“The protagonists let us film their private lives for over one year.”

This fast-paced documentary explores the little-known world of OnlyFans, an online subscription platform where adult content is king. Through three stories, the film unveils the motivations of OnlyFans content creators while offering the perspective of their most loyal fans.

With Virtual Girlfriends, Barbora Chalupová offers a captivating documentary that reveals the consequences of selling and exposing one’s identity online and explores the impact of virtual relationships on real-life ones.

Love can’t be bought… unless…

They say love has no price; on OnlyFans, it does. In fact, that is what Barbora Chalupová’s documentary suggests. I know many will say that this is not really love. But for some people, these digital relationships truly represent love.

This theme is at the heart of my coverage of the Hot Docs festival this year. In Replica, we deal with three women who live their love through AI, whereas here, we deal with women who offer a privileged relationship to certain men through digital means.

The big difference is that in Virtual Girlfriends, you have to pay to have this intimate relationship. The director’s masterstroke is having obtained the consent of one of the “lovers” to film him with his face uncovered. Thus, we manage to show that these relationships are totally normal and desired by some men. There seems to be a slow progression toward normalizing virtual relationships, regardless of whether they are free or not, whether they are with a real person or not, or whether they are with a human or animated face.

What we discover (or confirm) in this documentary is that for some men, there is no shame in paying to develop a romantic or privileged relationship.

Separation between real and virtual worlds

We still hear people (the older ones) making a distinction between the “real” world and the “virtual” world. In 2026, it is time to stop making this distinction. The two universes are now well intertwined and act as a complement to each other.

What is said on X has an implication in the concrete, and what happens in the street has an influence on what happens on Facebook. Whether you like it or not, there are no longer two worlds, but one single complex world that operates with fewer and fewer fixed rules.

Let’s also add that the nature of the work these girls do connects the digital and the physical even more quickly. We don’t say about a traditional porn actress that she has a life in two different worlds, do we? Fundamentally, it’s the same thing here. The work (because yes, it is work) that these women do is very real. They have chosen to make a living from a profession they are passionate about, and this is reflected in reality. Moreover, we clearly show the various reactions that this kind of work brings into the lives of the content creators present. For some, there is only positive. For others, things eventually blow up.

A little more…

With a very intimate approach, the director manages to show the lives of three women who have made the choice to live their professional dream. Is the reality up to the dream?

Virtual Girlfriends is an intimate, realistic, and fascinating documentary that offers an opening into a world that escapes comprehension. For some, it’s an easy life. For others, it’s a degrading life. And for others, it’s a dream. But the truth probably lies somewhere quite different. Far from being an easy job and a life of vacation, this work requires a busy schedule and full-time labor. But yes, it can become very profitable when you know how to play your cards right. But as with any job, there are choices to be made.

As for Barbora Chalupová, she knew how to make the right choices to offer a solid, informative, touching, and fascinating documentary.

Virtual Girlfriends is presented at Hot Docs on May 2 and 3, 2026.

Trailer