Never before was the underwater world of White Sea whales as close to viewers as in our upcoming VR sessions. They’ll make you feel like you can literally touch them. The ECO-CINEMA VR sessions will be screening Vladimir Marin’s The Underwater World of the Beluga Whales, a joint video project of IORAN Studio, Marine Mammal Laboratory, and Underwater Echo Sounding Laboratory.

The underwater observation platform is stationed in the shallow water area inhabited by large flocks of whales that have been objects of the decades-long research. According to the information sourced from the chronicles of Solovetsky Isles, beluga whales have been migrating toward the White Sea waters for centuries. Even despite the ruthless hunt that damaged their population time and again, the flocks restored and returned to their beloved site near the White Sea coast. Now, for the first time in the history of observing the beluga whales, watchers will be able to experience their presence without disturbing them. Thanks to the 360 immersive Virtual Reality, we’ll be following the whales to uncover their mysteries while staying invisible to them.

We’ll witness males fighting, calves suckling their moms, and hear the unearthly sounds of these truly fantastic creatures. To some, they look like giant babies with snow-white skin and gullible eyes.

But, to every one of us the film will look different, for it will be up to us where to follow and what to observe.

Enjoy your dive!

The footage for these VR sessions has been obtained using the VR system created by the team of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. The idea for this film was developed in the in-house video studio and builds on years-long cooperation with the Marine Mammal Laboratory and Underwater Echo Sounding Laboratory.

With fully immersive digital environment, not only can we observe beluga whales in their natural habitat, we can get closer to solving the mysteries of whale behavior.