Knit’s Island (2023): A Film Chronicling the Real and Virtual Lives of DayZ Gamers

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Knit’s Island (2023): A Film Chronicling the Real and Virtual Lives of DayZ Gamers
Somewhere on the internet is a land where communities pretend to live out a survivalist fiction. The avatars of the directors of Knit's Island spent 963 hours there, creating a fascinating film resulting from their encounter with these communities. The "players" reveal their fears and fantasies, in an at times unsettling blurring of the real and the virtual.

 

 

Somewhere online, there is a territory of 250 square kilometres, where people gather in communities to simulate a survivalist scenario. The directors of Knit’s Island spent 963 hours inside this video “game”, meeting the people who take part in it. The three of them have created a film within this virtual world, introducing themselves to the “players” as a real team of documentary makers, deploying direct cinema techniques, tracking shots, interviews, and shot/reverse shot techniques. It all results in a fascinating film, with an aesthetic  reminiscent of a 2.0 Peter Watkins, taking place in the “zone” of Tarkosvky's Stalker. While physical and obvious, the boundary between virtual and IRL (“in real life”) begins to blur through their encounters. While some participants see it as an escape from their daily lives, others live out their most disturbing fantasies as they make unsettling preparations for an apocalyptic future. The three filmmakers’ dangerous mission becomes an investigation into the virtualisation of our lives, and the limits and possibilities of the metaverse.

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Freddy8