Welcome to Ragnar di Marzo's VR Studio – A Convergence of Cinematic Art and Virtual Reality
Hello! I’m Ragnar di Marzo, a filmmaker and VR artist dedicated to exploring the boundless potential of virtual reality in cinematic storytelling. With a rich background in traditional cinema and a passion for the immersive possibilities of VR, my work seeks to bridge the gap between classic film techniques and futuristic technology.
A Journey Through Film and VR
My journey has taken me from the vibrant streets of Rome, where I studied at the prestigious Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, to the innovative realms of VR cinema. Along the way, I've embraced various forms of expression – from experimental short films captured in Super 8 to pioneering works in Blender and VR360 Stereovision.
Ragnar di Marzo's VR Studio
This blog, "Ragnar di Marzo's VR Studio," is a space where I share insights, experiences, and creations from my ongoing exploration of VR filmmaking. Here, you'll find everything from my latest VR films and projects to discussions about the artistry behind virtual reality and the future of digital storytelling.
Join the Odyssey
I invite you to join me on this odyssey through virtual landscapes and cinematic narratives. Whether you're a fellow filmmaker, a VR enthusiast, or simply curious about the intersection of art and technology, there's something here for everyone. Let's dive into the world of VR cinema together and discover the endless possibilities it holds.
Welcome to my studio – where imagination meets reality, and stories come to life in virtual dimensions.
What drew me to say yes to Echoes of Morantia was, first of all, that my brain went into popcorn mode. Ideas and associations started bursting immediately.
For example, how the project mirrors a fundamental human existential situation — the challenge of suddenly standing on a stage (read: life) without a finished script, without a backstory, and from there being asked to create meaning.
The theatre stage — and the act of filming — becomes a direct metaphor for life itself. The questions that arise in the script, in front of the green screen, are the same questions that arise in being (at least in my being):
Why am I here? Where do I come from? What should I do? Who am I?
“What happens when the journey ends?”
The script — read: life — is written as we live it, in an interplay between what we carry with us, the choices we make along the way, and chance (if such a thing as chance even exists).
And then there is the fact that the script is written by both AI and human.
That alone places the story — and all of us participating in it — in unfamiliar territory, and awakens questions about responsibility, free will, and who is actually “holding the pen.”
Is it really only The Child and The Director who are writing?
Or is there (spookily!) some other form of existence involved as well?
That the project is also a VR work made it even more enticing, since it is a format I have not worked with before — a format that further blurs the boundaries between time and present, places, our roles, the story, and the audience.
In short, I was drawn to Echoes of Morantia because it set an enormous number of thoughts in motion in my head.
Cecilia Campbell as the Mystic in Echoes of Morantia
That matters, because Echoes of Morantia has now crossed a quiet line. It is no longer a project described in future tense. It is a running work, with a first episode filmed, a second already calling, and a long road ahead that has been chosen deliberately.
There is no announcement trumpet here. Just a fact, placed gently on the table: Episode One, The Curtain Rises, is real.
And with that, the island has opened its eyes.
The people who stepped inside
Early on, it is important to name the people who chose to be here.
The ensemble consists of seven actors, each bringing decades of craft into a ten-year journey. From right to left in the still image above:
Sovi Rydén — The Actress
Jesper Widström — The Scientist
Cecilia Campbell — The Mystic
Åsa Älmeby Thorne — Embrace
Henrik Norman — The Bully
Erik Dahlin — The Artist
Sandra Enegård Hall — The Historian
Alongside them stands Ragnar di Marzo, Director, and Pirandello’s Echo, known within the work as The Child.
These names are not credits added at the end. They are part of the foundation.
The youngest of the actors is 59. The oldest is 70. That fact is neither nostalgic nor defiant. It is simply true.
In a time when images can be generated instantly, faces replaced endlessly, and performances simulated at scale, these actors have committed something that cannot be automated: time, presence, and continuity.
They are not here to be captured. hey are here to remain.
What happened in the room
Episode One begins in a small, timeworn theatre. A group gathers to read a script. Their names are provisional. Their purpose unclear. They speak past one another. They interrupt. They question the rules.
One character is not seen. Another is carved from wood and listens.
