HBO has slated the upcoming documentary We Met in Virtual Reality for a July 27 premiere on the network and HBO Max.

Billed as being “filmed entirely in virtual reality,” the feature debut from director Joe Hunting (which made its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival) is rooted in several communities in VR Chat, a growing virtual-reality platform. Using observational scenes captured in real time, the film follows Jenny, an American Sign Language (ASL) teacher seeking to build a community for deaf and hard-of-hearing VR Chat users, as well as two long-distance couples growing their relationships in VR as they prepare to meet each other in the real world.

The documentary speculates on the power and intimacy of relationships formed in the virtual space (many of which began amid pandemic lockdown measures), and explores people experiencing love and loss while touching on mental health and identity, all while remaining completely within the virtual domain of avatars and imagined worlds.

We Met in Virtual Reality comes from HBO Documentary Films and is a Field of Vision presentation in association with Cinetic Media. The film is a Painted Clouds production directed, produced, edited and written by Joe Hunting. Executive producers are Charlotte Cook, Bryn Mooser and Kathryn Everett. The film was made possible with support from XTR.