| 2019 | Tamara Shogaolu |
| AR,EN |
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“The core of our animated mixed reality piece, Another Dream, lies in the documentary audio recordings of a young Egyptian lesbian couple, whose stories I have followed since their participation in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution through their journey to seeking asylum in the Netherlands today. I wanted to share their story in a way that would best honor their experiences and voices — and share them in a way that challenges the stereotypes and even erasure of women of color, queer people, and the Muslim community that is too often presented by the mass media. Working toward these goals naturally led our team to experiment with new ways to share their story.”
Tamara Shogaulo, Director/Creator
“Another Dream, a hybrid animated documentary and VR game, brings the gripping, true love story of an Egyptian lesbian couple to life. Faced with a post-revolution backlash against the LGBTQ community, they escape Cairo to seek asylum and acceptance in the Netherlands. An accompanying installation allows audiences to reflect on what they have seen, heard, and felt in VR,” states the Another Dream website.
The website also states, “Another Dream is part of Queer in a Time of Forced Migration, an animated transmedia series that follows the stories of LGBTQ refugees from Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia across continents and cultures — from the 2011 Revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa region to the world today.”
The 20 minute animated documentary VR experience premiered worldwide at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes exhibit. The experience, directed by Tamara Shogaulo, brings to life interviews that Shogaulo conducted with LGBTQ asylum speakers in Egypt over the course of eight years. In her Director Statement, Shogaulo says she chose animation “to protect the identities behind the voices of the people who chose to share their stories, but also to emphasize the personal nature of their accounts and to encourage new ways of witnessing their journeys.”
The project also includes an interactive element in which the participant traces words in Arabic to transition between scenes. This element, combined with 360 2D animation, creates an immersive experience in which the participant can live within the stories represented in the project and experience another person’s intimate memories in VR.
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