REEDUCATED - Dirt Empire

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REEDUCATED

The New Yorker’s “Reeducated,” an immersive V.R. documentary, directed by Sam Wolson, with reporting by Ben Mauk and illustrations by Matt Huynh and animation by Nicholas Rubin and Dirt Empire, that takes viewers inside the secret world of a “reëducation” camp in Xinjiang, China. In the spring of 2017, authorities in Xinjiang began detaining thousands of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Muslim minorities in secret extrajudicial detention camps. By 2018, as many as a million people were held in a vast network of “reëducation centers.” Guided by the eyewitness accounts of three men—Erbaqyt Otarbai, Orynbek Koksebek, and Amanzhan Seituly, all ethnically Kazakh—who were imprisoned at a facility in Tacheng in 2017, the film illuminates what is likely the largest mass internment of ethnic and religious minorities since the Second World War.

“Reeducated” premièred at SXSW, in the Virtual Cinema category, and received the film festival’s Special Jury Recognition for Immersive Journalism. It has gone on to win main prizes from New Images, VRHAM and has been shown at many other festivals including the 78th Venice Film Festival VR Expanded section.

Drawn from hours of firsthand testimony, survivor sketches, and satellite photos, the V.R. film uses Huynh’s hand-drawn pen-and-brush illustrations, brought to life by the animator Nicholas Rubin, and spatial audio, composed by Jon Bernson, to reconstruct the men’s experiences in a stereoscopic, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree space. Viewers can watch the film on desktop on newyorker.com or on mobile via YouTube. Use a cardboard viewer, or a headset such as an Oculus, for the full V.R. experience. See detailed viewing instructions here.

“Reeducated” was supported by the Pulitzer Center, the Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism, and the Online News Association, and accompanies the interactive New Yorker feature “Inside Xinjiang’s Prison State.”

Dirt Empire supervised all of the animation production of the project with a team of visual effects artists to bring the project into stereoscopic virtual reality over the course of 1 year. Their goal in executing the highly technical animation was to craft a hand-painted world in keeping with Matt Huynh’s visual style, Sam Wolson’s directorial vision and Ben Mauk’s deep reporting — all in service to the depth of the story while leveraging the power of VR storytelling.

PRIZES

“Special Jury Prize for Immersive Journalism” at SXSW 2021 in the Virtual Cinema Category.

“VRHAMMY” at VRHAM! VR festival in Hamburg

“Special Jury Prize VR” VR festival NewImages in Paris

Film credits

Featuring
Erbaqyt Otarbai
Orynbek Koksebek
Amanzhan Seituly

Project Developed by
Ben Mauk
Sam Wolson

Director
Sam Wolson

Artist
Matt Huynh

Research and Reporting
Ben Mauk

Executive Producers
Soo-Jeong Kang
Monica Racic

Lead Animator and Technical Supervisor
Nicholas Rubin