Last week, Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse and Quentin L’helgoualc’h’s Knit’s Island [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] had its world premiere in the Burning Lights Competition of this year’s Visions du Réel. The film is set entirely inside the online survival simulation video game DayZ, wherein the filmmakers encounter a community of players, hear their stories, and find out about their fears and aspirations.

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Somewhere on the internet, there is a space of 250 square kilometres in which individuals gather in communities to simulate a survivalist fiction. Under the guise of avatars, a film crew enters this place and makes contact with the “locals”. This mysterious, post-apocalyptic, rural landscape is revealed as a meeting place where stories, ideas and friendships are shared. Slowly, the players drop their masks to reveal their realities, their daily lives, and their relationships of love and friendship. Mixing their memories of the game with stories from their real lives, a group will lead us on a walk on the fringes of the internet. By going to the edge of the game, in search of the limits of this place, the film explores the first steps in the virtualisation of our lives, and questions the future of our world.

Knit’s Island is the first collective feature by the three filmmakers together and follows their mid-length film Marlowe Drive, set in the Grand Theft Auto V universe and screened during a retrospective exhibition of David Lynch’s cinema at the Art Center of Montpellier, MO.CO.

“We initially wanted to make another film in GTA. But we quickly became interested in games where it was possible to talk directly from avatar to avatar, with spatialised sound, which reinforced this impression of reality or immersion. That’s what makes the meeting between two people so precious and special in DayZ. We’re on a very large map, with only 80 players, in a rather stressful environment. As soon as there is an encounter with people, player to player, it becomes extremely strong, extremely powerful,” explained the directors.

Knit’s Island was produced by Boris Garavini for Les Films Invisibles (France), with Anna Medveczky and Joachim Herard serving as associate producers. Square Eyes handles its international sales.

Check out our exclusive trailer below: