Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face

Have you ever asked yourself how it feels to be ‘worth’ nothing? To be called a piece of shit every day? How it feels to be discriminated against and looked down upon, even denied by the community?

Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face is a story of socially excluded and alienated teenagers who live in the Universe, the HOUSE for the troubled, where the usual laws of space and time do not apply. It’s a transmedia project, consisting of several different formats – an animated documentary film (80’), an interactive web series (26 x 3’), and a VR Experience (3 x 10’).

With Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face, we give you a look into the social exclusion and alienation of troubled teenagers, and evoke a reconsideration of social values and social phobias that result in the systematic discrimination of those who appear to deviate from the perceived norms, thereby becoming objects of coarseness or exclusion.

‘Troubled teenagers’ are a phenomenon that is often shrouded in misconception and prejudice, but actually it is something that should be talked about, and a lot. It is not a specific, narrow problem, since many ‘normal’ teenagers at some point in their adolescence suffer from depression, acting-out, thoughts of suicide, and other issues related to being troubled and problematic.

It can be very difficult, or never fully understood, what it feels like to experience some of the mental difficulties that some children experience. However, we should not close our eyes to the truth. Have you ever met a troubled child? Maybe she/he goes to the same school as your children. Maybe it’s your neighbor’s child. Have you ever wondered why this child is so sad, so angry at life and destructive towards herself/himself and others? Although it may feel like they hate the world, that actually might be very far from the truth.

With Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face, we search for the hidden truth behind teenagers’ anger, sadness, or aggression.

We need a paradigm shift in our understanding of what it means to be different, ‘mental’, troubled, stigmatised, socially excluded, alienated. Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face seeks to involve and encourage socially excluded children and encourage them not to be afraid to meet new, unknown situations even after they have made mistakes and have been hurt. Let us give troubled and marginalized teenagers the possibility of being heard.

Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face is a transmedia concept consisting of three different formats: an animated feature length documentary film, a VR Experience, and an interactive web series, where all the formats of the project are based on facts and personal stories as reported by the characters themselves.

On the one hand, the Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face project explores the potentials of technology and techniques, telling a different story in a different way, reaching new audiences, and provoking new experiences. On the other, it is a method to get closer to the hidden truth behind the troubled childhood traumas and find a way to help them, to show them that they too are part of society, to stop them from feeling alienated, rejected, and unwanted.

Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face is currently in development and is to be produced in collaboration with the author of the project, Tomas Tamosaitis. Also in development is the VR film Eyes of Shame, one of the projects recently presented at the Venice Gap Funding Market, part of the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

The project was selected by the Selection Committee to be presented at Cartoon 360, the transmedia pitching event in Barcelona, 2017, at Cross Video Days, Paris, and at the IDFA Cross-media pitching event in Amsterdam, 2017. Furthermore, the Killer, Penguin, Tom, Doll Face project got an invitation to collaborate at the prestigious MIT Open Doc Lab in Boston.