Most stories about new virtual reality films or documentaries contain some description of the experience itself—with so many people still having never experienced the medium, to do otherwise would be a disservice. Yet, to do that for any part of *Perspective 2: The Misdemeanor *would risk diluting a viscerally haunting experience. So take this shred of a synopsis and know it contains multitudes: The new project, from director Rose Troche and her VR partner Morris May, which just debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, puts the user on all sides of a police-involved shooting.

It’s the second experience in Troche and May's Perspective series—the first let people experience two sides of a sexual assault. The goal this time, Troche says, is to show an even-handed representation of everyone involved in a fictional police shooting: a teenager who gets shot, his brother, and two officers. The viewers’ perception of what happened in the shooting changes each time they watch a different perspective. Which is the whole point.

“Everybody has made a mistake in this whole thing, and it escalates so quickly,” says Troche. “But it’s really for you to experience, to try to feel what it’s like to have that fear, to feel like Oh my god, what did I just do? I just shot someone. We wanted to show the wholeness of the situation.”

It’s really for you to experience, to try to feel what it’s like to have that fear, to feel like Oh my god, what did I just do? I just shot someone. We wanted to show the wholeness of the situation. director Rose Troche

Perspective 2: The Misdemeanor is something that’s really never been done with VR before. There are experiences that deal with social justice issues, for sure, but they’re usually documentaries. What Troche and May’s experience does is use a hypothetical situation to give viewers an experience that they would otherwise (hopefully) get in a mediated form, whether via news reports or low-quality video clips uploaded to social media sites. It’s the kind of thing that can only be done with the immersive and empathy-inducing power of VR. “It’s a way to use the medium that’s so successful,” says May, CEO of VR outfit Specular Theory.

It also is coming at a time when people on all sides of the issue are grappling with how to respond to police brutality. Even Troche, who grew up in Chicago and had more than a few situations growing up where “I felt like ‘shit’s going to go down,’” struggled with her feelings on the issue. To get authentic perspectives from all sides of the encounter, she spoke to young people in her Brooklyn neighborhood as well as family members who work in law enforcement. She also, unfortunately, got a lot more information on police-involved shootings over the last year while she worked on the project as news of hundreds of deaths filled newspapers, cable news networks, and social media feeds.

“This has the same motivation as last year’s piece, which was to move a conversation forward,” says Troche, who started her career with indie films like Go Fish. “Living in New York with the [#BlackLivesMatter] protests that were going on, and with these things just continuing to happen, it felt to me like the philosophically natural next place to go.”

As of now, the self-financed project has no distribution deal in place, so for the foreseeable future people will only be able to see Perspective 2: The Misdemeanor at film festivals like Sundance. While the issue of how to get people to watch VR is one that’s plaguing the entire industry right now, Troche and May would especially like to get their project in front of as many people as possible—if for no other reason than to can help provide insight into an issue people have often made up their minds about.

“Who will approach the piece and only watch one thing and think that they have the story?" says Troche. "That’s pretty much what we have in real life. The piece demonstrates the fact that just because you’re there, doesn’t mean you see everything. Through the four strings, you get to see the full picture.”