Salar Shahna
CEO at World VR Forum
Director / Producer / XR Expert
Salar Shahna is at the head of the World VR Forum, an organisation which has promoted VR internationally since 2015, holding its annual gathering every year in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. His focus was to connect science, creatives and industry; stimulate the market and showcase the best works in the festival. With his team, he kept extending the mission of the Forum notably by launching a talent incubator that supports and guides creatives, directors and technicians in the development of their projects. The Forum opened its first artist residency in 2018 welcoming underwater VR experience with waterproof headset and the artist Pierre Friquet.
He shifted from cinema to Virtual Reality late 2014, joining apelab in Geneva as a producer on the awarded VR series Sequenced (GDC, Sundance). In 2018, he reinforced his collaboration with this Swiss-American start-up building innovative AR solutions for Culture and Tourism with a flagship project in Saint-Moritz, Switzerland.
Salar’s dedication for education has led him to give training for VR in University of Savoie France, Cultural Bureau in Geneva and workshops for Asian Broadcasting Union. He developed a unique program for kids implemented experimentally in Rwanda and in the most prestigious boarding school in Switzerland, Institut Le Rosey.
Salar’s production company Dirty Bacon takes a new flight in 2018 with a detonating line-up and the development of 3 radically new VR projects directed by international and renowned creatives. Salar will be directing the science-fiction experience Relife from this line-up.
His expertise in the market and utilisation of VR led him to participate as an expert for major events such as the Shanghai NabShow, the Sundance Film Festival, the EMTS, the Cannes Film Festival, Slush and Venice Film Festival.
Salar Shahna has a strong relation with China and has been advocating since 2016 for deeper collaboration between Europe and the Middle Kingdom. He was the first to bring foreign VR content in China during the Shanghai International Film Festival, and has since curated an exhibiton in the Westbund Museum (2017) and in Shanghai's Modern Art Museum (2018).
He also sits on the board of the start-up Imverse which develops groundbreaking solutions in mixed reality.
In the past, Salar collaborated on several projects at Rita Productions in Geneva between 2011 and 2013, notably on Daniel Schweizer's "Dirty Gold War" as production director, then on Claude Barras' "My Life as a Zucchini" as head of the transmedia strategy. Salar also directed two short films, "Human Race 3D” in 2012 and "The Bakery" in 2013.
He holds of a dual Master's degree in Hypermedia and Communication from the University of Savoie in France and University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, and has been educated in the best Swiss private schools in his childhood.
FILMOGRAPHY and VR (SELECTION):
Relife
Dirty Bacon - 2D series and VR - 2019
Director, Writer, Producer
Comic Birds, Daniel Schweizer/Céline Tricart
Dirty Bacon - Cinematic VR - 2019
Producer
Terrains, Lily Baldwin/Saschka Unseld
Dirty Bacon - Interactive VR - 2019
Producer
Ma Vie de Courgette, Claude Barras
Rita Productions - 2016 Cannes, TIFF, Annecy
Transmedia Producer
A Room with 4 views, Maria Guta
Maria Guta - 4X3 min - VR- Dirty Bacon/POV - 2016
Producer
Sequenced de Sylvain Joly
VR - apelab - 2016
Producer, production advisor
Dirty Gold War
84’ - Rita Productions - 2015
Line Producer
Miss Ronde» de Robin Harsch
52’ - Rita Produtions/RTS - 2014
Producer
The Bakery
28’ - Rita Productions - 2012’
Director, actor
La Faute à Rousseau
55x4’ - Rita Productions - 2012’
Production Manager (entire collection), Line Producer (2 episodes), Director (1 episode)