‘The Reality of Hope’ Documents Life-Saving VRChat Friendship

The cast and crew of the new documentary The Reality of Hope gather on the virtual couches of a Furality map to grant me an interview in VR.

It’s a mix of different avatars facing me: a sunny-looking human, an otter wearing a green button-up shirt and brown jacket, a more fantastical furry wearing a scarf and coat, and a sleek, taller canine-like being with large ears and a long tail.

“How has your friendship changed between the donation, before and after?” I ask.

The fantastical winged furry and the suited otter exchange glances—they’re who I’m speaking to. Hiyu and Photographotter are their respective names. Otter was the donor; he took a plane from America to Sweden to save Hiyu from the grim fate of kidney failure. The brief pause before their answer is heavy with the knowledge of everything they’ve been through.

“We’ve definitely gotten a lot closer,” says Otter.

And then they start chuckling.

Hiyu joins in with laughter:

“Yeah. At least one percent of him.”

The Reality of Hope is a new short film about Hiyu and Photographotter’s journey. The documentary explores the dynamics between them as well as the challenges of traveling halfway around the world to make the surgery happen. Through each obstacle presented, the two friends are buoyed by the VR community and each other.

Joining their journey is director Joe Hunting and producer MaxFilms. Hunting previously captured VR stories of friendship with We Met In Virtual Reality in 2022. His experience filming people connecting online and offline resulted in another effort that’s been selected by Sundance for the year.

Hiyu and Photographotter cross the boundaries of reality within the documentary to show their true selves throughout. Hunting considers this to be pivotal in the work, and it is a line he didn’t cross in We Met In Virtual Reality, which aired on HBO Max.

“As Photographotter flies from New York to Stockholm, we transitioned to real life to follow that physical journey. The transition from VR to real life was really important to us in creating the themes of the film and a dramatic entry point into that world.”

So it’s ultimately a story about saving someone’s life from a connection made entirely online, with the friendship itself becoming life-saving. How did a documentary illuminating such an experience happen in the first place?

In 2018, Hiyu joined the VR furry community of Furality, an imaginative festival series that takes place within VRChat. It was this year when he was diagnosed with kidney issues, following what he thought was a mundane checkup. The problem gradually grew worse until 2022 brought another prognosis: his kidney was giving out and he needed a replacement. Now.

Hiyu shared the news with his friends and worried he’d never find a donor. But as soon as word of Hiyu’s problem got around their social scene, Photographotter sent a message with a solution. He didn’t know Hiyu, but he was certain he wanted to be the donor.

“I knew I had to do it,” Otter explained.

It wasn’t easy making it happen. They needed to raise funds for the surgery, pay for travel, and wait out the mandatory three month period so the surgery would be cleared by the Swedish government. Hiyu and Otter‘s friends reached out with everything from encouraging words to help in keeping Hiyu motivated and in good shape. But there were also times of uncertainty, and the pain Hiyu experienced as his kidney worsened. To document their journey, Otter began a YouTube channel.

This was how MaxFilms got involved.

“Otter was over at Hiyu’s place and he was trying to do a recording of his video diary,” Max explained. “He needed a hand because his computer wasn’t good enough. So I helped out and during those video diaries I realized Otto was good on camera.”

Max arranged for Hiyu and Otter to film test interviews for a possible bigger production. It went so well, he contacted Joe Hunting about it. Hunting happened to be looking for a new project as well. MaxFilms then assisted in co-production and providing a second camera to Hunting’s own.

“Max came to me and suggested the idea of collaborating on making the documentary at a really perfect time. I was stuck in the UK and I was looking for new ideas. It felt so serendipitous for Max to share this incredible moment at a moment where the story was really about to evolve.”

To connect the physical and digital realms, MaxFilms scanned the room Hiyu physically sat in for dialysis by using a LIDAR app called Polycam. Rob Ouellette from Painted Clouds then prepared the model in 3D programs Blender and Maya to import into VRChat to reshoot the scene virtually. The shot they took of the dialysis session would then be matched in focus and pace by a camera in VRChat.

After the initial film interview, I was escorted by Hunting and company to review the dialysis film set. I watched Hiyu carefully as he began to approach the machine. The large device Hiyu used at the hospital had been scanned by Hunting’s crew at Painted Clouds.

Was that slight trepidation I could read on his face? He was using face tracking, so I could see his facial expressions as he neared the digital recreation.

First, he approached the machine as a creator: “The work Rob [from Painted Clouds Studio] did on the machine is top tier hard surface modeling work. I’m also a 3D modeler and this is what I could hope to achieve given the amount of time.”

Then his reflections became more personal.

“It’s really weird being in here for how accurate it is.”

It’s an understatement. The set feels like standing in a physical hospital. The texture scan of the worn tile, off-white walls, and sanitized feel of a medical space bleed through quickly. Hiyu goes on.

“Sitting in here, looking at the window and at the exact same angle is so bizarre. It didn’t feel like I was back on [the machine] thankfully but it was very, very strange.”

“We kind of went through hell together,” Otter says. “Like with the surgery and even leading up to it and how scary all of it was. Just so much waiting and so much not knowing. We went through a lot together and that’s not something that just fades into the background.”

Throughout The Reality of Hope, Hiyu and Otter’s friendship comes into sharp focus. They present humor and camaraderie as the answer when things are looking dire. At one point, Otter presents Hiyu with a complimentary beverage as his friend endures sitting at the dialysis machine. “I have brought you a coffee—“ he grins, “and a kidney. But you have to wait on that one.”

At the end of the interview, MaxFilms and Hunting break away to make adjustments on their menus and attend to business. Otter and Hiyu remained at the side, their energy picking up considerably. They suddenly wanted to take another picture with the machine, this time joking around with it.

“Put it in the article!” they exclaimed.

The suggestion here in The Reality Of Hope, and reinforced by my time interviewing the main subjects and director in VR, is that the joy they find in their humor – the joy of hope – is an expression of victory.

The Reality Of Hope premieres June 8 on DOCUMENTARY+.