VR EFFECT! Virtual Reality Cinema

Virtual Reality has landed at the National Museum of Cinema.

The National Museum of Cinema hosts CineVR in the Aula del Tempio — a brand-new area dedicated to virtual reality. Created in collaboration with Rai Cinema, the project aims to promote digital culture, innovation, and new technologies related to the world of film. CineVR is Italy’s first permanent movie theatre entirely devoted to VR, featuring a daily program of films designed and conceived specifically for this immersive medium. The lineup is updated monthly with new titles and also includes temporary selections presented during festivals and special events.

Programme

CineVR1 and CineVR2 | Until 14 September 2026

“Africa is no longer merely telling its own story; it invites the world to step inside. Virtual Reality is our modern griot, a boundless digital vessel where ancestral memories and future aspirations collide. Here, the African imagination awakens, reclaiming its narrative to give life to the unseen. We are not simply rendering pixels; we are sculpting new spaces of possibility, transforming the echoes of our past into immersive landscapes of our future. To put on these headsets is to walk through the very soul of our heritage, feeling the heartbeat of a continent that dreams with its eyes open.”

The National Museum of Cinema, in collaboration with XR producer and director Sélim Harbi, presents "Traces", a showcase of four immersive works from Africa that explores identity, memory, and heritage.

Afroroutes (Tunisia 2018, 15’) by Sélim Harbi

It takes us through Salvador de Bahia, Gujarat, and Tangier, tracing a legacy uprooted by slavery but fiercely preserved in rituals.

The Daladala Verse (Tanzania 2024, 5’) by Aurelio Mofuga

It takes the viewer on the urban routes traveled by Fatuma’s minibus, following her journey toward empowerment as the first female driver of a daladala bus in Dar es Salaam.

Ferenj (Etiopia/USA 2020, 9’) by Ainslee Alem Robson

A photogrammetric graphic memoir that transports readers from the Empress Taytu Ethiopian Restaurant in Cleveland to the streets of Addis Ababa, offering the author’s personal reflections on mixed identity and the concept of “home” within an Afro-surrealist landscape lulled by tezeta music.

Where Does Happiness Come From (Nigeria 2025, 8’) by Somto Ajuluchukwu

It immerses the user in an intimate experience with Made Kuti & The Movement, where Afrobeat rhythms create a meditative space centered on happiness.

Rebels (Argentina 2021, 10') by  Federico Moreno Breser

In a parallel world where animals live as humans, an authoritarian law places a city in a state of chaos. The ‘Darwin Code’ mandates conformity to species-specific by-laws where individual expression is prohibited and heavily enforced by militarized droids who punish any that challenge the code. But a subversive group resists and lights a flame for others to follow. This group is known only as the ‘Rebels’.

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CineVR is included in the Museum admission ticket.

Due to the immersive technology of VR devices, the use of VR headsets is allowed only to people over 12 and is not recommended to pregnant women, people with epilepsy, heart or visual conditions, and people with pace-makers, cochlear implants, hearing aids.