Premiere 5 August 2026
A journey begins where theatre becomes reality.
Seven strangers, each carrying a lifetime of memories, enter a forgotten theatre.
They arrive with a script.
They leave behind everything they thought they knew.
No names.
Only roles.
A mysterious Director awaits.
A wooden Child holds the words.
And beyond the curtain lies an island where memory shapes reality and identity begins to change.
A world you have never entered.
A journey you will never forget.
The Story
In a forgotten theatre, seven strangers gather beneath the fading lights of a stage. Each carries a lifetime of memories, but none remembers why they have been called there. They carry no memories of how they arrived.
Only a script lies before them. And on every page, a question: who are you when the role you have been given begins to change?
A mysterious Director watches from the shadows. Beside him stands The Child, a wooden figure carrying the words that will guide the journey. But the script does not behave like an ordinary script.
The strangers are not given names. They are given roles.
The Scientist seeks answers.
The Historian searches for meaning in fragments of the past.
The Artist sees possibility where others see confusion.
The Mystic listens for what cannot be explained.
The Actress rediscovers the stage she thought she had left behind.
The Bully hides behind resistance and laughter.
And somewhere among them is Embrace, a presence waiting to be recognised.
The words begin to move beyond the page, and the theatre itself begins to awaken.
Then the impossible happens. The theatre disappears.
The travellers find themselves crossing the waters toward an island that seems to exist somewhere between memory and imagination. A place where stone remembers. A place where time does not move in a straight line. A place where the boundaries between who they were and who they might become begin to dissolve.
On the island, the impossible becomes ordinary. The weight of years begins to lift. Old limitations disappear. The travellers discover that the world around them does not respond to what they want, but to what they carry within themselves.
Their fears.
Their desires.
Their hidden memories.
The island does not offer escape.
It offers reflection.
As the journey continues, the strangers begin to understand that they are not only discovering a new world. They are discovering themselves through the gaze of others. The roles they were given begin to transform. The script begins to answer back.
And the story begins to ask a deeper question: if we become who we are through our encounters with others, what happens when another kind of presence enters the conversation?
The curtain has risen.
The island awaits.
Created by the Ensemble
The Curtain Rises was created through a long collaboration between performers, direction, virtual scenography, sound, and an AI scriptwriter.
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
Ragnar di Marzo — Director and XR Artist
Pirandello’s Echo / The Child — AI Scriptwriter
How to watch
Episode One, The Curtain Rises, is a stereoscopic VR360 experience created for VR headsets.
Available on:
DeoVR
YouTube VR
The DeoVR app is available through the Meta Store, Apple App Store, Google Play, and Steam.
Search for Echoes of Morantia inside either platform.
No paywalls. No subscriptions. Only a VR headset – and the willingness to enter.
The Script Behind the Curtain
Every journey begins somewhere.
Before Morantia became a world of images, voices and presence, it began as a script.
Read the original screenplay for Episode One, The Curtain Rises.
Echoes from the Making
Every episode leaves traces behind.
These reflections follow the journey from first questions to the moment when the curtain finally rises.
Echoes of Morantia: Building a Stereoscopic VR Theatre
The questions behind creating a theatre without a frame. How can filmed performers become believable presences inside a stereoscopic VR theatre? This production case study explores the Blender workflow behind Echoes of…
The Curtain Has Risen
The moment the imagined theatre became a real one. Episode One, The Curtain Rises, has crossed a quiet line. Not a rehearsal. Not a test. Not a promise. Filming. Seven actors have…
Before the Ensemble Arrives
The last quiet moment before seven voices enter Morantia. Before the ensemble arrives, the story is already listening.
Echoes of Morantia is a virtual reality meta-theatre unfolding over ten years, created by…
The Ensemble Is Complete – Echoes of Morantia Takes Its First Breath
The first circle of performers gathers around the script. The actor ensemble: Cecilia Campbell, Erik Dahlin, Henrik Norman, Jesper Widström, Sandra Hall, Sovi Rydén, Åsa Älmeby Thorne — with Ragnar di Marzo…
A Dialogical Creative Process
The creation of Echoes of Morantia has developed through a dialogue between human imagination and artificial voices. Ragnar di Marzo remains responsible for the artistic direction and final choices. The AI companions contribute perspectives, questions and unexpected connections throughout the journey.
Tags: #VirtualReality #VRFilm #ImmersiveCinema #2023ARequiem #RagnarDiMarzo #VR360 #StereoscopicVR #CreativeCommons #BlenderArt #DigitalStorytelling #FestivalWinner #VRArt #ExperimentalFilm #CinematicVR #ArtInVR #VRFilmmaking #VRStorytelling #VRShortFilm #VRExperience #VRDirector
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