Empereur (2023)

EMPEROR is an interactive and narrative experience in virtual reality, which invites the user to travel inside the brain of a father, suffering from aphasia. It is the story of a man who's lost his ability to speak, and of the daughter trying to communicate with him. It is the story of a woman, who wasn't given the chance to know the man behind her father, now obscured by this illness. As she tries to piece together what remains of his language, she discovers that his relationship to words is connected to his memories. The memories of an entire lifetime... Step by step, clue after clue, we will dive alongside her into the inner world of this man, in an attempt to decipher the story he can no longer tell us. In a monochrome aesthetic, close to traditional animation, this personal story is told as a journey with surreal overtones, offering to explore aphasia as a distant country. EMPEROR is a poetic experience of the loss of one's faculties, of the passing of time, and of the bonds which, through it all, remain.