• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

  • About
Unreal Boys film

Unreal Boys – a film about shota

Unreal Boys film
Unreal Boys, 2020. Film length: 35:47 minutes.

Three young men in Tokyo explore the limits of fantasy through the comic genre shota, which features fictional boys in sexual situations.

We follow an aspiring artist who wants to “live in a fantasy forever”, a youtuber who records his interactions with a shota game, and a manga artist driven by nostalgia.

While trying to understand a controversial phenomenon that blurs the borders of actual and virtual realities, the filmmaker participates actively in the shota culture and ends up realising something important about himself.

Unreal Boys is based on extensive fieldwork and part of a master’s thesis in visual anthropology.

Crew

  • Director: Karl Andersson
  • Cinematographer: Solomon Mekonen

Director biography

Karl Andersson
Karl Andersson. Photo: Solomon Mekonen.

Karl Andersson is a Swedish filmmaker with a master’s degree in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin. He has a background in journalism and publishing and is currently pursuing a PhD in Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester. Unreal Boys is his first film.

Press images

These film stills may be used freely as long as you state clearly that they are from the film Unreal Boys by Karl Andersson.

Unreal Boys press image 1: Zac standing by the water in Akihabara, Tokyo
Unreal Boys 1
Unreal Boys 2
Unreal Boys 3

Film festivals

Unreal Boys has been watched and discussed at ethnographic film festivals and conferences, including:

  • Days of Ethnographic Film, Slovenia, March 2021
  • RAI Film Festival, UK, March 2021 (panel presentation)
  • International Society for Ethnology and Folklore Congress, Finland, June 2021
  • Kyiv Film Festival, Ukraine, June 2021
  • Vizantrop Festival of Engaged Ethnographic Film, Serbia, October 2021
  • Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, USA, November 2021

Awards

Q&A’s and discussions

Contact

Email film ATT karlandersson DOTT se or fill out the form.

Primary Sidebar

Tiling short film

Tiling is a short film that I made as part of a semester paper. Read more and watch it here.

Subscribe

Loading

Archives

Categories

  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Yes. Log in

  • About