Today’s guest is Kiira Benz, a filmmaker, theatre director, and pioneer in immersive storytelling. She has been working in the XR space for the last decade, pushing boundaries at the intersection of film, theatre, and virtual reality. Kiira is the founder of Double Eye Studios, the award-winning creative XR studio behind Finding Pandora X, which became the first VR theatre production to win a Lion at the Venice International Film Festival. She has directed acclaimed immersive projects including Territory, Runnin’, Loveseat, and Cardboard City, and she was the first VR director to film on the Intel Studios volumetric capture stage. Her work has been recognized with major honors at Venice, SXSW, and with a JustFilms Fellowship from the Ford Foundation. She is also the host of the Portal to the Next Stage podcast, where she talks with trailblazers working at the crossroads of art, technology, and human connection. In our conversation we dig into her creative process, where immersive media is headed, and we break down two of her favorite movie scenes: from AMELIE (2001) and the poetic mirror-filled moments from Agnès Varda’s THE BEACHES OF AGNES (2008).   Hosted by Zef Cota