Queerskins is looking to tell the story of the LGBT experience through Virtual Reality.
The story is set in the early 1990’s and is about Sebastian Alder, a gay doctor in Missouri who dies of AIDS. His devoutly Catholic mother stumbles upon his diary and uses it as a second chance to get to know her son.
The films Kickstarter reads,
In this emotionally-charged haptic experience for Oculus Rift Touch, visitors are seated in the back seat of a photorealistic vintage 1986 Cadillac Sedan Deville, behind the two grieving parents, Ed and Mary-Helen, as they take a magic realist journey down a country road, a memory lane populated with scrapbook artifacts from their son’s peripatetic life.
The film features Adler reading his diary with billboards along the road showing personal moments.
Cyril Tsiboulski, the project’s artistic director, said of being on the front lines in VR and of the project, “We know VR hasn’t reached mass consumer status. In some ways it is like the beginning of cinema. That is why it is so critical that queer artists be at the forefront of this new medium.”
Gay actor Michael DeBartolo will be playing the role of Sebastian Alder. In speaking with Gay Star News, he said of the role, “I certainly know what it’s like to not want to be me, or to be something different, or to have a part of myself that makes me feel ashamed that that is me.”
The film will premier at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018. Along with its Kickstarter it is also being backed by Tribeca Film Institute and The Sundance Institute.
Tsiboulski is excited the film will play in NYC, but has hopes that it will reach those across the country, especially people from more conservative areas of the country.
I have experienced a lot of VR yet, but I really do want to see this movie and jump headlong into VR. Hopefully other queer filmmakers will also want to take the plunge.
