They spent hundreds of hours on an island that doesn’t exist! This amazing documentary met them

The world of video games in giant open worlds, sometimes naturalistic and hypnotic, like the western Red Dead Redemption 2, or completely urban, like GTA V, a real video game counterpart in the city of Los Angeles, also caused their desire for many. For example, artists, photographers or filmmakers to discover and immerse themselves in these works as so much research material for their creativity.

Be it their natural or urban environments, or of course the communities of players who can spend hundreds of hours in their beloved world.

Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier and Quentin L’helgoualc’h met while studying at the Beaux-Arts in Montpellier. In 2016, they formed a research group that questions the relationship with reality in online video games. In 2017, they attempted the first documentary research in the game GTA V Online and produced the medium-length film Marlowe Drive, which was shown at the Montpellier Art Center for a retrospective exhibition at the David Lynch Cinema.

Sell ​​your skin very expensive

Working on this woven island, the trio this time places their suitcases on an absolutely gigantic island measuring 250 km². Sometimes it takes hours to walk from one point to another, especially when you don’t have a vehicle. A hostile territory in which individuals gather as a community to simulate a survivalist fantasy. Under the guise of avatars, a trio of directors enter the location and interact with the players.

A place that even the most experienced players will definitely recognize. This is a fascinating and abandoned game world DayZ. Released in 2013, it places players in a post-apocalyptic zombie world where a mysterious epidemic has turned most of the population into aggressive infected creatures.

His world is absolutely ruthless and utterly punishing. In good and pure Survival you have to take care of yourself, eat, sleep, build and organize shelters and fight the zombies that are taking over the island. And above all, be prepared to sell yourself high against other players. The search for survival equipment (weapons, armor, etc.) becomes a search for the grail.

Taking the wrong bullet means eternal death… and the loss of all your gear. Back to square one. It’s enough to happily spoil the hundreds of hours spent on it. And above all, something to unite players who create communities and help each other.

“We feel like we have real memories, as if it really happened”

In order to be able to produce their fascinating subject material, which is almost a sociological study, the directors immersed themselves in the world for hundreds of hours, which ultimately resulted in a 170-hour rush.

DayZ is a game that encourages role-playing, with each character having their own story that unfolds according to the player’s imagination. people met woven island They reveal themselves without leaving the characters, or very rarely. Here, a character they meet at midnight teaches them how to find their way by reading a map of the sky using the position of the Big Dipper.

There, a meeting with a group of anarchists calling themselves the “Shadows of the Night,” led by a woman who burst into her microphone: “We all come from different backgrounds, but we have one thing in common: we love to kill. Killing people is fun. Some even eat them.”

Furthermore, it is a community of players that favors non-violence, more concerned with growing vegetables in the vegetable garden than eliminating the threat of zombies or fighting hostile players by trying to survive in a bunker.

And what about this avatar dressed as a Western-style reverend of a Lovecraftian-leaning church called “The Church of Dagoth”? How is he going to survive? “I think we all have different influences from apocalypse movies, zombie movies” says the player behind the microphone. “Some people like to play bad guys, some people like to play lone wolves. It’s like a long movie here.” He adds: “After several adventures, we feel like we have real memories, as if it really happened.”

“Many players emphasize the contemplative side of the game, and we have the impression that it is even becoming a substitute for some nature walks or moments of relaxation.” Ekyem Barbier, one of the directors, comments. Not necessarily enough to make them lose touch with reality, as we like to think, due to laziness and intellectual laziness.