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15th DMZ Docs(2023)

I AM DOCU



Ekiem BARBIER, Guilhem CAUSSE, Quentin L'HELGOUALC'H

  • France
  • 2023
  • 98min
  • 15 +
  • DCP
  • color

Asian premiere

Synopsis

Somewhere on the Internet, there is a space of 250 square kilometers in which individuals gather in community to simulate a survivalist fiction. Under the guise of avatars, a film crew enters this place and makes contact with players. Who are these inhabitants? Are they actually playing? 

Review

Knit Island is a record extracted from the game called "DayZ." Apart from the ending, all scenes consist of captured in-game footage where the production team lived as characters in the virtual post-apocalyptic world of DayZ for a total of 963 hours. However, the creators who became characters in the game aren't interested in playing the game itself; they are more focused on interacting with other groups. One of the primary methods used in documentaries—observation and interviews—also forms the core of Knit Island. The subjects of observation are the virtual world and its characters, and the observers themselves are virtual world characters. This leads us to question what we are witnessing here, as it clashes with the belief that everything we see in documentaries represents actual events. So, what are we witnessing then? During interviews, the production team asks what the future of this world might be like. Amidst ongoing gunfire between non-existent entities, the sounds from the actual physical space of gamers blend with the interview dialogue, raising a question about the future of "this" world. However, this question inevitably holds a dual interpretation directed toward both the virtual world of DayZ and the real-world dimension of the gamers. The documentary we are witnessing is a realm where reality and unreality intrude upon each other, a world where physical reality and psychological reality intermingle—this is the nature of this world. In essence, Knit Island showcases the convergence of the real and unreal, where the boundaries between physical reality and virtual reality are blurred. 

Director

  • Ekiem BARBIER, Guilhem CAUSSE, Quentin L'HELGOUALC'H

    Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Cause, Quentin L'helgoualch met at the School of Fine Arts of Montpellier. In 2017 they directed Marlowe Drive, shot entirely in an online game, screened in various festival (FIFIB, Brive) and art centers (Fondation Cartier, Centquatre Paris). In 2018 they began writing their first feature-length documentary.

Credit