds to life under political pressure, has been selected for Venice Immersive at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. The project will be presented in the Biennale College Cinema — Immersive programme and will have its world premiere in Venice in September 2026.

Directed by Zhenya Rzheznikova and Alina Mikhaleva Savelyeva, the journey begins in a Berlin apartment in 1936 before gradually dissolving into a shifting dreamscape where memories, identities, and places merge. Moving between intimate interiors and surreal landscapes, viewers inhabit a sequence of interconnected dreams flowing across generations and blurring the boundaries between eras.

Built from original dreams collected from historical archives and contemporary testimonies, Library of Dreams weaves together dreams recorded in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and present-day Russia. Rather than reconstructing historical events, the experience follows the logic of dreaming itself, allowing recurring fears, symbols, and emotions to connect people separated by decades within a single shared landscape.

The selection marks a return to Venice for the project. In 2024, Library of Dreams was developed through the eighth edition of Biennale College Cinema — Immersive and was later presented at the Venice Gap-Financing Market. In 2025, Less Media Group entered into an international co-production with Bavarian XR studio Abduct Media. The partnership brought additional production, technical, and immersive-development expertise to the project as it moved from prototyping into full production. Through the German co-production, Library of Dreams subsequently received production support from FFF Bayern and Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM). The project is now produced as an German-Israeli co-production between Less Media Group and Abduct Media.

The 2026 Venice Immersive programme celebrates its tenth anniversary and presents 68 projects from 26 countries. Library of Dreams is one of the works featured in the Biennale College Cinema — Immersive programme. The press and industry preview will take place on 1 September, and Venice Immersive will be open to accredited visitors from 2−12 September on Venice Immersive Island at Lazzaretto Vecchio.

"For me, Library of Dreams is an attempt to speak about the unspeakable — the experience of oppression that silently changes the human psyche," says co-director and producer Alina Mikhaleva Savelyeva. "It's as if we discovered a universal language of human experience — uncensored, raw, revealing the truth in places where truth is not welcome."

The team is now completing the final production phase. Although the German side of the co-production has received public funding, the Israeli side has been financed independently by the creators and producers. The team continues to invest its own resources in the work, and additional funding is needed for final production, technical finishing, sound, testing, delivery.

To help complete Library of Dreams for its first audiences, the team has launched a crowdfunding campaign. Individual supporters can contribute through WhyDonate, while organisations, foundations, art institutions, distributors, exhibitors, museums, galleries, and venues are invited to contact the project team about partnerships and future presentations.

Link to Crowdfunding to support the final production
Project website
Official Venice Immersive announcement

Press contact:
Alina Mikhaleva / alina@lessmediagroup.com

About Library of Dreams

Library of Dreams is an interactive narrative VR experience exploring how the human psyche responds to life under political pressure. Built from original dreams collected from historical archives and contemporary testimonies, it connects accounts from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and present-day Russia within a shared dream landscape.

About Less Media Group

Less Media Group is an independent Georgian-Israeli creative studio founded by XR professional Alina Mikhaleva Savelyeva. The studio works across content creation, virtual events, festival organisation, and narrative XR development, and has created educational programmes for emerging digital artists in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Library of Dreams originated in one of the studio’s digital-art programmes, organised with the French Institute in 2022. Learn more.

About Abduct Media

Abduct Media is an independent XR studio based in Fürth, Germany, specialising in immersive, VR, and MR experiences and games. The studio brings creative and technical XR expertise to the Library of Dreams co-production. Learn more.

About Venice Immersive

Venice Immersive is the XR section of the Venice International Film Festival and is dedicated to all forms of creative XR expression, including immersive video, virtual and mixed reality, virtual worlds, and immersive installations. The 83rd Venice International Film Festival runs from 2−12 September 2026.