At the hub of the immersive section at the Cannes Film Festival, among installations, headsets, and a constant flow of audiences moving through temporary worlds, the dialogue unfolds offstage. It is precisely in this informal space that the central issue facing the sector today emerges: on one hand, the evolution of immersive storytelling as a language; on the other, its sustainability—without diminishing its experimental nature.

At the center is May Abdalla—artist and filmmaker, co-founder of the studio Anagram—one of the most internationally recognized voices in immersive storytelling. With Goliath: Playing with Reality, awarded at Venice Immersive, and Impulse, winner of a News & Documentary Emmy Award in the category “Outstanding Interactive Media: Documentary,” Abdalla has helped define the possibilities of contemporary experiential storytelling.

Federica Polidoro met the artist at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, between two immersive experiences. An accidental, rapid exchange, born in the most unlikely place: the hotel bathroom…

FP: How do you think economic and industrial sustainability can be achieved in an artistic practice grounded in research, risk, and long development cycles?

MA: Those working in this field today face a clear contradiction: in order to survive, you need to find a workable niche, repeat it, and scale it. That is the logic of capitalism.

FP: But your work moves in another direction: continuous research, risk, constant interaction. How do you build real sustainability within a system that pushes toward standardization?

MA: That is the central question. If you want the work to continue existing, you need to find a balance between research and economic structure. But we do not start from an industrial perspective. We aim for impact and emotional engagement. With Goliath—which explores the boundaries of reality, a true story connected to what is commonly referred to as “schizophrenia,” as well as the power of gaming communities—we saw concrete effects on doctors, students, and healthcare professionals. It changes the way they understand and interpret certain conditions. This is not designed to be replicated at scale. This creates a constant tension: on one hand, the need to sustain the studio; on the other, the nature of the work itself, which requires risk and freedom.

FP: What do the numbers say?

MA: With Impulse, for example, 52% of participants took action within a month: seeing a psychologist, consulting a doctor, or changing family dynamics. And this matters precisely because it shows that the experience does not remain confined within the work itself. But sustainability is not only about impact. It is the ability to keep a creative ecosystem alive over time. And that ecosystem is even more fragile. The market tends to simplify. Even when a work succeeds, it is not guaranteed to find a coherent economic model. In cinema, this is evident: cultural value and commercial success rarely coincide.

FP: Exactly. And in immersive media this gap is even wider.

MA: The problem is not only producing works that function. It is ensuring they can exist over time. Who sees them, where are they shown, how do they circulate: this is the real infrastructure of sustainability.

FP: You also work on interactive projections, you have a studio in Barcelona, and you are constantly experimenting. How sustainable is it?

MA: It is not linear. It is an ongoing adaptive and analytical process, with extremely high costs. Interactivity is often sold as a solution, but in reality it is a narrative complication. Not everything needs to be interactive. And not everything that is interactive adds value.

FP: And yet investment and interest from major tech companies and large trusts in immersive media are growing significantly. Just look at the latest edition of Venice Immersive, where the presence of players such as Meta, Google, and Apple has resulted in increasingly ambitious and structured projects, such as Asteroid by Doug Liman, supported by Google, and Submerged, the immersive experience directed by Edward Berger for Apple.

MA: Yes, but we must distinguish between enthusiasm and structure. There are models that work, such as expandable IPs like Black Mirror—currently in competition at Cannes. But they are not universal. And every time a dominant model emerges, a more fragile undergrowth appears as well—often where the most interesting work happens.

FP: There is also a perception problem: VR and immersive media are still read as technology rather than as a language.

MA: And that is the critical point. Technology is not storytelling. Storytelling is made by authors, not platforms. Meanwhile, “Van Gogh experiences” are proliferating: large-scale venues, replicable formats, global distribution. But these models must constantly reinvent themselves.

FP: Yes, it is already an industrial model, but still unstable.

MA: There is no shared standard. In cinema, 35mm created a common language. Here, every space is different and every work must be rebuilt. This makes everything economically more fragile, even on a production level. Every venue is a case in itself. Every installation must be adapted. And this makes scaling much more complex than it appears from the outside.

FP: So where is the sustainability?

MA: In holding together two things that are usually mutually exclusive: research and accessibility. We invest directly in projects to demonstrate that this language is not only about aesthetics or technology. But the core issue remains the same: making it simple without emptying it out.

FP: It seems that among all the senses, smell is still the most neglected, despite some attempts. Are there still no efficient algorithms? Maybe John Waters’ Odorama was more successful…

MA: In more extreme sensory works, where the body becomes part of the narrative—experiments that push boundaries, precisely for this reason, open a larger question: how sustainable can a language be that directly engages the human experience?

FP: In the end, this is the question: the sustainability of an immersive language still in formation.

MA: Exactly. And perhaps it cannot be sustainable in the same way as traditional media. It must find its own economy, its own ecology—and we are all doing our best to respond to that necessity.