Yahoo News Channel 4 announces pioneering Grenfell VR documentary
Channel 4 will share the stories of the residents of Grenfell Tower in a groundbreaking documentary later this year.
The broadcaster has announced its intention to partner with production company Parable for Grenfell: Our Home, a 15-minute film that will bring viewers inside the London tower (via The Radio Times).
This film will employ stereoscopic 360 imagery and CGI animation, along with real photos and testimony from survivors, to illustrate what life was like living in Grenfell before the blaze that killed 71 people.
Announcing this pioneering project, Channel 4 commissioning editor Siobhan Sinnerton said: "Innovation lies at the core of Channel 4's remit so we are delighted to be exploring new and interesting ways to deliver the very best storytelling, and journalism.
"We hope this piece will give our audience a truly unique perspective on what the Grenfell community was like before the fire."
Grenfell: Our Home will be screened first at the Sheffield Doc/Fest's Alternative Realities exhibition beginning June 7, and then will be released on social media. The survivors of the tragedy will also be provided access to view the film in VR headsets by Channel 4.
Channel 4 has remained committed to highlighting the lasting impact of the disaster over the last year. Young survivors were chosen to deliver Channel 4's annual Alternative Christmas Message in 2017.
(Children of Grenfell Tower delivering 2017's Alternative Christmas Message on Channel 4)
Jon Snow, anchor of the Channel 4 News, also touched on the tragedy in his James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival over the summer, and admitted he remains haunted by the mass casualties at Grenfell.
"Grenfell speaks to us all about our own lack of diversity, and capacity to reach into the swathes of Western society with whom we have no connection," he said.
The tragic story of 12-year-old Firdows, a young girl I met two months before she was killed in the Grenfell Tower disaster pic.twitter.com/p7sQxVGThB
- Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) August 23, 2017
"Like my fellow journalists, I have spent many hours around Grenfell. I have come to know a number of the survivors, and I speak to them regularly by phone or email.
"So casually written off as nameless migrants, scroungers, illegals, and the rest. Actually, and it should be no shock to us, the tower was full of talent.
"Not least the wonderful and talented Khadija Saye, who died with her mother, on the verge of a major breakthrough as an artist. Or community leaders like Eddie Dafarn, who survived the inferno, but who wrote that warning blog on October 20th 2016.
"We the media report the lack of diversity in other walks of life, but our own record is nothing like good enough."
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