For emerging forms like VR to thrive, they need creators who bring the human back to the center of the equation. The real question isn’t “What can the technology do?” but “What can we say about our humanity through it?” Technology should remain a tool, not an end in itself.
Dominic Desjardins
The Dollhouse unfolds like a paper world coming to life. Inside it, nine-year-old Juniper grapples with feelings of guilt about how her family treated Magnolia, a woman who came from afar to work in their home. This animated, interactive VR tale explores how power dynamics are born within the intimacy of our domestic spaces. As Juniper reenacts memories with her dolls, she confronts her own actions, finding the courage to disagree with her parents and follow her heart. Will you help her ask for forgiveness?
Director, producer, and co-founder of the Canadian production company Zazie Films with Rayne Zukerman, Dominic Desjardins has long developed projects that place the human experience at the core of both aesthetic and social reflection. Coming from a background in documentary filmmaking and deeply engaged with human rights issues, he seeks to explore what technology can reveal about our relationship to others. With The Dollhouse, created in collaboration with Charlotte Bruneau, he continues this approach, using the immersive potential of VR to spark intimate, emotional, and lasting awareness.
Choosing the Subject
The Dollhouse addresses a social reality often rendered invisible: the symbolic and psychological violence endured by domestic workers. Why did you choose to approach this theme through virtual reality?
Dominic Desjardins: The project originated with Charlotte Bruneau, who had already been conducting in-depth research on the topic for a documentary and invited me to collaborate on a VR adaptation. We met at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, where I was leading a workshop on the use of VR and AR in museums.
Her idea immediately caught my attention: it shed light on an unseen reality, and I’ve always been drawn to exploring social issues that remain in the shadows – especially through new technologies. To me, virtual reality holds a profound promise: the ability to create a sense of presence, and therefore, empathy. As a creator, I constantly ask myself how to go further in that direction – how to truly “step into someone else’s shoes.” VR engages action; it’s not didactic, but experiential, even physical. Instead of linking a topic to an abstract idea, it connects it to a lived moment, a felt experience. That’s what gives it impact – what forges a deeper connection to the subject.
The Child’s Gaze and the Dollhouse Metaphor
You chose to tell this story through the eyes of Juniper, a nine-year-old girl, within the metaphorical setting of a dollhouse. Why did this combination – the innocent gaze of childhood and the symbolic staging of the miniature home – feel right for such a heavy topic?
D. D. – Charlotte had already explored that idea in her research. She was interested in the child’s perspective within the family, and how children perceive tension when the relationship between parents and a domestic worker deteriorates. Our goal wasn’t to depict one country or social class, but rather a universal phenomenon. Looking through the eyes of a child allowed us to reach the heart of human mechanisms—the ways we unconsciously reproduce our parents’ or society’s behaviors. This gradual, unintentional slide into symbolic violence, without overt malice, was exactly what we wanted to explore.
I find it fascinating to talk about human rights in an intimate, domestic setting—far from the wars or crises where they are usually discussed. These violations can occur within the family unit, sometimes in subtle, almost imperceptible ways.
In The Dollhouse, Juniper is a child trying to make sense of things. Through her paper world, she reenacts events as if a therapist had asked her to rebuild the story to understand it better. This approach allows the viewer to “play” too—innocently at first—before realizing they are complicit in amplifying someone else’s suffering. One of our goals was to imagine simple yet meaningful interactions that make the viewer an active participant in this gradual shift, much like a silent witness to an injustice.
Interactivity and the Viewer’s Role
The gestures offered to the viewer – manipulating a doll and guiding her actions – are both simple and deeply symbolic. Was this a way of making them complicit in the symbolic violence, helping them grasp how such mechanisms are internalized and normalized?
D. D. – Exactly. In VR, you could easily place the viewer in a first-person perspective, embodying the protagonist. But we wanted to preserve the sense of observing a small world unfolding before us, of accompanying someone through their process. We wanted the viewer to feel like a confidant, a close friend, a silent witness.
To make them active, we designed small, playful actions that gradually lead to involvement—at first without realizing it. Step by step, the viewer becomes an actor, even though the story doesn’t branch or change course. It’s a poetic kind of participation.
What interested us was adding a deeper layer of meaning: how an ordinary action can suddenly reveal a profound understanding. For instance, when Juniper throws paper planes around the house without realizing they crash into walls, leaving marks for the housekeeper to clean, she unknowingly adds to her burden. We, as viewers, do the same—we’re given planes to throw, and then we see the woman cleaning behind us. In that instant, something shifts. We feel, physically and emotionally, how even innocent actions can weigh on others. That realization—that slow, invisible drift toward harm—is the core of the project. It’s about sensing Juniper’s guilt and her longing for redemption through our own experience.
