Immersive cinematic experiences are not so new; filmgoers wearing stereoscopic glasses are an iconic image of 1950s cinema. The early 1980s saw an immersive renaissance with films such as Jaws 3-D (Joe Alves, 1983), followed by the IMAX cinema boom in the 2000s, and a further revival with the blockbuster Avatar (James Cameron, 2009). It has nevertheless been claimed that we are on the verge of entering an era of true immersion in virtual experiences, and that engaged interaction with virtual reality, holograms and volumetric worlds are on the horizon. It is only a few years since virtual reality came to be accepted onto film festival programmes – now it is everywhere. Sundance and Cannes festivals, for example, have presented immersive films as standalone experiences in purpose-built auditoriums and exhibitions, most notably with Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s immersive experience Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) in 2017. Iñárritu’s initial idea was to deploy virtual reality technology to create an embodied encounter with the experience of migrants crossing the Mexico–US border. As the project evolved in collaboration with performers who had lived through the ordeal, Iñárritu expanded the work’s focus on a head-mounted display (HMD) experience to incorporate materials and evidence from the real world. The resulting format presented at Cannes in 2017 entailed three stages. Upon first entering the warehouse, participants found themselves in the ‘cold room’ where they were required to relinquish their personal effects, including their shoes. Once barefoot, they were fitted with the VR headset and guided into the adjacent space – an arena covered with a layer of sand. From this point on, watched over by by a few attendants to guard against injury, participants were subjected to the sensory realm of a border crossing within the HMD display. Over a seven-minute sequence they were immersed in the murky atmosphere of a sandstorm, pierced by the headlights of patrol cars and overshadowed by the silhouettes of migrants and border police. Exiting the virtual space, viewers were invited to watch the migrants re-telling their stories in a series of short video interviews, reinforcing the sense of an authentic documentary encounter.