girl earth fire time

VR Experience. 20min. Maru Labs, 2025

Dir Dylan Valley and Dana Mashoian Walrath.

Girl Earth Fire Time, an animated VR film, centres on the story of Oghidar, Walrath’s grandmother who with her younger sister Arshaluys escaped her village on foot as the Turks attacked, running through the mountains. Through the use of VR, the story immerses the viewer in Oghidar’s memories, following her as she witnesses her family being killed as she hides in an urn, flees on foot and ends up Turkey. She eventually finds asylum in New York and settles there. When she goes to the cinema she watches news reels about the history of the establishment of Israel in 1948, as well the work done by Rafael Lemkin to ratify the genocide convention at the UN. Part of the film takes place in the ancestral realm, where we meet the (fictional) Palestinian child Mahmoud who has recently been killed in an airstrike in Gaza, along with some well-known historical figures including Lemkin, who coined the term genocide

Special Mention at Ars Electronica 2026!