Guillaume de Fondaumiére, COO of French video-game developer Quantic Dream and executive producer of dramatic action-adventure video game Heavy Rain, will speak in Dublin this Friday as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival (JDIFF).
The team members at Quantic Dream are considered pioneers of interactive cinema, making a name for themselves by allowing gamers to follow multiple plotlines based on their actions in-game as opposed to more traditional, linear storytelling. Heavy Rain, released in 2010 for the PlayStation 3, is a video game-cum-psychological thriller where the player is the protagonist and their decisions affect the narrative.
Quantic Dream also provides motion-capture services to the film industry and a follow-up to the critically acclaimed Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, is expected this year.
A Knight of France’s National Order of Merit, de Fondaumiére joined Quantic Dream in 2003. Before that he was the president of Arxel Tribe, a 3D graphics studio he co-founded in 1993. He was also elected president of the French video games trade body APOM two years in a row and was appointed chair of the European Games Developer Federation.
De Fondaumiére will be in conversation with Dr Aphra Kerr on 15 February at 1pm in Light House Cinema, Smithfield. Kerr is a lecturer in NUI Maynooth and has published several works on the games industry and its growing relevance both artistically and economically. The event is free but booking is required.
The talk forms part of JDIFF’s schedule of industry events, which also includes a look at the crossover between live action and animation in film, conversations with leading European directors and a discussion on the economics of YouTube with a panel featuring David McWilliams and The Rubberbandits.