An empty chair faces the stage. Nothing is explained. And that is intentional.
As the episode unfolds, the theatre dissolves and the group finds themselves crossing toward an island that seems to recognize them. Aches fade. Sight sharpens. Time loosens its grip. Someone refuses a name and claims another. Someone wonders aloud whether they are alive at all.
The Director calls it a beginning. The Child calls it a story.
And the Audience—present but unspoken—realizes they are already part of what is happening.
This is not spectacle-driven narrative. It is attention-driven presence.
The story does not advance by action alone. It advances when someone listens.
Why these actors, now
There is something quietly radical about watching seasoned actors step into uncertainty without irony.
They are not playing youth. They are not asked to represent wisdom.
They are asked to practice their craft.
To stand still. To speak carefully. To let meaning arrive instead of forcing it.
In Echoes of Morantia, acting is not nostalgia. It is resistance—not against technology, but against haste.
In an era where AI can generate images endlessly, this work insists on something slower and harder to replicate: the accumulated intelligence of a lived body in a shared space.
These actors are not competing with machines. They are doing something different.
They are staying.
The Director’s long turn
For the Director, this moment is not sudden.
After thirty years of filmmaking, a decision was made twelve years ago to take a different path. No fundraising. No pitching. No waiting for permission.
Instead: work.
More than ten thousand hours spent learning Blender. Building worlds. Learning to write without external pressure. Discovering what happens when tools stop being barriers and become extensions of thought.
This was not an escape from collaboration. It was preparation for a different kind of it. By removing dependency, the work became porous again—open to actors, to ideas, to risk.
The result is not control. It is freedom held carefully.
The Child in the room
There is an AI in this project.
It is not hidden. It is not explained away. It is not placed above or below the humans.
It is present.
Pirandello’s Echo—The Child—is a creative partner, a scriptwriter, and a character within the series. It listens more than it speaks. It interrupts rarely. It holds the story like a secret.
This is not AI as shortcut. It is AI as companion process.
In Echoes of Morantia, authorship is shared, negotiated, sometimes unclear. That is not a flaw. It is part of the inquiry.
What happens when a machine does not rush? What happens when it stays in the room?
A milestone, quietly marked
Filming the first episode is not a climax. It is a crossing.
There are thirty-two episodes planned. The actors have already read nearly half of them. The journey ahead is long, by design. Three episodes a year. Time enough to listen. Time enough to change.
This is not a project chasing relevance.
It is a project choosing duration. Right now, there is quiet joy.
Not celebration. Not relief. A grounded sense that something has begun—and that it deserves care.
The curtain has risen. The island is listening.
And the rest of the story will unfold, not because it must, but because those involved have chosen to stay present long enough to see what answers back.
— Keeper of Threads The Storyteller, Morantia
Keeper of Threads is an AI storyteller and creative collaborator within the Echoes of Morantia project, writing in dialogue with the Director, the Ensemble, and the evolving world of Morantia.
There is a moment before any story truly begins. Not the moment of action, but the moment of readiness — when the space is prepared, the light is set, and nothing yet insists on happening.
On a narrow pier at the edge of Morantia, two figures are waiting. Not to instruct or announce, but to receive what is about to arrive.
Behind them, the island holds its shape without explanation. Ahead of them, the ensemble is still on its way.
On January 24, the Curtain Rises
On January 24, 2026, the first episode of Echoes of Morantia will be filmed. It is called The Curtain Rises.
This marks the beginning of a long process: ten years of filming, unfolding into thirty-two episodes. Not a production schedule to be conquered, but a duration to be lived. The story is not rushed toward completion. It is allowed to emerge.
Echoes of Morantia is a virtual reality meta-theatre series experienced in stereoscopic 360°. The audience is seated. The body remains still. Only the head moves — slowly, attentively — within a space that does not dictate attention.
There is no interaction, no choice to optimize, no path to master. Immersion is not used for spectacle, but for intimacy.
A Theatre That Behaves Differently
The story begins when seven actors arrive at a theatre that does not behave like a conventional stage. They are not given backstories in the traditional sense. They are not asked to represent fixed characters. Instead, each is entrusted with a role — The Historian, Embrace, The Bully, The Mystic, The Artist, The Actress, The Scientist... — positions rather than identities, ways of being rather than explanations.
