How do you enter a story that words can no longer tell?
Emperor is an interactive narrative VR experience that takes you inside the mind of a father living with aphasia. He understands the world around him but has lost the ability to express himself, while his daughter searches for a new way to reach him.
Guided by the daughter’s voice and presence, you enter a hand-drawn monochrome mental landscape, where fragments of language are connected to the memories of an entire lifetime. Clue by clue, you try to uncover the story the father can no longer tell.
The experience draws on Marion Burger’s personal story and her relationship with her father, who has lived with aphasia for more than fifteen years. Aphasia is imagined here as a distant country: a place in which someone can become lost while searching for a way to be understood.
Through drawing, movement and embodied interaction, Emperor becomes a poetic experience about the loss of language, the passage of time and the bonds that remain even as communication changes.
Marion Burger
Marion Burger is a French production designer and filmmaker. She has worked on films including Divines, winner of the Caméra d’Or in 2016, Gagarine and Mother and Son. Inspired by the story of her father, Emperor marks her directorial debut.
Ilan J. Cohen
Ilan J. Cohen is a French writer and filmmaker. He has worked as a first assistant director since 2008 on productions including White Shadow, Rebecca H. and Sarah Winchester, while also developing screenplays and directing music videos.
Together, Marion Burger and Ilan J. Cohen transform a deeply personal experience into a universal reflection on language, memory and human connection.