Already underway, this year’s Cannes Film Festival runs through next Saturday in scenic southeast France, and celebrates bold, innovative messaging across the medium of film—and beyond. Connect4Climate’s focus at the festival will be the exciting virtual reality presentations taking place at the XR Hub on May 19 from 3:00 to 5:00 PM local time.

Members of the Connect4Climate team will be contributing to the festival’s discussion of the wide-ranging potential of virtual reality to impact audiences with a presentation highlighting the power of VR as a tool for advocacy and a means of raising awareness on climate issues in uniquely immersive ways.

Connect4Climate will begin by discussing its X-Ray Fashion VR project, an emotionally intense behind-the-scenes look at the waste and inhumanity of the fast fashion industry which has caused participants all over the world to question their habits of consumption and support sustainable designers.

C4C will share insights on the partnerships it built with Vulcan Productions and MANND to bring X-Ray Fashion to life, and will then use the X-Ray Fashion case study as a springboard to a broader dialogue on the potential of virtual reality to speak to hearts and minds on climate issues and precipitate genuine behavioral change.

The Connect4Climate team will also be presenting a number of thematically and geographically diverse VR experiences drawn from the World Bank's growing catalogue: Lumana: Overcoming Fragility (on finding peace amidst turmoil in wartorn Niger), Our Home: Our People (on the courage and optimism of Fijians confronting climate change), The Role of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Reducing Malnutrition in Laos (on Laotian families striving to better the lives of thier children), Clean Cooking in Rwanda (on the difference a simple stove upgrade can make to families and to the planet) and March4Earth (on a historic climate march in Rome blessed by Pope Francis).

These virtual reality narratives will illlustrate the World Bank's commitment to increasing global empathy and awareness through a bold new medium, and will speak more specifically to VR's ability to motivate action to stem the tide of climate change and lift global citizens out of poverty.

The festival’s Doc Corner, meanwhile, will offer powerful documentaries on a range of advocacy issues, and this year's offical Cannes selections include the highly anticipated climate change doc Ice on Fire, featuring and coproduced by Leonardo DiCaprio.