A Long Goodbye
Nominees and Awards
- ★ 2026 NewImages Festival XR Competition
- ★ 2026 SXSW Agog Immersive Impact Award
- ★ 2025 Venice Film Festival Venice Immersive Competition
Synopsis
A Long Goodbye tells the story of Ida, a 72-year-old pianist living with dementia. In this animated, interactive VR experience, we walk in Ida’s shoes. We experience a day in her life, as her reality is fading. The apartment, where she spent a lifetime with her beloved husband Daniel, first feels empty and undefined. When we interact with objects and play the tape recordings of her husband, her playful world gradually comes to life, as if drawn in paint before our eyes.
Like pieces of a puzzle, memories and conversations help Ida to rediscover herself. But we also discover Daniel’s struggles, as he hopes to stay connected and realizes their remaining time together may be short. A Long Goodbye is a poetic experience about the impact of dementia, but above all it is about love and the long goodbye of two lovers who shared a life together.
Team
Director
Kate VOET
Kate Voet is a Belgian film director and screenwriter. She studied English literature and linguistics and film directing at the University of Amsterdam, LUCA and The New School in NYC. Her shorts Les Homards Immortels and The Tears of Things toured internationally.
She co-directed interactive VR film A Long Goodbye which premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival and won a lion for the Venice Immersive Achievement Prize before continuing its journey to a.o. SXSW, IDFA and Clermont Ferrand, winning several more awards along the way including the Agog Immersive Impact Award at SXSW.
Director
Victor MAES
Victor Maes graduated from LUCA School of Arts Brussels in 2015 and studied advanced cinematography at the Global Cinematography Institute in Los Angeles. Since 2016, he has worked as a camera assistant and as a cinematographer across fiction and documentary.
He co-wrote and co-directed the interactive VR film A Long Goodbye, which premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival and won the Venice Immersive Achievement Prize before continuing its journey to a.o. SXSW, IDFA, and Clermont Ferrand, winning several more awards along the way including the Agog Immersive Impact Award at SXSW.
