From Spielberg to Inarritu, everybody is vocal about it. Virtual Reality is a hot topic the world over. In the movie business, people are already betting on it as the ace card.

A discussion on the second day of Movie Mela addressed a very important question, “Is VR the future of storytelling?” The panel comprised of Director Shakun Batra, Gabo Arora – Creative Director and Senior Advisor at United Nations, Raja Koduri – Senior VP and Chief architect of AMD Radeon Technologies Group alongwith filmmaker Anand Gandhi.

Speaking about his first experience with Virtual Reality, Batra said, “I was working on Kapoor and Sons when I got to know about VR. After watching a VR preview, when I went back to my film’s rushes, they seemed so boring. I have decided to make a VR film which is currently in its scripting stage.”

Arora too made a huge announcement about acquiring a film by Anand Gandhi’s production company. “We have acquired Anand’s film Cost of Coal. It is India’s first film to be on our platform. India has the highest number of smartphones in the world and that opens a huge window of opportunities. A smartphone can double up as a VR machine,” he said.

Talking about the social impact of VR, Arora added that we are living in a world of phobias, intolerance and hate. “The immediate response to using VR in our social campaign films is that it is doubling donations. People are empathizing more,” he added.

Talking about empathy, Anand recommended that everyone should go through Chris Milk’s TedX talk on “How VR can create the ultimate empathy machine.” He termed Chris as the Spielberg of VR. Openly speaking about his future endeavours Gandhi said, “I want to take this as an opportunity to make an exciting announcement about my next project. I am planning a fiction using VR which will star Irrfan Khan.”