Artistic Direction and the Gradation of Violence
The experience draws on the aesthetics of cut paper, puppet theater, and shadow play, creating a world that hovers between childhood and unease. What inspired this visual language, and how did it help you express both the complexity of the subject and the gradual intensification of violence ?
D. D. – We loved the idea of a world that unfolds from nothing and slowly disintegrates. In VR, the risk is always to overproduce – to show everything – and lose emotional subtlety. Charlotte and I believed that limiting ourselves materially could bring us closer to something true and tangible. We wanted the viewer to feel as though these elements exist, almost touchable. That constraint strengthens presence.
We therefore worked only with simple materials: paper, string, foam, cardboard. We wanted this world to be fragile – like childhood, like the situation itself – something ephemeral that appears, disappears, transforms. That’s how this aesthetic was born, through the work of Canadian art director Sophie Dubé, whose drawings were later translated into 3D.
I’ve always been fascinated by early VR works like Allumette by Penrose Studios, where the viewer becomes the camera – free to move, observe, and compose their own gaze. That freedom is magical, and I wanted to recreate it: a delicate miniature world unfolding before you, where you can choose what to focus on – a gesture, a glance, a detail. The paper world allows for that intimacy.
This hand-crafted aesthetic also distances the experience from the ambiguous realism of VR, where people often ask whether something looks “real” enough. Here, everything is drawn, colored, handmade. Nothing is vector-based. That artisanal quality makes the project more organic, more alive: it invites closeness and empathy.
Awareness and Narrative Progression
Both Juniper and the viewer undergo a gradual process of realization until the story leaves no ambiguity about what has been witnessed. How did you construct this narrative path and its “ethics of clarity,” to avoid confusion around such a sensitive subject?
D. D. – This project really explores grey areas, the moment you realize that in a situation of human rights abuse, you yourself contributed to the harm despite your good intentions or values. There are no villains here: the mother, the father, or anyone else isn’t acting out of malice. What we wanted to show is how such situations evolve insidiously if we’re not vigilant.
This gradual drift was crucial – it doesn’t stem from one action, but from the accumulation of small behaviors: dehumanizing someone, assuming their rights matter less than ours, thinking we can restrict their freedom “for their own good.” Reexamining our actions inevitably leads us into moral grey zones – it’s not black or white.
Viewing the story through a child’s eyes reminds us that innocence and goodwill exist at first… before things slip away. The project’s message is one of vigilance. And this reflection can easily be extended: human rights abuses happen today, even politically, often starting with “good intentions” that degenerate. That’s the drift we’re talking about – one that occurs despite us, despite our wish for harmony and kindness. We must acknowledge that our actions have consequences.
Fiction, Commitment, and Virtual Reality
Through its poetic, metaphorical language, The Dollhouse demonstrates how fiction can illuminate and denounce complex social realities. Is this commitment an imperative for you in choosing your themes? And do you think VR has a unique ability to evoke empathy and awareness?
D. D. – Absolutely. I believe VR allows us to explore subjects where we can truly get closer to the human experience – creating “embodied empathy,” empathy rooted in presence. That participatory potential is still underexplored. Charlotte comes from journalism and documentary, and I’ve also produced and directed numerous documentaries. Getting closer to people, addressing social issues – that’s at the core of my work.
With new technologies, the risk is letting the gaming industry set the tone. I’m happy to leave them the realm of pure entertainment. But for emerging forms like VR to thrive, they need creators who bring the human back to the center of the equation. The real question isn’t “What can the technology do?” but “What can we say about our humanity through it?” Technology should remain a tool, not an end in itself. Creating only to showcase technical prowess leads to hollow works that don’t last – soon replaced by the next shiny gadget.
As with cinema or any other art form, every new medium requires creators capable of re-centering human experience and empathy. That’s exactly what Charlotte and I have tried to do.
Premiered at Cannes Immersive 2025, The Dollhouse has since followed an impressive festival journey: nominated at the BFI London Film Festival 2025, the Luxembourg Film Awards 2025, United XR Europe 2025, and the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF) 2025, it also received the KFF XR Spark Award 2025 and the Grand Prize at Sandbox in Beijing. This recognition underscores the strength of its sensitive storytelling – one that delves into moral grey zones – and confirms VR’s ability to open new spaces for empathy and awareness.