We started filming in 2012 and it was 4 years of filming, off and on. When did you start the film? How long did it take, and what was your budget? It was always either an exploitative or an apology piece, which I didn’t want to do. It had been very much a personal thing, not something that I cared to share with other people but I always wanted somebody to make a documentary about this because I thought that every piece I had seen on it had failed to do justice to the complexity of it. The second is that I’ve been a furry since I was 12 years old.

The previous idea we had fell through, so I brought the crew to Anthrocon and said “let’s just try this, let’s just see if there’s anything here.' This was around the time that Anthrocon was going on, which is the biggest furry convention in the world, and it’s in Pittsburgh. I was working with the producer, Olivia Vaughan, who wanted to make a documentary, and we needed a subject.

It started as a short film that I made for college and was expanded upon in subsequent years to make it what it is today. There were two, the first being I needed a senior thesis project. What was your inspiration for making this film? Gravitas Ventures will release the film on VOD and across all other digital platforms on May 10, 2016, but I had the opportunity to preview the film and speak with Mr. It follows its subjects over the span of four years and provides the viewer with an authentic glimpse into their worlds, allowing the “person inside the suit” to speak out and tell their truth. The film opens with various furries preparing their costumes and assuming their “fursonas” as they get ready for Anthrocon, the largest furry convention in the world. Rodriguez doesn’t shy away from asking the uncomfortable questions and the result is a nuanced film that both explores and educates. What began as a thesis project soon revealed itself to be much more and grew into Fursonas, a feature length documentary that is beautiful to watch both for its visuals and the mindful approach it takes as it explores the multifaceted furry community.

What do you do when you’ve grown up as a member of a subculture that the mainstream media has insisted on exploiting and misrepresenting your whole life? If you’re a furry in the second decade of the 2000s, you crowd source and make a film about it-which is exactly what Dominic Rodriguez did.

Choosing a fursona