MOSCOW, RUSSIA — Russian television network RT’s VR film The Lessons of Auschwitz won the People’s Voice Award at the prestigious international Webby Awards in two categories.
The film features elements of virtual reality and volumetric video technologies. It has been produced in collaboration with VR artist Denis Semionov as part of RT’s large-scale social media project #VictoryPages commemorating the end of The Second World War.
The Lessons of Auschwitz, which pays tribute to the 75th anniversary of liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army, won in two Immersive and Mixed Reality categories – Volumetric / 6-Degrees of Freedom and News.
The film was created based on 3D drawings by students of Moscow’s School №548. Together with RT’s #VictoryPages team, high schoolers visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum complex located on the site of the concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, as well as the Moscow Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, later pouring their impressions into 3D images.
The music score is by Peter Theremin, great-grandson of Soviet inventor Leon Theremin – the creator of an electronic musical instrument called the theremin.
RT has previously taken home two People’s Voice Awards at the Webbys. In 2018, RT won for #1917LIVE, a “real-time” historical social media reenactment dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In 2016, RT was chosen as the best in overall social media presence, as represented by a series of digital projects, including platforms on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Soundcloud, and Coub, as well as the RT Play Facebook portal, which offers a selection of infotainment videos with infographics elements.
The Webby Awards, “the internet’s highest honor,” according to the New York Times, annually honor the world’s best digital projects: websites, videos, mobile apps and social media campaigns. The jury includes more than 1,000 professionals within the web and media industries.
