The Kaohsiung Film Festival has announced the winners of its 2026 XR International Competition, awarding its top prize to IF YOU SEE A CAT, an interactive virtual reality experience exploring the complex relationship between mental health, psychiatric treatment and emotional attachment. The results were announced on October 19, following the awards ceremony held the previous evening in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

This year's competition featured 29 immersive works from 33 countries, bringing together projects that approach VR through interactive storytelling, experimental cinema and sensory experiences. The XR jury included Antoine Cayrol, co-founder of French immersive studio Atlas V; Anaïs Emery, vice-president of Switzerland's Fondation pour la création numérique; and Wu Dar-kuen, director of Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB).

Four awards, four approaches to immersive storytelling

Directed by Japanese filmmaker Atsushi Wada, IF YOU SEE A CAT received the XR Golden Fireball Award, the competition's top honor. The 37-minute interactive VR work follows a boy whose only companion is a hallucination of his beloved cat. After psychiatric treatment makes the hallucinations disappear, he is left without the emotional connection that had sustained him. The festival jury praised the work's visual language and its use of immersion to shift the audience's perspective and deepen its understanding of the protagonist's inner world.

The XR Immersive Award went to First Virtual Suit, directed by Japanese creator Yuhara Kazuki. Set in a future where virtual reality is commonplace, the 36-minute multiplayer experience examines how people construct their identities through avatars. As its young protagonist enters a virtual community and encounters its unconventional inhabitants, the story explores self-expression, belonging and the freedom to become someone different. The work had previously been selected for the Venice Film Festival's 2025 Biennale College Cinema Immersive section.

The VR360 Award was presented to Honeyboys, an experimental VR film by Dutch-Belgian creative duo Nemo Vos, comprising Tibor de Jong and Doris Konings. Its surreal imagery follows a red-haired delivery boy through a strange world shaped by consumerism, desire, religion and death. Rather than relying on conventional narrative structure, the 36-minute work uses immersive imagery to question the social systems and rituals that shape human behavior. It was also selected for the Venice Immersive competition in 2026.

Finally, Sweet Dreams, directed by Taiwanese XR creator Chang Shan-ting, received the XR Special Mention. The interactive VR experience places audiences inside the perspective of Elena, a 25-year-old influencer struggling with fragmented memories and the effects of medication. By exploring her room and assembling clues, participants uncover a traumatic past before facing a decision that will influence the protagonist's future. The project draws on Chang's background in theatre design and her interest in using space and visual language to construct narratives around women's experiences.

What the awards reveal about VR storytelling

The winning projects demonstrate that immersive storytelling is not tied to a single genre. Psychological drama, identity, social criticism and experimental cinema all find different uses for virtual environments and audience participation.

For creators, the distinction is increasingly important: immersion is not simply a visual effect. It can change the audience's perspective, make participation part of the narrative or place viewers inside a character's emotional world.

Kaohsiung's 2026 awards therefore offer more than a list of winners. They provide a snapshot of how international creators are exploring VR as an artistic medium—one in which the relationship between the audience and the story can become as important as the story itself.