This 8-minute virtual reality experience shows the former Odeon cinema (1936-2002) in Udine as it was in 1939, a few years after its opening, during the premiere of the animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The evocative and sensorial reconstruction of the cinema theatre, realised from archival materials and oral testimonies, is a case study that highlights the potentialities that immersive media have in the preservation and valorisation of cinema heritage. In 2004, the Odeon cinema was declared of historical-artistic interest due to the prestige of its decorations by Ugo Rossi and Antonio Franzolini, and its architectural design by Ettore Gilberti. The building still exists today, though its condition is deteriorating; the project aims to raise awareness of this cinema’s uniqueness to the local community, highlighting its importance for the citizens as a place of social gathering. Odeon VR is an experiment in retro-spectatorship that evokes a historically-situated form of spectatorship: the user wears the head-mounted display and becomes the protagonist of a narration set in a specific historical moment, in this case during fascism in Northern Italy.