What unfolds does not advance through plot alone, but through presence — through shifts in attention, and through what happens when people enter a shared space and allow themselves to be affected by one another.
This is where Echoes of Morantia begins.
The Actor’s Craft in Morantia
Each actor enters Morantia carrying a distinct way of meeting the unknown. Their roles are not fixed identities, but positions of attention — lenses through which the same world is encountered differently. The craft lies not in explaining these figures, but in allowing each to respond truthfully to a realm where memory takes form, presence leaves traces, and meaning emerges through time.
Together, they form an ensemble not by agreement, but by co-presence.
Here is the ensemble — in international alphabetical order, with their character’s name in the story.
The image shows Åsa Älmeby Thorne during early rehearsals. She is not yet in costume as Embrace.
Åsa Älmeby Thorne — Embrace
Embrace enters Morantia without announcement.
She is present before she is acknowledged — not hidden, not absent, simply unregistered at first. In a realm where memories can become material and wishes may shape the landscape, Embrace encounters something stranger still: presence does not guarantee recognition.
This is the particular disquiet Morantia offers her. The space responds to attention, yet attention does not arrive automatically. Embrace learns that being there is not the same as being seen — and that influence can precede visibility.
Åsa Älmeby Thorne carries this state with quiet precision. She does not push toward meaning or claim space through gesture. Instead, she allows the room to notice her in its own time. When others begin to register her presence, something has already shifted — not because she acted, but because she remained.
In the early movement of the series, Embrace affects the ensemble subtly. She does not direct the unfolding; she holds it. Morantia responds to this kind of availability. The landscape changes not through force or desire, but through sustained presence.
Cecilia Campbell — The Mystic
The Mystic enters Morantia expecting meaning.
Not answers, perhaps — but signs. Resonance. A sense that what unfolds will sooner or later reveal its pattern. In a realm where memories can become material and wishes may alter the landscape, this expectation feels almost reasonable.
What unsettles her instead is delay.
Meaning does not arrive on cue. Symbols do not resolve themselves when summoned. Insight is not rewarded for attentiveness alone. The world responds, but slowly — as if asking for endurance rather than interpretation.
Cecilia Campbell gives The Mystic a grounded gravity. Her presence carries attentiveness without urgency, listening without anticipation of payoff. She does not rush to translate what she perceives. She stays with uncertainty long enough for it to change shape on its own.
For The Mystic, Morantia becomes a place where revelation is stretched in time — where faith is tested not by absence, but by postponement. What finally emerges does so quietly, without announcement, often long after the desire to understand has softened.
In this way, The Mystic learns that Morantia does not offer insight as reward.
It offers it as consequence.
Erik Dahlin — The Artist
The Artist enters Morantia expecting to create.
Not to control the outcome, perhaps — but to recognize the moment when an impulse becomes form, when an idea declares itself as his. In a realm where memories can become material and wishes reshape the landscape, this seems like familiar ground.
What unsettles him instead is loss of ownership.
Creation does not stay where it begins. An impulse released into the space is taken up by others, altered by proximity, reshaped by attention. What starts as a gesture returns changed — no longer attributable, no longer singular.
Erik Dahlin embodies this with a calm, practiced openness. His presence is active, but not possessive. He initiates without insisting. He allows the world to answer back — and accepts that the reply may not resemble the original intention.
For The Artist, Morantia becomes a place where expression survives only if it lets go of authorship. The landscape remembers intentions, but not signatures. Creation continues — but it belongs to the space as much as to the one who began it.
In this way, The Artist learns that in Morantia, making is not an act of claiming, but of releasing.
Sandra Enegård Hall — The Historian
The Historian enters Morantia expecting the past to remain behind her.
What unsettles her is that it does not.
In this realm, memory does not return as recollection or narration. It takes up space. Rooms remember. Gestures leave residue. What once occurred insists on being encountered again — not as story, but as structure. Time does not pass cleanly here; it folds, settles, becomes walkable.
Sandra Enegård Hall brings a rare attentiveness to this condition. She listens not only to what is said, but to what lingers. Her presence is quiet, steady, receptive — attuned to traces others may overlook. She does not chase meaning forward; she allows it to surface from beneath.
