Summary:

Stories of Home VR depicts three unique personal narratives of “home” as place, memory, object and experience told by three immigrant and refugee women. These are narratives of stories of hope, resilience, and belonging in the United States.

The three stories include:

The Prayerbook: The scroll is an important object in Ngawang Lama’s life. Taking care of this precious Tibetan prayer book passed on by her grandmother has been a constant in Ngawang’s long journey from India and Nepal to the United States.

The Poet: Poetry was the biggest gift given to Nahid Fattahi by her father in Afghanistan, where she was born.After surviving the Taliban and being trafficked as a child bride, Nahid arrived in the United States with a book of poems from her father still intact.

The Red Ribbon: A bright red ribbon reminds Anju Subba of her days in the refugee camp in Nepal where she grew up. Her family escaped ethnic cleansing in Bhutan and eventually made the United States their home.

Director Bio:

Parul Wadhwa is an immersive and interactive storyteller. As an XR creative director, her work includes virtual and augmented reality experiences, digital storytelling and games. She is interested in the use of new technologies (AR/VR/XR) for impact-based storytelling and enterprises. Currently, she is a Adobe Creative Ambassador and an Epic Games Virtual Production Fellow, develops VR within Facebook’s Oculus Start and Creators Program and advocates for emerging technologies as a thought leader for the AR/VR/XR vertical at the Transformative Tech Lab, a think tank based out of Stanford.

Previously, she worked in the film industries in the United Kingdom, South Korea, and India, in film production, VFX, and digital film restoration. Her work has screened at film festivals, museums and conferences around the world including the MOMA, New York and the American Film Institute, Washington DC.

Her research in XR was presented to state senators at the California State Capitol, on the UC Research Advocacy Day. She is an Interactive Fellow Alumna of the prestigious Tribeca Film Institute, New York and also a European Social Documentary (ESoDoc) Alumna, Italy. Parul holds an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from the Digital Arts Research Center at the University of California and an MA and BA (H) in English Literature from India and has also completed a Korean language immersion program at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea.