Knit’s Island

MMF MMXXIV: ON KNIT’S ISLAND CRITICAL RECEPTION

The Milan Machinima Festival is thrilled to present the full length documentary Knit’s Island as part of the Game Video Essay program. Join us for a special screening on March 14 2024 at IULM University. In the meantime, enjoy this exclusive clip.

Knit’s Island, a documentary that ventures deep into the virtual yet undeniably real — that is, “emotionally intense, socially impactful, and culturally significant” — ruthless world of DayZ, has emerged as a significant cinematic exploration, receiving critical acclaim for its unique perspective on virtual communities. By blurring the lines between the digital and the tangible, Knit’s Island offers an unparalleled look into the human condition, as reflected in the virtual spaces we inhabit.

For instance, the Jury at Visions du Réel ‘23 eloquently captured the essence of the film, praising it as “a film distinguished by its visceral aesthetic adventure.” Their statement highlights the directors’ ability to transport viewers into a parallel universe that, while virtual and unbound by geography or common law, poignantly addresses the sheer “violence of the present times.” The jury admired how brutality, satirical humour, and a tender sense of community coexist, often within the same frame, offering a multifaceted view of the online world. Likewise, Amber Wilkinson on Eye for Film concluded that “There’s something ultimately quite optimistic and heartwarming about the fact that many people who stepped into this world to chiefly kill things, end up forging friendships instead.”

ScreenDaily’s writer Tara Judah offered insightful commentary, describing Knit’s Island as an “eye-opening exploration of the communities within DayZ”. Judah appreciates the film’s gentle enquiry into the video game world, which “yields fascinating results,” shedding light on the complexity and richness of virtual communities.

Variety’s Lise Pedersen spoke to the film's accessibility and its broad appeal, calling it “an immersive and existential deep dive into the world of gaming.” Pedersen’s remarks emphasize the documentary's capacity to engage not just gamers but all audiences, making the virtual gaming experience relatable and intriguing to a wide viewership.

Business Doc Europe’s Nick Cunningham lauded the film as “a fascinating, original and disconcerting portrait of its inhabitants",” underscoring the documentary's ability to challenge perceptions and present a nuanced portrayal of the virtual community's denizens. Cineuropa’s Muriel Del Don described the filmmakers approach as “an explosive blend of cinema and videogames.”

Giuseppe Di Salvatore of FilmExplorer lauded the “masterful editing work” that bridges the discontinuity typical of long gaming sessions. The review praises how the documentary builds a narrative arc where unknown players become acquaintances and friends, seamlessly blending the simulated and the real until they feel “perfectly melded.”

Through these varied critical perspectives, Knit’s Island is celebrated for its innovative approach to storytelling, its exploration of community and isolation in the digital age, and its reflection on how virtual spaces mirror and amplify the human experience. The documentary stands as a testament to the power of virtual worlds to reveal the complexities of society, community, and individual identity, making it a must-watch for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, culture, and human interaction.

Knit’s Island also made its mark in Asia at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in Korea, and in North America at the Camden International Film Festival in the United States, where it competed in the Cinematic Vision competition. Its participation in the 2024 Milan Machinima Festival and the 2024 First Look at the Museum of The Moving Images in New York further signifies its ongoing relevance and the growing interest in films that navigate the complexities of virtual worlds.

Knit’s Island is the kind of film that could inspire a new generation of video game documentarians.

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h, Knit’s Island, digital video, color, sound, 95”, 2022.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

MMF MMXXIV: HOW KNIT’S ISLAND WON THE FESTIVAL GAME

The Milan Machinima Festival is excited to present the full length documentary Knit’s Island as part of the Game Video Essay program. The film will be screened on March 14 2024 in the Sala dei 146 at IULM University. Today we are happy to share an exclusive clip. But well before its Milanese premiere, Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier and Quentin L’helgoualc’h’s documentary has collected a series of awards at major retrospectives. Let’s face it: the game video essay has become a hot film genre.

Knit’s Island, an innovative documentary that ventures into the digital world to explore the complexities of online communities in the popular post-apocalyptic game DayZ, has garnered widespread acclaim across a variety of prestigious film festivals worldwide. Directed by a visionary team of French filmmakers who immersed themselves in the virtual landscape as avatars, this groundbreaking film explores the blurred lines between reality and the digital realm, offering a unique perspective on the virtualization of our lives.

Set within a 250 square kilometer online space, Knit’s Island invites audiences on an ethnographic journey through a survivalist fiction world where players gather to share stories, fears, aspirations, and the essence of human connection. The film crew, adopting avatars as their digital personas, engages with this community, unraveling the layers of digital identity as players reveal their true selves behind the avatars. This exploration into the heart of digital communities challenges viewers to reconsider the boundaries of our physical and virtual existences.

The film’s tour de force began with its world premiere at Visions du Réel in Switzerland, where it won both the Jury Prize in the Burning Lights Competition and the International Critics’ Award (FIPRESCI Award), setting the stage for its subsequent success. Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier and Quentin L’helgoualc’h’s film continued to captivate audiences and critics alike at various international retrospectives, including the Documenta Madrid International Film Festival in Spain, Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland, and the Subversive Film Festival in Croatia, where it received a Special Mention in… you guessed! the Subversive Competition.

The documentary’s acclaim did not stop there. It was also celebrated at the Transilvania International Film Festival in Romania, the Biografilm Festival in Italy, and DokuFest in Kosovo, showcasing its universal appeal. Its selection for competitions in diverse genres, from the International Feature Dox Competition at DokuFest to the Official Competition in the Animated Feature Category at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, demonstrates the film’s innovative approach to storytelling and its ability to transcend traditional documentary formats with its unique mix of online ethnography and digital anthropology.

Knit’s Island also made its mark in Asia at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in Korea, and in North America at the Camden International Film Festival in the United States, where it competed in the Cinematic Vision competition. Its participation in the 2024 Milan Machinima Festival and the 2024 First Look at the Museum of The Moving Images in New York further signifies its ongoing relevance and the growing interest in films that navigate the complexities of virtual worlds.

This film not only provides a window into the lives of individuals within these digital communities but also questions the future implications of our increasingly virtual lives. The international recognition and accolades Knit’s Island has received underscore the documentary’s significance in contemporary cinema, marking it as a pivotal work in the exploration of online ethnography and the evolving narrative of human connection in the digital age. This is the kind of films that could inspire a new generation of documentarians.

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MMF MMXXIV: BEFORE KNIT’S ISLAND, THERE WAS MARLOWE DRIVE

Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h, Marlowe Drive, digital video, color, sound, 34”, 2017.

Before embarking in their ambitious project Knit’s Island, which will be screened on March 14 2024 at IULM University in the context of the Game Video Essay program, filmmakers Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h directed a machinima documentary set in Grand Theft Auto V titled Marlowe Drive, an experimental film that explores video games environments as a context for making a documentary. 

This is how Guilhem Causse describes the film:

A director, Adam Kesher, from David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive, lands in another fictional Los Angeles. It is in this Hollywood film landscape recreated by Rockstar Games, that this director sets out to find someone to talk to. He is looking for a bridge between the banks of reality and the imaginary. The film takes place on the game's multiplayer platform to meet “real” characters. It collects information on the individuals who inhabit this space and reintegrates the process of documentary filming into a virtual world. In a back and forth between staging and raw capture, the protagonist then lets himself be carried away into the current of a chaotic world that fascinates him, but which gradually overtakes him. Through his character and his encounters, we ourselves discover a virtual world. An autonomous world strangely close to a form of reality.

In other words, the conceptual foundation of Marlowe Drive (2018) was to document the virtual lives of avatars controlled by real people, thereby examining the intersection of our reality with the virtual environments created by video games. This is so meta, it hurts.

At any rate, this initial exploration set the stage for their later work, Knit’s Island, although the two projects engage with virtual spaces in distinctly different ways. The choice of GTA V for Marlowe Drive was deliberate, leveraging the game’s thematic elements of consumerism and the American dream to contrast sharply with the survivalist, post-apocalyptic setting of DayZ, the game chosen for Knit’s Island. This thematic divergence highlights…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h, Marlowe Drive, digital video, color, sound, 34”, 2018.

Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h, Knit's Island, digital video, color, sound, 95”, 2022.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

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MMF MMXXIV: EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT KNIT’S ISLAND...

The Milan Machinima Festival is thrilled to present the full length documentary Knit’s Island as part of the Game Video Essay program. The film will be screened on March 14 2024 at IULM University. We are equally excited to present Angelo Careri’s insightful interview with the filmmakers, Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier and Quentin L’helgoualc’h. We are also sharing with our Patreon supporters the first of a series of exclusive excerpts of the film.

Thanks to Careri’s clever questions, we learn about the filmmakers’ deep engagement with the virtual world of DayZ, as they set out to examine the social and existential dimensions of online gaming communities. Their work blurs the boundaries between documentary filmmaking and virtual exploration, offering insights into how digital spaces can reflect and influence real human experiences and connections.

