FILMS from AFAR

Read the full story in The Hollywood Reporter's 2023 Cannes Dailies .

Read the full report in The Hollywood Reporter's 2023 Cannes Dailies . In 2021, the Spanish government launched a strategic plan to boost its audiovisual sector, and it worked: This year's country of honor in Cannes is thriving like never before.

Orson Welles famously started but never finished an adaptation in Spain of  Don Quixote , Miguel de Cervantes’ beloved 17th-century novel. Terry Gilliam’s first attempt to shoot his take on  Quixote  fell apart so spectacularly in 2000 that it resulted in a widely viewed “unmaking-of” documentary titled, grimly,  Lost in La Mancha .  But they weren’t just tilting at windmills. Gilliam completed  The Man Who Killed Don Quixote  nearly two decades later, making it one of literally dozens of screen adaptations from around the world based on the widely published novel. In April, Oscar-winning director Alejandro Amenábar ( The Sea Inside )will start shooting on  The Captive , an origin tale about a young, storytelling Cervantes in an Algiers prison in 1575. Spanish literature — and its literary figures — have been inspiring filmmakers since the dawn of cinema. According to a now-defunct Cervantes Virtual Library database, considered incomplete by some accounts, in Spain almost 1,200 literary adaptations were produced or co-produced between 1905 and 2013. Today, “the interest in books for possible film adaptations has been increasing year after year,” according to Anna Soler-Pont, founder and director of Barcelona-based Pontas Literary and Film Agency, which has been in the business for more than three decades and represents authors on five continents. Recent successes are fueling competition for source material, particularly in certain genres, while directors and producers say they’re being approached by publishers earlier than ever before. “In the last 10 years, there have been more and more literary adaptations,” affirms director Isabel Coixet, the European Film Academy’s 2023 European Achievement in World Cinema Award winner. “In the last month, I think I’ve been offered five adaptations from different countries,” Coixet says, “and I thought I was never going to do another adaptation!” Coixet’s most recent drama,  Un Amor , was based on the best-selling novel by Sara Mesa, and in 2017 she won a best international literary adaptation prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair (as well as top Goya Awards) for her adaptation of author Penelope Fitzgerald’s  The Bookshop . Researchers in the field see new trends, such as an interest in younger and more diverse authors and formats, including comics, as well as writer-directors adapting their own works, for example from the theater.  Directors find inspiration in all kinds of stories. Pablo Berger, whose graphic novel-inspired animated feature  Robot Dreams  recently won best adapted script and animated feature Goyas and is now nominated for an Oscar, describes discovering American author Sara Varon’s wordless book when his daughter was a toddler learning to read.  Years later, he recalls, “I was having a coffee in my office and procrastinating, and I took out the book and read it again, and again I was fascinated. I thought it was funny, unique, surreal. When I got to the end, I was completely, deeply moved.” In that moment, he says, he envisioned the film he would make. Read the full article at The Hollywood Reporter .

European Film Academy | "Close-Up" Magazine | Winter 2019 The re-usable black water bottle of Spain-based production service company Fresco Film is a minor Instagram celebrity. Like the garden gnome from AMÉLIE, the Fresco bottle has been photographed at tourist sites around the world, including the Colosseum in Rome, Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and the skyline of Bangkok. “It’s a symbol,” explains Esmeralda Ruiz, Fresco’s Head of Marketing and Environmental Sustainability, who says this one conservation effort has helped avoid the use of more than 250,000 plastic water bottles on film sets in 2018 and 2019. Fresco slips a note explaining its sustainability efforts inside each of the bottles it passes out to crews – including on projects like HBO’s GAME OF THRONES, Sony’s SNATCH and Netflix’s WARRIOR NUN – “so whoever uses that bottle is aware of how much they can do.” Awareness of the impact of every individual action is a key component to motivate more productions to “go green,” say sustainability experts across Europe, as is sharing information about success stories and best practices. While there are plenty of resources available online to help European filmmakers take the initiative, the impetus has to come from the makers and backers of the movies themselves, and efforts toward reducing a film’s carbon footprint can and should start at the earliest stages of production – and be measurable afterwards. Read the full story below.

Three years after a strategic plan to promote the audiovisual industry and attract foreign film shoots and investments, the Spanish location sector is booming, but there's still room to grow: 'We have managed to increase our competitiveness on the internationational stage.' When people talk about the recent Spanish audiovisual boom, they often highlight as a key turning point the government’s identification of the industry as a “ strategic” one. Gone are the days when naysayers jeered the subsidization of a snoozy cinema. Today, young people flock to film schools, international producers are setting up shop in Spain and busy crews are getting trained on some of the world’s biggest productions coming to shoot here. Times have changed.   Then again, times are constantly changing, and as this story was being reported, the head of Spain’s film-friendly administration, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, announced he might resign over “harassment” of his family, rankling nerves in the film sector. Pedro Almodóvar, filming Julianne Moore-Tilda Swinton-starrer “The Room Next Door,” penned an open letter to El Diario newspaper admitting that he “cried like a child” over the news. A few days later, the PM announced he would stay in office. Sánchez championed the “ Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe” strategic plan for Spanish cinema, launched in 2021 to pump 1.6 billion euros ($1.72 billion) into the industry through 2025. The Hub has four concentrations: attracting foreign investments and shoots, improving financial and tax instruments, training talent – especially women, and regulatory reforms and elimination of administrative barriers.    “ The ‘Spain Audiovisual Hub’ Plan marked a before and after for the promotion of the Spanish audiovisual industry,” underscores Elisa García Grande, executive director of the Spanish Foreign Trade Institute ICEX’s Invest in Spain division, and former head of the Economic and Commercial Office of the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. “I t is an ambitious and innovative initiative in which more than 10 ministries are involved, working in a coordinated way to transform and enhance the entire audiovisual industry and its ecosystem.”   She highlights that the initiative both “looks outward to attract investment and support the internationalization of Spanish companies, as well as inward to consolidate our bases. In a relatively short amount of time, we have managed to not only strengthen our image globally, but also to increase our competitiveness on the international stage.”   Peter Welter, CEO of production services outfit Fresco Film and current vice president of the national producers’ association Profilm, a key mediator between the government and the industry, credits the Hub for bringing industry and institutional representatives, like tax authorities, together for the first time. “They actually found out how the industry worked” and learned the value on return of tax incentives. “Even if we had a change of government,” Welter offers, “hopefully now they know the economic importance” of the film sector.    Volcano Films Executive Producer and CEO Sebastián Alvarez concurs: “It’s a good initiative which should be continued to fully develop all the program’s points, since they haven’t yet had enough time to get to know the sector and be able to act, working with it.”   García Grande will be moderating a panel in Cannes on May 17 on “How to Craft a World Hit in Spain.” Fresco’s Welter, Volcano’s Alejandro Alamo, augenschein Filmproduktion’s Jonas Katzenstein and Number 9 Films’ Stephen Woolley will join her to talk about shooting in Spain.   Read the full story in The Hollywood Reporter . Images: Netflix's "Who is Erin Carter" courtesy of Palma Pictures Apple TV+'s "Foundation" "Wonder Woman 1984" courtesy of Sur Film

Spain is having a moment . If that sounds familiar, it might be because Spain’s been having a moment for the last few years. The bump came when the government launched the Spain Audiovisual Hub in 2021, offering strategic backing of the industry by pumping 1.6 billion euros ($1.73 billion) into it.  In the three years since, Spain has made progress on all four of the Hub’s main areas of focus: attracting foreign investments and shoots, improving financial and tax instruments, training talent — especially women — as well as regulatory reforms and the elimination of administrative barriers. Now, Spain has been designated MIPCOM’s 2024 Country of Honor, and the Spanish government has launched an ambitious campaign called Spain, Where Talent Ignites aimed at boosting the country’s global recognition, reputation and marketability of Spanish productions, and growing business opportunities in an increasingly competitive landscape. “The aim of the campaign is to associate the Spanish audiovisual industry with talent, creativity, expertise, professionalism and excellence,” says Elisa Carbonell, CEO of ICEX Spain Trade & Investment, a division of the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business. Spain was also just announced as the Country in Focus for the upcoming European Film Market (EFM) at the 75th Berlin Film Festival in 2025. “The Spanish film and media industry has solidified its reputation and global acclaim to become a European powerhouse thanks to creative excellence, targeted investments, and technological innovations, enjoying a strong international presence with high-quality content and originality,” Berlinale Pro and EFM Director Tanja Meissner tells THR. The ICEX campaign aims to showcase exactly these qualities, using an innovative short film as an entry point for discovering the country’s creative and technical talents. Titled The Cause of the Accident That Set the Fire and housed alongside a range of talent interviews on the campaign’s website, the 9-minute short turns on a nervous young director (Berta Prieto) overseeing a packed set. Look for cameos and homages as well as a variety of arts on display, from effects to choreography to illustrations.  “We believe the best way to showcase the excellence of Spain’s audiovisual industry is through the industry’s own language — telling original, engaging stories in an innovative and carefully crafted way,” Carbonell explains. “Talent exists everywhere, but not all countries value it equally.” Continue reading at The Hollywood Reporter Images courtesy of Second Gen Picutres/TriPictures/Madrid Film Office

