Antarctica comes to Barcelona in new cinematic immersive experience

'All aboard!' Visitors slowly enter a dark room with a large handrail and a sign reading, 'Boarding Operations. Do Not Enter.'

The 'Antarctica Experience' is now fully underway on a boat that will take adventurers from Argentina's southernmost provincial capital, Ushuaia, on a journey to Antarctica to discover the frozen continent through a cinematic and immersive experience created by filmmaker and scientist Luc Jacquet.

"Our goal in this exhibition was to share what is quite impossible to share if you cannot go to Antarctica," French Oscar-winning Luc Jacquet told Catalan News during an interview in Barcelona.

"This is a journey to Antarctica without getting cold, without getting bored due to bad weather," he explained, as the storyline takes the visitor from the boat's deck to Antarctica.

The epic trip features ten rooms with immersive experiences combining real images and sounds, including landscapes, dives 120 meters beneath the waves, and some of the creatures who inhabit this extreme territory.

Jacquet, who won an Oscar in 2006 for his documentary 'March of the Penguins,' combines science and cinema in the proposal, with the idea of "waking emotions" and teaching about the wonders of the world.

The filmmaker warns that society is currently "going downhill" regarding what people "know of this planet." 

"I am very pessimistic, but I believe this is not a reason to give up," he added.

The trip ends at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the geographic South Pole, where large screens surround visitors, letting them experience what it feels like to reach the world's most southerly point.

Managed by GIGA, it is the first exhibition that the company has produced worldwide, with the idea of making Barcelona its laboratory. After premiering in the Catalan capital, the expos will be held in other cities.

'Antarctica Experience' is open at Barcelona's Arenas shopping mall and tickets start at €16.90.