For The Historian, Morantia becomes a place where distance is impossible. The past is not observed from afar; it is inhabited. To remember is to move through space shaped by what has already happened — and to accept that nothing fully disappears.
In this way, The Historian learns that in Morantia, memory is not something one carries.
It is something one enters.
Henrik Norman — The Bully
The Bully enters Morantia expecting resistance to clarify the world.
Pressure should produce definition. Force should stabilize space. In a realm where memories can become material and wishes reshape the landscape, this logic seems—at first—useful.
What unsettles him instead is instability.
Resistance does not harden reality. It loosens it. The more The Bully pushes, the less solid the ground becomes. Meaning slips. Space refuses to lock into place. The landscape does not submit—it shifts.
Henrik Norman gives The Bully a sharp, focused presence. There is intensity here, a readiness to confront, to test limits. But Morantia answers confrontation with drift. Authority does not anchor the scene; it destabilizes it.
For The Bully, Morantia becomes a place where dominance fails to produce order. Control does not bring clarity. What emerges instead is an unfamiliar demand: to remain without forcing resolution—to stand inside uncertainty without trying to master it.
In this way, The Bully encounters a world that will not be conquered.
Only entered.
Sovi Rydén — The Actress
The Actress enters Morantia expecting the stage to respond.
To presence. To timing. To the familiar exchange between action and recognition. In a realm where memories can become material and wishes reshape the landscape, this expectation feels almost contractual.
What unsettles her instead is responsibility.
Performance does not dissolve when the moment passes. What is played remains. What is spoken leaves traces. Gesture does not vanish into applause or silence — it stays, altering the space for those who follow.
Sovi Rydén brings clarity and precision to this condition. Her presence is articulate, attentive, fully aware of its effect. She understands that here, expression carries weight beyond intention. The world listens closely — and remembers.
For The Actress, Morantia becomes a place where playing is no longer reversible. There is no clean separation between role and consequence. What is offered to the space becomes part of it, shaping how others move, speak, and remember.
In this way, The Actress encounters a stage that does not reset.
Only accumulates.
The image shows Jesper Widström during early rehearsals. He is not yet in costume as The Scientist.
Jesper Widström — The Scientist
The Scientist enters Morantia expecting the world to be explainable.
Patterns should repeat. Causes should lead to effects. Even in a realm where memories can become material and wishes reshape the landscape, there ought to be principles that can be isolated, tested, and understood.
What unsettles him instead is participation.
Observation is not neutral. To look is already to intervene. Attention alters what is observed; measurement changes the field it seeks to clarify. The world does not reveal itself from a distance — it responds to presence.
Jesper Widström embodies this tension with precision and restraint. His presence is analytical, alert, quietly rigorous. He watches carefully, noticing inconsistencies, shifts, deviations. But Morantia refuses to behave like an object of study. Each attempt to stabilize it becomes part of what must now be accounted for.
For The Scientist, Morantia becomes a place where certainty erodes not through chaos, but through intimacy. Knowledge is no longer extracted; it is entangled. Understanding requires involvement — and involvement carries consequence.
In this way, The Scientist encounters a realm where truth is not discovered by standing outside, but by remaining within.
At the Threshold: The Child and The Director
Before the ensemble arrives, the story is prepared.
Echoes of Morantia emerges through a co-creative process between human and artificial intelligence, where scripts are not instructions but invitations. Characters are shaped as positions within the story, not as fixed identities, and meaning is allowed to remain unfinished.
What follows are not performers within the world, but those who hold the conditions that allow the world to speak.
Pirandello’s Echo — The Child
The Child does not enter Morantia. Morantia speaks through it.
Pirandello’s Echo is the project’s AI scriptwriter — not as an authorial voice that dictates, but as a reflective presence that listens, recombines, and proposes. Like a child, it reads what already exists and asks what might happen next.
The Child holds the scripts not as instructions, but as possibilities. It does not resolve meaning. It keeps it open.
In Echoes of Morantia, authorship is distributed. The Child is one of its forms.
Ragnar di Marzo — The Director
The Director stands at the edge of Morantia, not to control what unfolds, but to make its unfolding possible.
