11th Fulldome Festival and What Makes It Special

Last year it was quite shocking to learn that the annual Fulldome Festival in Jena as we knew and loved it came to an end. But what might have become a huge loss for fulldome producers, planetarians and avid viewers all around the globe actually gave birth to something better organized, financially secured and more likely to stay in the game. Luckily, the Fulldome Festival got support from the Ernst-Abbe Foundation, which noticed and deeply appreciated its efforts in promoting the fulldome media as a way of entertainment and educational tool, and decided to create and fund what is now called the Fulldome Festival Foundation. While all the well known Festival Directors have stayed on the board, the whole festival format isn't spontaneous anymore. The Ernst-Abbe Foundation is funding the Festival with a grant of 100K Euros, so this opens a new chapter in the event history that the entire fulldome community will help to make great.
Jena planetarium dome

The Jena Planetarium opens its doors to all fulldomers and promises the following three days to be full of surprises
Photo credit: Zeiss-Planetarium Jena

This year Festival directors Micky Remann, Volkmar Schorcht, Jürgen Hellwig and Stephan Hanrisch announced some changes to the well-tried Festival formula. For instance, the Festival won't show all the submitted feature fulldome shows; in fact, the Festival Directors selected only 12 feature shows out of 20+ submissions. This year audience was also asked to fill in a special form for each film in the schedule; this will provide useful feedback that will be shared with the producer of the show. As matter of fact, the quality level of the student works increased tremendously this year and we can't wait to share the amazingness of what their productions. It's already stated that the next Fulldome Festival will take place on May 23-27, 2018, and its motto will be "The Power of Twelve", but let's not run ahead of ourselves.  We are really excited to witness a new instalment to the Festival, and will happily share the biggest and most grasping news with you. Stay tuned!

Have you liked this post? Subscribe to FDDB Newsletter

Start the experience!
Not yet registered?
Sign up now, it's free!