China’s immersive storytelling steps onto the Venice main stage
According to Xinhua’s English service, the festival closed on Venice’s Lido on 12 September. The Pigeon Ring was named winner of the Venice Immersive Grand Prize — the top award in the festival’s dedicated VR and immersive section. The work runs 35 minutes and is directed by Zhang Yuqi and Tao Shixin, who present the story through virtual reality and immersive installations.
Xinhua and China Daily reports show the narrative follows a grandfather and granddaughter searching for a lost pigeon ring. That simple quest explores memory, companionship and family ties in an ordinary Chinese household. This mix of intimate subject matter and advanced VR format aligns with Venice Immersive’s stated aim — highlighted in coverage of the programme’s 10th anniversary — to place viewers at the centre of the action rather than in front of a traditional screen.
Xinhua data indicate that The Pigeon Ring was selected for competition in a Venice Immersive lineup featuring 30 works from 26 countries and regions. That breadth of participation underscores the competitive context. One insight from this year’s festival coverage cuts to the point: Chinese VR creators are no longer niche experimenters — they are now winning in the same arenas that define the future of premium screen content.
What does The Pigeon Ring Venice win mean for Asian creative tech?
The Venice Immersive Grand Prize sits within a wider awards picture that also highlights Asia’s growing weight across formats. Reuters and The Korea Times confirm that South Korean director Lee Chang-dong won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the same festival for his feature Possible Love. European outlets report that Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown took the Golden Lion for best film. Its lead actor Mathilde Arcel received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. John Malkovich, meanwhile, won Best Actor for Wild Horse Nine, according to the Xinhua dispatch listing the main competition awards.
As a result, investors see an awards slate in which Asian creators take key positions both in traditional feature competition and in immersive media. China-focused outlets such as Sohu and China Daily emphasise that The Pigeon Ring uses virtual reality and installation-based presentation. This signals a blend of film craft, gaming technologies and experiential design — a combination increasingly relevant for Chinese platforms and studios that straddle film, streaming and interactive entertainment.
Moreover, Xinhua reports that Venice Immersive operates as a curated island event during the festival, marking its 10th year with a programme that ran from 2 to 12 September. The dedicated setting on Lazzaretto Vecchio reinforces VR’s status as a serious format, not an add-on. For Chinese creative-tech companies, that international validation may support new funding rounds for VR studios, game engines, hardware makers and location-based entertainment operators seeking to export content.
From festival acclaim to scalable creative-tech business
By contrast with domestic awards, the Venice recognition can help Chinese teams pitch to European distributors, global streaming services and metaverse-style platforms. The family-centred storyline also travels well. It lowers cultural barriers for audiences new to Chinese content while remaining grounded in local social textures. For development finance institutions and sovereign funds that already back digital infrastructure, this kind of soft-power gain strengthens the case for parallel investment in content and creative IP linked to that infrastructure.
For now, the Venice prize is a symbolic win rather than a balance-sheet event. However, it points to a pipeline where Chinese immersive stories can anchor co-productions, licensing deals and cross-border VR exhibitions. Investors and policymakers should watch how Chinese VR studios leverage the Venice Immersive Grand Prize over the next 12 to 24 months — particularly in terms of international partnerships, distribution agreements and follow-on projects that test whether festival acclaim can convert into scalable creative-tech business.
Quick answers
The Venice Immersive Grand Prize is the top award in the Venice International Film Festival’s dedicated VR and immersive media section. In 2024 it was awarded from a competitive lineup of 30 works representing 26 countries and regions.
The Pigeon Ring is directed by Zhang Yuqi and Tao Shixin. The 35-minute VR work follows a grandfather and granddaughter searching for a lost pigeon ring, exploring themes of memory, companionship and family life in a Chinese household.
South Korean director Lee Chang-dong won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for his feature Possible Love at the same festival where The Pigeon Ring claimed the immersive top prize.
