Venice Immersive’s 10th edition opens with Andy Serkis and Josh Nelson Youssef’s Nevatars In Competition on Google and Xreal’s Project Aura connected glasses—not a sealed VR headset.
Nevatars is In Competition at Venice Immersive, which runs September 2–12, 2026 as the XR section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival—the section’s 10th anniversary. La Biennale lists directors Andy Serkis and Josh Nelson Youssef, a 31-minute English-language running time, and country USA. Production credits span Imaginarium Productions, Boona, Google – 100 Zeros, and 3Dar. That places the Serkis/Google narrative beat next to the site’s earlier coverage of Galápagos: The Last Eden (also Aura) and Empire At Sea (Vision Pro), without collapsing the three into one festival wrap.
Forgotten folder, escape mission
The Biennale synopsis is clear: Aya, an aspiring artist obsessed with perfection, hides quirky personal creations in a forgotten folder called “Nevatars.” When her newest “perfect” character is dropped into that world of discarded digital no-hopers, an escape mission forces her to confront what she almost abandoned. Main cast listed on the festival page includes Josh Gad, Daisy Ridley, Leah Bateman, Steven Zahn, Kathleen Turner, Kelly Marie Tran, Aisling Bea, Andy Serkis, and Daniel Floren. Screenplay credit goes to Daniel Floren and Josh Nelson Youssef.
The creators’ statement on the same page frames the piece as mixed-reality storytelling about abandoned digital characters—made, they write, at a moment when creating images has never been easier, while arguing that what moves audiences is still the fingerprints of the people who made them.
Aura glasses, not a sealed headset
In an XRMust interview, Venice Immersive curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac say the festival will present two major projects on Google and Xreal’s Project Aura connected glasses: Nevatars and Galápagos. Rosenthal’s point is curatorial, not hype: premiering these works in Venice rather than at a tech conference is significant. Reilhac adds that immersive content on a device that is “just glasses and no longer a headset” is something the section has been waiting for. The Biennale competition listing tags Nevatars as XR glasses, installation—aligned with that hardware frame.
Rosenthal and Reilhac also describe the anniversary edition as forward-looking rather than retrospective, with connected glasses treated as a serious creative platform alongside matured LBE and restrained mixed-reality storytelling elsewhere in the 68-title lineup from 26 countries.
Sources: La Biennale / Nevatars, XRMust / Rosenthal & Reilhac, La Biennale / Venice Immersive selection announcement.