OUR PARTNERS

Project Dastaan works with some of the most cutting edge cultural and heritage organisations, both in South Asia and worldwide. Interested in partnering/sponsoring? Contact us here

Child of Empire, our flagship piece, was selected for the third cohort of Digital Catapult and Arts Council England’s CreativeXR Program.

Digital Catapult and Arts Council England launched CreativeXR in September 2017, driven by the common mission of enabling new formats of content innovation and future-proofing the UK creative industries market.

The programme is designed to allow creative teams to quickly experiment, iterate and bring immersive project ideas to reality. Up to 20 teams are selected to receive £20,000 in prototype funding, alongside bespoke mentorship, workshops and introductions to the top financiers and commissioners in the global creative and immersive market at the annual Showcase and Market event. Teams are given support such as prototype funding, workshops, peer-to-peer learning and access to facilities. Each year as a final phase of the programme, project teams also compete for further production funding with the aim of becoming market-ready and pushing the boundaries of what immersive technologies can offer.

CreativeXR exists not only to help UK talent develop new immersive experiences, but importantly to encourage the development of new business models, production methods and distribution techniques to allow these experiences to reach audiences.

Our founder, Sparsh, is a 2019 CatchLight Fellow.

The CatchLight Fellowship provides four visionaries in the field a $30,000 grant each to realise a long-form storytelling project, or to continue their work as leaders committed to advancing and growing the field of visual storytelling. 

The CatchLight Foundation offers our most prominent avenue of distribution. CatchLight is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organisation. They believe in the power of visual storytelling to establish meaningful connections with audiences, create dialogue and foster a more nuanced understanding of the world. They support leaders and innovators in the field with a Fellowship program totalling $300,000 in awards the last three years. They work with each fellow on amplification and engagement opportunities through large scale as well as targeted community exhibitions, workshops, public lectures, and education modules. They have built an extensive network of partners (Pulitzer, CIR/Reveal, KQED, Kresge) committed to visual storytelling as a mode of social engagement. CatchLight Fellows are internationally acclaimed, working on 4 continents. In 2018, CatchLight projects reached 90 million viewers through 35 print and digital publications (New York Times, Harpers, and National Geographic), 21 public events, and received 15 awards.

Child of Empire, our flagship piece, was selected for the 2020 Venice Biennale’s Production Financing Bridge

The Venice Gap-Financing Market is a platform for selected projects that aims to support European and international producers to secure financing for their projects (Fiction Films, Documentaries and VR Immersive Story Projects) through one-to-one meetings with potential and pertinent international professionals (producers, sales agents, distributors, financiers, broadcasters and funds). All the invited professionals are decision-makers.

Our animated series, Lost Migrations, is being funded by a Digital Collaborations Grant from the British Council.

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We build connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language. Last year we reached over 80 million people directly and 791 million people overall including online, broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. We receive a 15 per cent core funding grant from the UK government.

The Digital Collaborations Fund offers grants of £50,000 to UK-based arts organisations partnering with selected Official Development Assistance (ODA) countries, to support the sector in its response to increased travel restrictions due to the global pandemic and the need for more sustainable approaches to future international ways of working.

Last year, we were accepted onto Kaleidoscope VR‘s First Look and DevLab programs.

Kaleidoscope plays a central role in the artistic renaissance of virtual reality, with over $14MM raised by Kaleidoscope supported projects including the first seven-figure deal for a VR film at Sundance.

Organized by Kaleidoscope in collaboration with RYOT and the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund at Johns Hopkins University, DevLab is a six week content accelerator for immersive films, games, apps, art, and experiences. The program will incubate 32 new projects with weekly lectures and mentorship from a multidisciplinary group of advisors.

Hosted in virtual reality at the Museum of Other Realities, the First Look XR Market brings together a select group of 200 industry leaders, publishers, distributors, curators, and artists. Featuring in-development projects, attendees discover new work from leading XR artists. Projects launched at First Look have gone on to premiere at every major festival in the world and raise over $12MM in funding. Produced by Kaleidoscope in collaboration with RYOT and the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund at Johns Hopkins University.

Projects discovered by Kaleidoscope routinely go on to screen at major festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, and the artists in our community are widely recognized as the most innovative voices in virtual reality.

WE WORK WITH: