The full pitch deck, look book, business plan and script for Papa Bear can be perused BY CLICKING HERE. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected]. With the funds from this campaign, plus existing investment, we aim to shoot in August of this year and submit to festivals in late 2023.

There's already a lot going on, so check out the Updates tab for regular reports on where we're at in the process!

Trey's parents taught him to value respect, be curious, and that love is love. When his dad Hank comes out as gay ten years after divorcing Trey's mom, he's genuinely happy for his father and the closure it seems to provide the whole family. 

His reaction is a little different when Hank reveals he's also a furry (someone with a special affinity for animal characters with human characteristics), attends conventions as a cartoon bear named "Papa Bear," and collects drawings of anthropomorphized animals in adult situations.

As if that weren't enough, the news is out at school and now Trey's feuding with a bully. Not to mention, Hank's invited a 22-year-old fur to crash in their guest room "until they get on their feet." It gets messy.

Along for the ride is Trey's best friend Ahmed, himself undergoing a sexual awakening as he trades in an overload of internet porn for his first flirtation with the real thing. Her name is Sarah, and she's got problems of her own: unspoken trauma in her past and a system that continues to fail her in the present. 

The three High School Seniors form a strange symbiosis, each at the beginning of a journey of sexual identity formation that Hank's only now starting to complete. 

Through them all - and Hank's houseguest Arturo - we learn exactly how complex a proposition "love is love" can be...gay or straight, furry or not, romantic or familial.

Trey and Hank's relationship is pushed to the edge by a spiral of bullying, vandalism, and internet drama, and in the end only a climactic trip to a furry convention can reunite Papa Bear with his cub.

Papa Bear is loosely based on Michael's own hilarious, and at times challenging childhood. As the kid of an out furry, he was gifted with a unique opportunity to broaden his mind, evolve his empathy, and learn to love his family in a whole new way.

Many of us still hold a warped view of what it means to be a furry, and Papa Bear explodes those myths to reveal a much more interesting story about realizing that everyone is walking their own path toward discovering a self that feels authentic to them. 

Love is love. And it takes on a different shape for all of us.

Love takes work. Relationships evolve or die.

Love is courageous. Writing someone off is always an act of fear.

How do we open our hearts to the unfamiliar?

"...Booksmart meets Superbad." "...a sequel to Eighth Grade." "...Lady Bird but funnier."

Our initial ask of $65k will allow us to make the film in a safe and humane way, pay our cast and crew what they deserve, acquire rights to a few songs, rent equipment, and transport people and stuff where they need to be, plus other odds and ends like feeding folks and all the small details that go into making a movie. It's also enough to stage a fake furry con, and therefore maintain our climax as scripted/envisioned.

If we're able to reach a stretch goal of $80k, the additional funds would be used to execute visual effects like combining live action footage with animation and creating seamless on-screen social media conversations.

If we hit $100k, the additional funds would be used to create the fully-animated sequences in the current draft of the script, a feature we think is crucial to fully representing the world of furry art and illuminating Sarah and Arturo's inner lives.

We believe that the irreducible nature of each person's sexual identity is something that's as tough to talk about in America as it is pressing we do so. 

With trans and gay kids under attack, used as a wedge issue by politicians uninterested in the nuanced effects of their campaigns of fear, an accessible family drama with laughs and heart is the perfect way to remind us of an important truth: love is love. That random subculture you don't "get" isn't going to hurt you.

People are people, everywhere, all the time...even ones who dress up as animals. Many furs don't consider their furry identity a part of their sexuality, but for my dad it was and is. His story shines a light on something it's vital we all learn. Celebrating difference doesn't mean that the strange must become familiar, but that we respect the human feelings of those outside ourselves.

After all, our differences don't simply boil down to what corner of the internet you feel at home in, like Hank. Rather, they encompass what our sexuality means to us, how it's been shaped, what we use it for, and at what point in our story we find ourselves. That's why Papa Bear concerns itself with an interconnected community, all of whom are on that journey in their own way.

By living with an ensemble of unique characters actively engaged with the issue - some coming of age, some with identities fully formed - the movie hopes to model not just healthy ways to do that, but also what it looks like when things go wrong. What else are stories for?

Between them, Abe and Michael have over 25 years' video production and filmmaking experience, with a specialization in comedy. Abe has a MFA from USC, Michael is a NYT-Bestselling author, and both have won Streamy and Webby Awards for their work.