Founder and director of iNK Stories Navid Khonsari has worked on some iconic games: Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and the highest grossing VR game of all time, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. His work has collected honors from BAFTA, Sundance, Tribeca and UNESCO, just to name a few.
iNK Stories recently earned the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival’s prestigious Jury ‘Storyscapes’ Award for pushing the boundaries on immersive storytelling. Previously, they have also released award winning documentaries such as Pindemonium and Pulling John.
iNK Stories’ 2016 game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday won Facebook Game of the Year. UNESCO has also recognized it as a digital solution for peaceful conflict resolution.
Navid Khonsari: a career of innovative storytelling
Khonsari joined Rockstar Games in 2000 as a director, working on seminal games known and loved for their cinematic flair. The Grand Theft Auto series, Max Payne, Red Dead Revolver and the Warriors all have had Khonsari’s signature epic direction. While there, Khonsari directed his first short film Arcade Angels and wrote and produced his first feature-length film The Contract.
After leaving Rockstar, Khonsari created the cinematics for the games Alan Wake and Homefront. He headed up all aspects of the cinematics, from the story board to the final sound design. In 2005, he then founded iNK Stories with his wife, Vassiliki. From the multi-sensory HERO, to the neo-Hitchcock Interactive Series Fire Escape, the studio has paved the way for cinematic participation.
Khonsari also works as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, teaching cinematic gaming. There, he lectures on the convergence of storytelling with technology, and its power to incite empathy and challenge stereotypes in the media. These talks have taken him far and wide, from Sundance and the NY film festival to the White House, Canadian embassy and the UN.
Navid Khonsari fled to Canada
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Khonsari grew up in his homeland Iran until the age of 10. His family fled Iran as political refugees after the 1979 revolution. Settling in Canada, Khonsari would later pick up two bachelors degrees in Film/History from the University of British Columbia and Western University.
His 2016 game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday delves into this history, combining documentary film with gameplay to create an immersive, educational experience. The game draws specifically from Khonsari’s experience of growing up in Iran and witnessing the revolution. It positions the player right in the center of the action. Khonsari describes it as “a deep, immersive, personal narrative where you get to make critical choices and lead a young man through the passion and the hope for change of a revolution.” The game has won many awards and nominations, including Facebook’s Game of the Year and BAFTA nominations.
This isn’t the first time Khonsari’s games have played an educational function. In fact, he remarks how Grand Theft Auto itself had a profound educational import for kids in Iran. It showed them the freedom they lacked and what might be possible in other societies. “They knew that you could go around in San Andreas and go eat and you can go work out. This was, for them, unbelievable. This was not education but groundbreaking,” Khonsari says.
Navid Khonsari’s iNK Stories
Khonsari met his wife Vassiliki on the set of the award-winning documentary Pindemonium. She acted as cinematographer and producer for the film, while Khonsari himself directed. Together they set up iNK Stories in New York. Working across virtual reality, games and episodic narratives, they partner with Google, Intel, Star VR, Capcom, HTC, and Oculus.
Its latest game Fire Escape is a Neo-Hitchcock murder mystery set in Brooklyn. A suspenseful thriller that unfolds in real time, it immerses players in an unraveling, interactive crime. For example, players can seamlessly select apartments and listen to characters’ intimate conversations. When a murder occurs in the building, players make choices to unlock the key to the mystery. “Peeking Into the Lives of Others Is Effective, Hypnotizing, and Strange,” CNET says.
iNK Stories has also released HERO, an immersive multi-sensory narrative that evolves as the audience participates. Specifically, HERO gives viewers a VR experience of the Syrian Civil War from a civilian’s perspective. It won Best Immersive VR at the Advanced Imaging Society and the Storyscapes award from the Tribeca Film Festival.
Check out iNK Stories here and buy Fire Escape and 1979 Revolution here.
