The Venice Film Festival has embraced virtual reality storytelling, as it honors advancements in the medium with a special event. Three Chinese VR films are being SCREENED and people are taking this chance to watch and experience cinema in a brand new way.

The oldest international film festival has brought back its VR showcase for a second year, exhibiting 40 works. Three virtual reality films from China were among spectators' favorites.

LI YAOYANG VENICE "From the screen here everyone can see what I see, but the VR headset, along with other tools like the VR Chair, is making the story more exciting, more immersive, and of course, more real."

CHUCK CHAE KOREAN DIRECTOR "Usually people do make mistakes in VR for having strong and crazy motions, but he strikes right balance with the art work and the embodiment of the chair. And I think the chair is of top quality. It married with the content very well. They did a very nice motion design physically. And also visually it's actually all kept in tech."

According to analysts, the global VR market was valued at over 3 billion US dollars in 2017 and is expected to reach 50 billion US dollars by 2023. That's a growth rate of 59 percent. China's market, which is growing even faster, is predicted to become the largest VR market by 2021.

LIZ ROSENTHAL CURATOR, VENICE VR "We were so impressed by what's happening in China. The level of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), animation and VR is exceptional. We were also really interested that China is very advanced in terms of exhibition and distribution of VR, way more than anywhere else in the world. So I'm very impressed that your platform of distributing virtual reality and there are locations but entertainment sometimes. We don't have anything to that level in western countries. I think we can learn a lot from China, from the market there."

Virtual reality cinemas are still in the beginning stages. People worry this could be a bottleneck on content. Chinese professionals, however, are optimistic.

HANG ZHANG VR PRODUCT DIRECTOR "When a new medium is invented, some content that matches will also appear. VR is a medium of the latest generation, so there must be a form of content that matches it. As this medium spreads more extensively, there will be more and more content innovations to go with it, maybe exceeding what we can imagine now."

The works will be shown at the Venice film festival until September 8th. And this year there should be even more of a sense of technology: The organizers are going to show some works online, diffusing the VR passion through the internet. Li Yaoyang, CGTN. Venice, Italy.