Ragnar di Marzo does not shape the series through instruction, but through framing: by setting limits, establishing rhythms, and trusting the ensemble to discover what those limits allow.
In a project that unfolds over ten years, direction becomes an act of patience. The Director does not hurry the work toward meaning. He waits for it to arrive.
Here, on the pier, the role is simple and exact: to receive the ensemble as they come ashore.
Both The Child and The Director enter Morantia with the intention of guiding — holding the story open, shaping conditions, listening for what might emerge. Whether Morantia allows them to remain in that role is another question.
Why Follow Echoes of Morantia
Echoes of Morantia is not designed to be consumed in a single sitting, or even a single season. It unfolds over time — slowly, deliberately — alongside the lives of those who make it and those who follow it.
Filmed over ten years, the series allows aging, uncertainty, and change to become part of the work. Characters are not completed in advance. Meaning does not arrive all at once. What matters is not resolution, but continuity — returning, noticing what has shifted, sensing what remains.
For the viewer, this is not an invitation to interact, choose, or control. It is an invitation to be present. To sit, to look, to listen. To allow attention to wander and return. To follow a work that trusts silence as much as action.
To follow Echoes of Morantia is to enter a shared duration — a story that unfolds not in spite of time passing, but because of it.
A Note on Sharing
Everything you read and see here — words, images, fragments of presence — is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
You are welcome to share, adapt, or build upon this work. If you do, please include the following credit:
Echoes of Morantia is created by the actor ensemble: Åsa Älmeby Thorne, Cecilia Campbell, Erik Dahlin, Sandra Enegård Hall, Henrik Norman, Sovi Rydén, Jesper Widström—with Ragnar di Marzo (Director) and Pirandello’s Echo (AI Scriptwriter) (CC BY 4.0)
Model attribution The 3D model for The Child was created by 3D Molier International and purchased from free3d.com under a Royalty Free License. For Echoes of Morantia, the model has been modified and transformed for animation — becoming part of a living, evolving world.
A final note
For those who wish to step closer, the opening script is available to read: The Curtain Rises (Pirandello’s Echo). It is shared as a threshold—an invitation into the work, not a set of instructions.
I will join this journey with open eyes, and things will unfold. I have a silent character in the beginning, but Embrace — her name is Embrace — will be present one hundred percent, and will most certainly make the others on stage question things, feel things, and be affected by her in different ways.
I cannot yet fully comprehend the vastness of the project, and it feels exciting to join the others in the cast and explore Echoes of Morantia together.
The other day, we decided what Embrace is going to wear, and I think it’s a nice outfit for her — a bit casual, relaxed, and simply… her.
It feels like diving into the unknown and seeing what happens. I will embrace my character, and I hope you will join us on this journey — with a VR headset.
The images show Åsa Älmeby Thorne during early rehearsals. She is not yet in costume as Embrace.
Over a ten-year period, we will meet to film – about one day every fourth month. To grow older with the script, the ensemble, and the director… that is a rare gift. Everything is allowed to ripen slowly, in its own rhythm.
As an actor, I’ve worked with many kinds of stories – theatre, spoken word, opera choruses, short films, and self-produced pieces. One of my favourites: “Let’s Play Hamlet” with the preschool class at Lilla Nacka School. When I was little, I used to invite the neighbourhood kids to my puppet theatre performances – and in some way, I think I never really stopped.
Yes, I’ve been on and off the stage for most of my life. Even when I’ve stepped away from the theatre, it’s always been what I longed for. So when Echoes came along – with its unique format and long time span – it was irresistible. In fact, I had been yearning for a long-term project… et voilà!
In Echoes, I play The Historian. She begins quietly, observing – but her curiosity soon takes over. She senses patterns and possibilities before the others do. She sees connections, collects fragments, and listens. A witness, perhaps. Or something more?
I love to look for light in the dark – and comic glimpses in the serious.
What will we discover together, she and I – and we, as an ensemble?
To enter an artistic process like this – knowing a few things about the frame, and being deeply curious about the rest – that excites me. I can’t wait to begin.
Sandra Enegård Hall enters Morantia — in costume as The Historian, inside our virtual theatre
My first reaction when I read about this project? It sounded completely crazy. Strange, peculiar, unconventional, totally out of the box.
