HBO Documentary Films’ We Met In Virtual Reality, from director Joe Hunting, debuts 27 July on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. We Met In Virtual Reality had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and is Hunting’s feature directorial debut.
Filmed entirely inside the world of virtual reality (VR), this immersive and revealing documentary roots itself in several unique communities within VR Chat, a burgeoning virtual reality platform. Through observational scenes captured in real-time, in true documentary style, the film reveals the growing power and intimacy of several relationships formed in the virtual world, many of which began during the COVID-19 lockdown while so many in the physical world were facing intense isolation.
Although remaining wholly within the VR domain of avatars and imagined worlds, the film has elements of humor, serendipitous interactions and unexpected events that characterise real life. We Met in Virtual Reality tenderly documents the stories of people experiencing love, loss and unexpected connection, expressing vulnerability around mental health struggles and questions about identity, offering a hyper-real journey into the human experience of an online world that may soon shape the future.
The film follows Jenny, an American Sign Language (ASL) teacher, dedicated to building a welcoming community for deaf and hard of hearing VR Chat users, and two long distance couples growing their relationships in VR as they prepare to meet physically – DustBunny; a fitness dance instructor building a career in social VR dance classes and her partner, toaster; and DragonHeart and IsYourBoi, a couple who met through an exotic VR dance community where they are both performers.
HBO Documentary Films presents a Field of Vision presentation in association with Cinetic Media; a Painted Clouds production; directed, produced, edited and written by Hunting; executive producers, Charlotte Cook, Bryn Mooser, Kathryn Everett; made possible with support from XTR.