VR can affect social change, believes BAFTA Breakthrough filmmaker and artist Poulomi Basu

VR animated film MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero has already garnered praise for digital artist and filmmaker Poulomi Basu, with a nomination at Festival de Cannes Compétition Immersive 2024 as well as earning a Winner Special Jury Mention Prize 2023 Tribeca Festival. Released for the best VR headsets, MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero is boundary-pushing art as much as it is a 'game'.

But being chosen as a BAFTA Breakthrough remains just as momentous for artist and activist Poulomi Basu, who was born and raised in Kolkata. “It's hard to quantify what these things mean, because sometimes they're so big that it just feels surreal and unreal, right? Growing up with my background and everything, I've had so little of being important and powerful… It feels absurdist and surreal in some ways, but also, at the same time, it makes me feel great that I belong, and I have been welcomed, and I've been chosen because I deserve it.”

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Lewis Packwood
Video games journalist

Lewis Packwood has been writing about video games professionally since 2013, and his work has appeared in The Guardian, Retro Gamer, EDGE, Eurogamer, Wireframe, Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, PC Gamer and Time Extension, among others. He is also the author of Curious Video Game Machines: A Compendium of Rare and Unusual Consoles, Computers and Coin-Ops (White Owl, 2023).

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