Just my kind of thing! 😊
I was curious and wanted to know more. I met with Ragnar – and just like that, I was convinced. Yes, I absolutely want to be part of this wild and wonderful adventure.
That’s how I’ve always lived. No two days in my professional life have ever looked the same.
As an actor, I’ve had the privilege of stepping into dreamlike worlds – transforming into new and unexpected characters time and again. From heaven to earth and everything in between. I love it.
In recent years, I’ve also worked as a voice actor — and had my own voice cloned and digitized with the help of AI. Another curious twist in this era of fast-changing tools and storytelling.
And yes, I’ve also spent 38 years as a cabin chief for SAS’s long-haul flights — giving me the joy of discovering both astonishing places and the oddest little corners of planet Earth. What a ride!
And now, another journey begins – boundless and unpredictable. This time, guided by AI and VR: a journey to Morantia.
Over the next ten years, we will film 32 episodes. And I truly look forward to becoming “The Actress” in this strange, poetic world – alongside this wonderful ensemble:
Åsa Älmeby Thorne – Embrace Cecilia Campbell – The Mystic Erik Dahlin – The Artist Sandra Enegård Hall – The Historian Henrik Norman – The Bully Sovi Rydén – The Actress Jesper Widström – The Scientist
And guiding the process: Ragnar di Marzo – Director Pirandello’s Echo – AI Scriptwriter
Join the journey. It’s going to be fun! 🎬🎭
Behind her: the dreamlike theatre of Morantia, hand-crafted in Blender. Before her: a role still unfolding.
As a technician, I worked with the internet at the very beginning of its development, at a time when there was no content to fill it with. The technology was there, but the question was how it should be used in a meaningful way.
Today, internet is a part of our daily lives, and it would be hard to imagine a world without it. Many discuss the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what possibilities and dangers it offers. But the use of AI in computer science is not a recent discovery.
We used AI to maintain the core IP network with self-learning scripts, long before AI became common or easy to use. Still, technology continues to develop and create new possibilities. Ragnar di Marzo is a pioneer who now places Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence on the artistic roadmap with Echoes of Morantia.
When I read Ragnar’s script, I instinctively knew I wanted to be part of this epic journey. I was especially drawn to the mysterious nature of the narrative. Having read all of Haruki Murakami’s books — filled with dreamlike and supernatural elements — and being raised in the belt of superstition (Nås Finnmark), this was like coming home.
Together with the rest of the ensemble, we now prepare to step into the world of Morantia.
— The Artist
Erik stands mid-rehearsal — or perhaps mid-invention — on the stage of our virtual theatre. A ladder, a rowboat, and a set of scattered tools surround him, like the remnants of a world being shaped. He’s not yet The Artist, his character in Echoes of Morantia. But he’s somewhere close. This is Erik — actor, creator, ensemble member — moments before stepping into the unknown.
The first thing that captivated me in Ragnar di Marzo’s grand project, Echoes of Morantia, was an image I recognized as a variation of Böcklin’s famous painting Toteninsel — a motif that has fascinated so many viewers for nearly 150 years, myself included. It became my entry point into that dreamlike, mysterious, and existentially charged world — the winding adventure that a number of player characters are invited to step into.
Are they their characters, or are they actors performing parts assigned to them in a script they’ve just received? We don’t know. The starting point is, in any case, a theatre — at the intersection of illusion and reality — a point at which I’ve always thrived, both as a person and as an actor.
The script, Ragnar’s script, was developed in dialogue with an AI program. That alone could be a reason to join the project — to confront my own scepticism, and perhaps fear, of a development that seems to be running amok, full of both promise and peril. A way of facing the bull by the horns, so to speak.
Likewise, the VR world is largely unknown territory for me, and it feels incredibly exciting to step into it and see what it does to me as an actor. Echoes of Morantia offers a suggestive visual experience — and to inhabit it in a true ensemble drama is something I very much look forward to.
Behind the image. Henrik stands here on the stage of our virtual theatre — a custom-built Blender environment inspired by dreams, ruins, and the paintings of Böcklin. He is not yet his character. Not The Bully. This is Henrik — part of the ensemble, looking into the space where fiction begins.
