Embodied POV Cinema: A Conceptual Framework for a Narrative Medium Beyond Film and Virtual Reality

Recent developments in immersive media have exposed a taxonomic gap between cinema, virtual reality (VR), and interactive digital narratives. This paper identifies and defines a nascent class of audiovisual works—Embodied POV Cinema (EPC)—as a sovereign narrative medium. Characterized by a sustained first-person perspective, sensorimotor coherence, and a fixed, non-interactive narrative structure, EPC systematically dissociates the spectator’s sense of ownership over a virtual body from their sense of agency. This paper argues that EPC is irreducible to either traditional cinema, which maintains an external camera and spectator position, or interactive VR and gaming, which are defined by ergodic agency. Through a phenomenological analysis, we demonstrate how EPC’s core aesthetic principle is passive presence, enabling a unique form of narrative power: the authorial choreography of embodied experience. Recognizing EPC as a distinct category is essential for developing its specific aesthetics and understanding its potential for somatic empathy and narrative inhabitation.