Honeyboys Turns the Gig Economy Into a VR Machine

A naked ginger delivery driver crosses an apocalyptic world in Honeyboys, a virtual-reality film whose creators call that world a “machine.” It brings modern-day consumer society and the gig economy into an immersive setting, asking viewers to consider the people and systems that make everyday consumption feel ordinary.

The delivery comes into view

Director Tibor de Jong traces the project’s “seed” to the Covid-19 lockdown, particularly in China, and the gig economy that followed. He sees himself as part of the world the film examines, too. “In all the things I do, it is partly a reflection of the world. But I also like to hold up a mirror to myself in it,” he said. Then he asked: “Who am I really? Where do I stand? What is my place in that world?”

His answer starts with a familiar convenience. “You let those delivery people come without thinking about it,” de Jong said. Honeyboys puts that delivery worker at the centre of its journey, bringing a figure often encountered at the edge of consumer life into the film’s strange, collapsing world. The creators don’t offer a policy programme. Instead, they turn attention toward participation in the consumption economy and the social layers that support it.

De Jong described the film’s hierarchy through sound: “The entire world system of all audible things. That actually exists only for us on the very top part.” The film’s compact world gives the creators a way to address a layered society. Its images are cryptic by design. Symbols invite viewers to build their own story, rather than receive one explanation.

Symbols inside the machine

An egg carries several meanings in Honeyboys: a product of consumerism, an embryo and a sign of cycles. The delivery-bag logo took particular effort. Animator Doris Konings said, “I thought about what it had to be, for just as long as making the film itself.” The final mark was a “simple” bee.

The film puts viewers inside its world instead of asking them to watch from a fixed distance. De Jong called VR “a medium you enter,” with a headset and stereoscopic images creating the sensation of being transported. “You create the world and the world tells the story to you in an environmental way, instead of someone explaining it to you,” he said.

Immersion has limits. Konings said, “unlike in a regular film, you can't really cut. Because every time you do that, your body moves to a different location in the scene.” The team made Honeyboys as a one-shot, without close-ups; instead, they move objects nearer to or farther from the camera. Viewers choose where to look, so, de Jong said, no one sees exactly the same thing. The story can't rely on every viewer noticing the same detail.

Making and circulating the film

Production took approximately eight months, and the team worked seven days a week. Developing the story took a year and a half, alongside funding applications and other work. De Jong and Konings called Honeyboys their biggest and most ambitious creation yet, shaped by shorter projects and experiments. De Jong described it as “the outcome of a very long period. Just doing things for three or four years.”

De Jong starts with an empty black space in game-engine software. He gradually builds the world and develops the story and images before taking the work to Konings. She animates it; composer Erik de Jong then adds music. Erik de Jong said VR music becomes part of the environment, unlike feature-film music, where “it's always a case of where the film music actually comes from.”

The creators are working through their art studio Nemo Vos to make their VR films more accessible. They own many headsets and use them for public screenings. French company Diversion helps distribute Honeyboys to festivals and a worldwide audience. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2026 and appeared at the 53rd edition of Film Fest Gent. The Flemish Audiovisual Fund provided partial funding. “We are also going to cinemas,” de Jong said, adding that the team plans to make headsets available in France as well as the Netherlands. The film’s journey through its machine now depends on how many people can get a headset and enter.