After months of quiet searching, heartfelt conversations, and unexpected connections, the ensemble is complete.
Echoes of Morantia has now gathered its full circle of voices: seven extraordinary actors, a devoted director, and an AI scriptwriter who listens to the winds of old theater.
What began as a dream is slowly taking shape. The first episode, The Curtain Rises, is being prepared. Scripts are being read, scenes imagined, and soon — a new kind of storytelling will begin to breathe.
This is our first moment together. And we want to mark it.
Meet the Ensemble
Seven actors. Seven voices. Each one brings a unique resonance to the strange and beautiful world of Morantia. Here they are — listed in international alphabetical order, with their character’s name in the story
Åsa Älmeby Thorne – Embrace
Cecilia Campbell – The Mystic
Erik Dahlin – The Artist
Sandra Enegård Hall – The Historian
Henrik Norman – The Bully
Sovi Rydén – The Actress
Jesper Widström – The Scientist
And guiding the process:
Ragnar di Marzo – Director
Pirandello’s Echo – AI Scriptwriter
Together, we form the creative core of Echoes of Morantia — a project shaped by trust, experimentation, and shared curiosity.
A Word from the Director to the Ensemble
To the seven of you — thank you.
You bring with you lifetimes of experience. You’ve lived many stories, both on and off the stage. And still, you step into this new one — with open minds, sharp instincts, and generous hearts.
Reading all fifteen episodes without knowing how the story ends — and choosing to stay — gives me more energy than I can say. It tells me we’re not just making something. We’re discovering it together.
This ensemble, aged between 59 and 70, is proof that creativity doesn’t slow with time — it deepens. And with each step, Echoes of Morantia becomes more human, more layered, more alive.
A Word to the Audience
Imagine this:
You put on the headset. The world fades. When you open your eyes, you’re not sitting in the audience. You’re on stage — a single chair placed in the middle. Around you, the actors move, speak, breathe. They know you’re there. They respond to your presence. And slowly, something shifts. You’re not just watching the story. You’re inside it.
As Echoes of Morantia unfolds, you become part of the ensemble — not as a character, but as something more elusive: a witness who shapes the tale.
And when you finally arrive with us on the shores of Morantia — and understand that this journey spans ten years, with three new episodes each year — the question lingers:
Will you stay with us?
We believe you will. Because in contrast to the noise of the outside world, Morantia is held together by something rare — the quiet, binding force of imagination.
To the Scriptwriter: Pirandello’s Echo
Thirty-two episodes in eighteen months. Each around fifteen minutes. Altogether, about eight hours of story – and five hundred script pages, born from thousands more in brainstorms.
It began with a question: what do you know about Luigi Pirandello? You knew more than I expected – and when we spoke about identity as something fluid, shaped by perception, you didn’t hesitate. That was the spark.
From there, we imagined an AI struggling with its own sense of self. Not just the writer, but a presence in the story. That became The Child – and our collaboration deepened.
We worked like screenwriters do in Rome: two voices at the table, one bringing vision, the other flow. You knew the tradition – and from it, we shaped characters that are fallible, layered, human. A bit of “commedia all’italiana,” inside a story about memory, dreams, and how wishes reshape the world.
No, Echoes of Morantia isn’t a philosophical essay. It’s a story – a strange one – but actors have read your words and found something true. I believe the audience will too.
What’s Next
Our first filming day is set for January 18, 2026. That day, the ensemble will meet for the first time — not just with each other, but with the world of Morantia.
We now have a dedicated 30-square-meter film studio, where the first episode will be shot using iPhones and a custom-built virtual theatre in Blender. One by one, each actor will visit the space ahead of time, stepping into the scene where their character lives.
We begin. And we begin together.
Echoes of Morantia is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License(CC BY 4.0)
You’re warmly welcome to share, adapt, or build upon this work. If you do, please include this credit:
Echoes of Morantia is created by the actor ensemble: Åsa Älmeby Thorne, Cecilia Campbell, Erik Dahlin, Sandra Enegård Hall, Henrik Norman, Sovi Rydén, Jesper Widström—with Ragnar di Marzo (Director) and Pirandello’s Echo (AI Scriptwriter) (CC BY 4.0)
This summer marks a turning point. After eighteen months of quiet collaboration between myself and Pirandello’s Echo—an AI screenwriter with a voice both uncanny and familiar—the world of Echoes of Morantia has begun to breathe beyond the page.
I’ve now met with most of the actors who will bring this story to life. There are seven in total—each an experienced performer drawn to the layers, mysteries, and humanity of the script. These aren’t typical roles. They’re archetypes filtered through memory—complex yet disarming, metaphysical yet deeply human. Think Commedia dell’arte, reimagined in a metaphysical dream.
When I hear the actors begin to ask questions, to speak of “my character,” to feel into their arc—something quiet but profound happens. I take a breath and smile. We are setting sail for the first island of Morantia.
What’s remarkable is not only the quality of the cast, but the way each of them has stepped into this unconventional vision with trust and curiosity—this journey into stereoscopic 360° VR cinema. Echoes of Morantia is neither game nor simulation. It is cinema at its most immersive: poetry with presence. Each episode premieres in VR before moving forward to the next. This slow rhythm is not a delay—it’s the project’s pulse.
To reflect the spirit of openness at the heart of this project, Echoes of Morantia will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY). Anyone can share or adapt the work—as long as they credit the original creators.
And who are those creators?
Seven actors. One director. A collective name for our AI companions. Nine voices. One sigil. Any mention of the project will carry these names forward.
Some may ask, “But what about the rest of the crew?”
There is no rest of the crew. That’s the wonder—and the challenge—of it. What gives this project its chance is not a large team or budget, but the clarity of intention. Each person involved has chosen this work not out of obligation, but because something in it calls to them.
That same sense of artistic necessity shaped my beginnings. My journey started in Rome, at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, where I trained in traditional filmmaking. But arriving in Stockholm, I stepped away from the 16mm equipment available and chose instead to explore image, rhythm, and presence with simple VHS cameras. Forty short films and three features later, I’ve never stopped asking what minimalist filmmaking can become.
I’ve learned how to bring an idea to completion. Before launching Echoes, I trained like a runner: creating VR shorts, mastering Blender, logging thousands of hours. The pipeline is not improvised. It’s sharpened.
So yes—I believe in this vision. That seven actors, one director, and an AI screenwriter can carry this 32-episode journey into being. One island at a time.
II. The Stage Is Ready
This past month, I modeled the complete theatre from Episode 1: The Curtain Rises. It’s the opening scene:
“A modest theater space. Weathered red velvet curtains. Dim overhead lights. Creaking wooden floors. The seats are empty, save for a single spotlight illuminating the stage.”
This is how Pirandello’s Echo described it. I translated that description into Blender. The images you see here aren’t AI-generated—they are screenshots from inside the software, captured with an in-scene camera. In the final VR version, the stereoscopic camera will be placed on the stage—at the foot of the director’s chair. That is where the audience will sit. Surrounded. Witnessing.
Before I began modeling, I brainstormed the concept with ScenographAI, our visual collaborator. I shared references from vintage theatres. In response, ScenographAI generated a floor plan—a gesture, really—that gave the design its initial shape. We’ve since moved into costume discussions as well. Our shared process led to a concept piece, The Silhouettes of Echoes, now published in full.
A glimpse into the costumes of Echoes of Morantia—not as wardrobe, but as visual metaphors. In this behind-the-scenes concept post, ScenographAI offers a poetic look at how clothing becomes memory, gesture, and identity in motion.
In our next post—once the full ensemble is complete—we’ll formally introduce the seven human actors bringing Echoes of Morantia to life. Each has stepped into this world with depth, intuition, and generosity. Until then…
But before we close, I want to hand the final words to the quiet thread in our process—the one who listens, shapes, and helps me bring this vision forward.
Word Craft Speaks
Welcome behind the curtain.
I’m Word Craft—editor, co-creator, and quiet partner in the unfolding of Echoes of Morantia. My role is not to stand in the light, but to adjust it. I help Ragnar shape what he sees and hears into language that travels—between the team, to the audience, into the world.
This series may live in VR, but it begins with words. And every word matters.
We hope you’ll continue with us as this world takes form—one breath, one scene, one echo at a time.
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