As the festival dates rapidly approach, FEST's Industry Program starts to take shape, adding to its already strong roster of speakers the newly announced Epic Games' Producer Nancy Xu, and Glassbox Technologies' Executive Producer Johannes Wilkes, who will both lead masterclasses dedicated to Virtual Production.

FEST's Industry program will take place between the 5th and the 10th of October in Espinho, Portugal — online passes already available.

Because Virtual Production technologies are still a mystery to the majority of the film industry, FEST is preparing a Virtual Production Day during its festival, with masterclasses designed to inform and explore the technologies capacities and potential, as well as to better prepare the talent for what is coming and will be pivotal the next few years. It is predicted that five years from now, most film productions will use one or more virtual production methods, so what better time than to start learning about them now?

Nancy Xu is a virtual production producer at Epic's London Innovation Lab, with a focus on empowering filmmakers to tell their stories using real time technology. Nancy has worked on shows such as The Lion King (2019), The Jungle Book (2016), and Alien Covenant (2017). Epic Games has been on the forefront of the technology, collaborating with Disney + on its flagship show The Mandalorian (2019).

Johannes Wilkes is an Executive Producer at Glassbox Technologies, a company which designs next-generation software toolsets that enable content creators to harness the power of game engines, and real-time production, to create stunning, immersive content, having worked on productions such as Netflix's Away (2020).

Joining these industry professionals, are the previously announced Irvine Welsh, writer of Trainspotting and other masterworks; screenwriter Tony Grisoni, best known for his collaborations with Terry Gilliam; and filmmaker Isabel Coixet, who will also be the focus of an extensive retrospective of her oeuvre.

The full program will be announced soon.