In this comprehensive and always compelling conversation that was shared with us by the film distributor, Square Eye Films, Causse, Barbier and L’helgoualc’h explain that the idea for the film began as an experiment during their studies at the Beaux-Arts. The young filmmakers were initially intrigued by the possibility of observing, rather than playing, within online games. This curiosity led to the discovery that games could serve as venues for documentary filmmaking, particularly after encountering players who used the game spaces for social interaction beyond the game’s intended mechanics.

The shift from Grand Theft Auto V, which was initially selected as a case study, to DayZ was influenced by the desire for a game that offered more realistic interactions and survival elements, contrasting with GTA V’s focus on consumerism. DayZ’s environment, which simulates a post-apocalyptic world requiring survival strategies and fostering player interactions, presented a compelling setting for exploring virtual community dynamics. The filming process involved significant preparation, both within and outside the game. The team had to manage survival elements like food and health for their avatars, navigate the game’s day/night cycle, and adjust to game updates that affected filming.

They described the experience as living a “double life,” balancing their real lives with their virtual existence in the game. The filmmakers experienced a gradual integration into the DayZ community, eventually being recognized and respected by other players. This acceptance allowed them to explore the communal and individual stories within the game, revealing layers of personal engagement and the blurring of lines between players’ virtual and real lives. The team was interested in how players and their avatars interact with the game’s boundaries and its virtual environment. They noted how the game became a space for contemplation and social interaction, contrasting with the fast-paced nature of contemporary internet culture. Knit’s Island is, first and foremost, an ethnography of online gaming spaces. 

The Covid-19 pandemic which began in March 2020 mirrored some of the post-apocalyptic themes in DayZ, adding a layer of relevance to the film. The lockdowns and restrictions of the pandemic paralleled the isolation and survival themes within the game, influencing both the players and the filmmakers. Post-filming, the directors expressed ambivalence about returning to DayZ purely for leisure, highlighting how their experience has irrevocably changed their perspective on the game. They feel that their connection to the game and its community is now intertwined with their roles as filmmakers.

Finally, we learn that the title Knit’s Island reflects the filmmakers’ intention to name and define the virtual space they explored, drawing inspiration from the concept of “ghost islands” on maps, places that are marked but don’t actually exist, analogous to the virtual spaces in video games…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, Quentin L’helgoualc’h, Knit’s Island, 2023.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

This content is exclusive to Patreon subscribers. To gain full access, consider joining our vibrant community.

MMF MMXXIV: GUILHEM CAUSSE, EKIEM BARBIER, QUENTIN L’HELGOUALC’H

The Milan Machinima Festival is thrilled to present the full length documentary Knit’s Island as part of the Game Video Essay program. Join us for a special screening on March 14 2024 at IULM University.

Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h’s stunning documentary Knit’s Island ventures into the online game DayZ, exploring a 250 square km virtual space where players enact a survivalist fiction. Using avatars, the filmmakers interact with this community, blending game experiences with personal stories. The film investigates the dawn of virtual life integration and its implications for our world, offering insights into online interactions, virtual friendships, and the boundaries between digital and real-life identities.

Quentin L’helgoualc’h, born in Lyon in 1992, earned his Master’s in Plastic Expression from Montpellier's School of Fine Arts in 2017, followed by a post-graduate art program in 2018. His artistic practice, blending sculpture, video, and drawing, led to directing Marlowe Drive in 2017 and creating two video pieces, Between Empty Things and Cristaux Liquides, exploring digital spaces through live action and 3D animation. In 2021, he directed Les Neiges électriques at Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts.

Ekiem Barbier, a multifaceted author, filmmaker, and musician born in Toulouse in 1993, has directed numerous short films and animations since 2012, scoring the music for them. After joining Montpellier's School of Fine Arts, he co-founded the In Extremis collective in 2015, contributing to several exhibitions. Post-graduation in 2017, Barbier directed documentaries including Anent and Marlowe Drive, with a focus on anthropology and digital experimentation. He currently resides and works in Marseille.

Guilhem Causse, from Narbonne and born in 1993, pursued his artistic education at Montpellier’s School of Fine Arts from 2012, developing works that intersect image, sound, and various artistic formats. His fascination with collapsology and natural phenomena fuels his creations of immersive, virtual installations. After earning his Master's in 2017, Causse’s work has particularly focused on exploring themes from the film Solaris through hypnotic video and sound installations.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival