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THANK YOU FOR PLAYING
by David Osit & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
SYNOPSIS
When one-year-old Joel is diagnosed with terminal cancer, his father Ryan begins working on an unusual and poetic video game to honor Joel's life. Following Ryan's family through the creation of the artful game and the day-to-day realities of Joel’s treatment, David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall's remarkable new film is a moving testimony to the empathetic power of art, examining how we process grief through technology in the twenty-first century and the implications of documenting profound human experiences in a new artistic medium: the video game.
DETAILS
80 mins
2015
USA
English
TRAILER
CREDITS
Director & Producer: David Osit & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Director of Photography & Composer: David Osit
Editor: David Osit & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Consulting Editor: Eric Daniel Metzgar
Animation: Ryan Cousins, Ryan Green, Josh Larson
Executive Producer for ITVS: Sally Jo Fifer
Executive Producer for American Documentary | POV: Simon Kilmurry
Made with support from: Independent Television Service (ITVS), American Documentary | POV, Chicken & Egg Pictures, IDFA Forum, Film Independent’s Fast Track Program, Independent Filmmakers Project Spotlight on Documentaries, Firelight Media, Tribeca All Access
BIOGRAPHY
DIRECTOR - DAVID OSIT
David Osit is a documentary film director, editor and composer. His work has appeared on networks such as Arte, PBS, TLC, Al-Jazeera America and Channel4. David’s first feature documentary film BUILDING BABEL which he produced, directed, shot, edited and composed, was a recipient of ITVS Open Call funding, broadcast as the series premiere of PBS America Reframed in 2013, and played at film festivals worldwide, including True/False and DocNYC. David was co-producer, composer and sound recorder on WHERE HEAVEN MEETS HELL, which broadcast on PBS Global Voices in 2013 and premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). David is an alumnus of the Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access Program and the True/False SWAMI program. He received his bachelorʼs degree at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan, and studied Refugee Law at the American University of Cairo. David is a recipient of the Anthony Rhodes Vice Presidential Scholarship and received his MFA in Social Documentary Film from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
DIRECTOR - MALIKA ZOUHALI-WORRALL
Malika Zouhali-Worrall is an award-winning filmmaker of British/Moroccan origin. She is one of the directors and the producer of CALL ME KUCHU (2012), a documentary that depicts the last year in the life of the first openly gay man in Uganda, David Kato. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Teddy Award for Best Documentary and the Cinema Fairbindet Prize. It has since won 18 more awards—including Best International Feature at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival—and has been theatrically distributed in Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. Malika is a Chaz & Roger Ebert Directing Fellow and an alumnus of the Film Independent Documentary Lab, the Tribeca All Access program, the Firelight Producers Lab, and the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant at Full Frame Documentary Festival. In 2012, Filmmaker Magazine named Malika one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Malika is a graduate of Cambridge University, and holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), where she studied with a full scholarship from the Entente Cordiale Scholarship Scheme. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, journalist Andy Greenberg.
SELECT FESTIVALS
EMMY® WINNER - OUTSTANDING ARTS & CULTURE DOCUMENTARY〡TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015〡IDFA 2015〡HOT DOCS 2015〡CAMDEN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL〡2015 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2015〡NEW ORLEANS FILM FESTIVAL 2015
PRESS
"Unimaginably intimate."
- The New Yorker
"Touching, funny and strangely existential."
- The Hollywood Reporter
"Compelling. Transforms a father's confession into a revealing work of art."
- Village Voice
"Compelling. Poignant. An emotional portrait of a family tragedy. The movie may immortalize a creative endeavor, but it never loses sight of the fact that it’s also honoring a life."
- Variety
"Powerful... Fascinating... A remarkable window into universal challenges through a distinctly 21st century filter."
- IndieWire
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