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Infinity Festival Hollywood, aka Infinity Festival, is a multi-day event held annually each November in Los Angeles. The event, which brings together creative talent from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, celebrates “Story Enabled by Technology” through curated exhibitions, panels, screenings and events. The festival is supported by all major Hollywood studios and leading tech companies. Infinity Festival Hollywood is held at Goya Studios and the Dream Hollywood hotel, with special events taking place at the Dolby Vine Theater and other locations in Los Angeles. In November 2021, the Festival will continue for its fourth season.

Publisher Judith Regan interviewing Van Jones (CNN) and director Elijah Allan-Blitz

History

2018

Infinity Film Festival VR Exhibit Hall 2 (2018)

Infinity Festival began in 2018 as Infinity Film Festival. The event was held in Beverly Hills, from November 1-4, 2018. The former Paley Center, at 465 North Beverly Drive, served as the festival hub, with screenings and special events held in various theaters and other locations in Beverly Hills, including the Writer’s Guild Theater. The festival included over 200 speakers, over 100 screenings including studio premieres, a Tech Lab, a Student Lab, 2 floors of exhibitions, industry networking and a fine art gallery. Festival themes included 3D, 4K, Immersive, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The Student Lab was presented by Chapman University Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business and Moody College of Communication; Sony, Deloitte and Intel. This was also the debut of the Infinity Festival Monolith Awards, which are awarded in various categories recognizing achievements in entertainment and technology. The opening night party was held at United Talent Agency and was co-presented by CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. The 2018 Festival was live attended by over 2,000 people and was also seen by over 45,000 people on a Facebook Live event produced by Ridley Scott Creative Group.

2019

The festival expanded in 2019 and moved to Hollywood. Retitled Infinity Festival Hollywood, the event took place at Goya Studios, the Dream Hollywood hotel and various theaters around Hollywood, from November 7-9, 2019. The event featured a main stage, an exhibition hall, a Student Lab, an Innovation Hub and ART+TECH, a fine art gallery. The festival continued its theme of “Story Enabled by Technology” through themes that included 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Immersive Technology and Wellness. Screenings were held at the Dolby Vine Theater and included original films from Disney, Netflix, Pixar and Sony. Exclusive screenings included a CLED screening of “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and “Gemini Man” in 120 FPS 3D.

Media partners included People, Entertainment Weekly, IGN, Mashable and Los Angeles radio station KPCC. The festival also began a partnership with FNTECH, a California-based event production company. FNTECH provided all production services for the festival. The opening night event was held on the rooftop of the Dream Hollywood Hotel. The Infinity Festival Monolith Awards were once again awarded to talent in the tech and entertainment communities. The 2019 festival had over 3500 live attendees

2020

Infinity Festival 2020 Virtual Platform 1

For 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was held entirely online with an all-virtual event that was held over eight weeks. The 2020 Infinity Festival began on October 28, 2020 and ran through January 7, 2021. Original material debuted on the Wednesday and Thursday of each of the 8 consecutive weeks (with the exception of Christmas week 2020 and New Year’s week 2021.) The festival was free to attend after registration on the Infinity Festival virtual platform, which was created specifically for the event by FNTECH. Each week’s programming was devoted entirely to one of eight themes: Remote Collaboration, Artificial Intelligence, 3D/Visual effects, Virtual Production, Immersive Experiences, Real Time Storytelling, Entertainment Content, and Wellness Tech. The programming also included ART+TECH, a fine art gallery that featured innovative new media artists including Rashad Newsome and Jam Sutton. Festival speakers included Oscar winning actress and producer Brie Larson, actor and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and artist Refik Anadol.

New to the festival in 2020 was a collaboration with Universal Music Group and Capitol Records’ Capitol Royale. During the festival, the Universal Music Group’s Innovation Team hosted a five-week Lifestyle Innovation Challenge, where four teams were challenged to develop a detailed vision for a consumer product. The teams then hosted their final projects in the Virtual Capitol Tower, which provided a 360 navigable version of the iconic Capitol Records tower in Hollywood. The 2020 festival was attended by over 10,000 online visitors and had over 700,000 page views.

2021

The Infinity Festival Hollywood continued in 2021 with a hybrid in-person and online event. The festival was held at Goya Studios and the Dream Hollywood Hotel from November 2-4, 2022. The event featured all new programming focused current trends including the Metaverse, AI, XR, OTT, Film, Television, Audio, Animation, Music, 5G, Art and Gaming.

Opening Night at the Dream Hotel Rooftop (2021)

New sponsors in 2021 included data centers Equinix and CoreSite, and entertainment production solutions experts Cast & Crew. Featured guests at the festival included comedian/producer Howie Mandel, actor/producer Joseph Gordon-Levitt, composer/musician A.R.Rahman, political commentator and author Doug Schoen, musician/artist Dave Navarro, TikTok star Gabby Murray, social media influencers Dytto and Justmaiko, and producer/writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who conducted a panel about their Sony Pictures Animation blockbuster hit “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”, which was soon after nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Infinity Festival Exhibition Hall (2021)

The fine art gallery, ART+TECH, was sponsored by The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit Los Angeles and Lighthouse Immersive. The gallery featured artists working in traditional and new mediums, and included an installation called “NFT’s – The Journey of a Collector”, a comprehensive story on the role of NFT’s in today’s art world.

Z by HP's Barbara Marshall, Unity's Marc Whitten and NVIDIA's Rick Champagne speaking at Infinity Festival (2021)

Festival Sponsors

The festival has had a variety of different sponsors over the years. In 2018 the title sponsor was Verizon’s Ryot Studio; presenting sponsors were Epic Games and Unreal Engine, co-presenting sponsor was D-Box. Festival sponsors included Intel, ILMxLAB, Sotheby’s, Real D and The Third Floor. Verizon’s Ryot Studios returned as title sponsor for the 2019 event. Presenting sponsor was Mastercard, and co-presenting sponsor was HP. Producer sponsors included Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, Dolby, Intel, Lenovo and The Third Floor. Presenting Media Sponsors were Los Angeles Times and Outfront Media. The 2020 festival was presented by Z by HP and Microsoft and was co-presented by Unity. The presenting media partner was Outfront Media, executive producer was Intel and producer sponsors were Essentia Water and Phase Two. The 2021 Infinity Festival Hollywood title sponsors are Z by HP and NVIDIA, presenting sponsor is Unity, and executive producers are Microsoft and Qualcomm.

Monolith Awards

Infinity Film Festival VR Exhibit Hall 2 (2018)

These are a group of awards given out to outstanding achievements in technology and narrative arts. A panel of judges, at the top of their respective fields, dictate who the awards are given too. These awards made their first appearance at the 2018 festival. Monolith Award winners include cutting edge projects created by Qualcomm, Adobe, NVIDIA, DreamWorks Animation.