Take a look at the Top 100 grossing films of all time around the world, and you’ll find that almost every title is part of a franchise or inspired by comics. From Avengers to Jurassic World to Harry Potter to an array of superheroes, the trend is clear: Hollywood studios find success in adapting and repeating existing material. This landscape is not entirely new. “Since the first days of the film industry, there have been remakes, there have been sequels, there has been taking an idea and making a movie about it,” says Amanda Ann Klein, professor of film studies at East Carolina University and co-editor of the 2016 book Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film & Television . But commentators do point to a blockbuster-oriented “franchise era” that’s taken hold in Hollywood in the past couple of decades. “There’s certainly been a shift—and Disney, of course, has really led this, with the triumvirate of [Lucasfilm], Pixar and Marvel,” says Alisa Perren, associate professor and co-director of the Center for Entertainment and Media Industries at the University of Texas at Austin. Alex Stevens, host of the weekly SUCCESS Movie Rewind podcast, points to Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man as a starting point. As average budgets for films have exploded and Hollywood has become increasingly reliant on the international market and—especially post-pandemic—streaming subscribers, studios have attempted to lower their risks as much as possible. The easiest way to do that? Go with a known quantity. Enter the remake—and the prequel, sequel, spinoff and reboot. Hollywood reboots are hotly contested among fans and critics. Are they cross-generational, multimedia phenomena that live on because they’re just that good and fans are already so deeply connected to them? Or do they represent the death of creativity, a sign that there are simply no new ideas? Or is the answer somewhere in between? Creativity in Complexity There has long been a certain amount of highbrow criticism, if not outright snobbery, directed at commercial-oriented Hollywood, particularly fantasy, comic-inspired and superhero fare. But Klein notes that these movies can actually take a lot of work and knowledge on the part of fans to “go deep into them and find connections.” Perren adds, “You’re building on nostalgia and generations of memory and access to content.” It’s a challenge for fans and artists alike, Klein says, to keep the canon straight across franchised cinematic universes. Fans notice errors, and creators must match stories and characters across interlocked products and platforms: “Is the TV show supporting the movie, which is supporting the comics, which are supporting the video games?” Perren points to the emerging “multiverse” concept, or “the idea of creating multiple universes or story worlds that allow stories and characters to fracture into different dimensions,” as an opening for new flexibility in storytelling, casting and tonalities. All that complexity can feel inaccessible to some. How do you sustain what Perren dubs the “casual fans” as well as the “completists?” And when is it too much, even for diehard fans? When does “franchise fatigue” set in? According to Stevens, “Audiences are sophisticated and smart and looking for something new.” Even the latest Spider-Man “won’t work right if you have to know everything about Spider-Man before you see it. That’s not really a successful movie.” At the same time, “You can only kill Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben so many times and expect people to be moved by it. And they did a great job.” Does it demand more creativity to make a sequel? Not necessarily, Stevens says, “but I think it’s an opportunity for more.” Creativity in Constraint In her 2021 study The Disneyfication of Authorship: Above-the-Line Creative Labor in the Franchise Era , scholar Shawna Kidman argues that brands are more valuable to a company than the “fundamentally replaceable” creators contributing to them—the writers, actors, artists and even directors who often work for scale wages (minimum union-set pay), no backend profits and no ownership of the brand, creative or otherwise. Comic writers and artists recently began speaking out publicly about how little they are compensated. One told The Guardian last year that he received $5,000 and a thank-you note for contributions used in a Marvel film that earned $1 billion at the global box office. “Stars used to be one of the main attractions back in the big-budget days of paying $20 million to Jim Carrey or Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts, not to mention selling on the basis of the director,” Perren says. “And these days, it really does increasingly come down to often finding pretty useful, fresh—aka cheap—talent that can sort-of conform to the larger vision that often these producer figures—almost showrunners, in effect, for these franchises—are trying to realize. That does seem to be a pretty dramatic shift.” She points to examples of talents who can conform to the model (like Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn) and those who can’t and simply don’t last (like the team fired midway into directing 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story , reportedly over “creative differences”). “A lot of filmmakers wince at the constraints or shackles that are thrown on them for having to conform to the formulas or the characters,” Perren says. But “they can still play with genre and play with style in fun ways. Certainly, it’s not total freedom, but the history of genre cinema is obviously a history of creativity within constraints, so to a certain extent, it’s an extension of that.” A Sure Thing If it all feels familiar, well, that’s exactly the point. “Part of this is related to wanting a sure thing,” Klein says. “If you know that a certain character or story or cinematic universe is already popular and accepted in an audience that you want to target, then it’s kind of a no-brainer to do again.” “If it’s your intellectual property, you’ll want to make as many products out of that as you can, exploit it as much as possible or as much as the audience will allow you to,” she adds. In short, “it’s a financial model that works well for studios.” What would happen to Hollywood if the kind of films topping the box office charts suddenly lost their audience? Could the studio model implode? “It’s certainly possible,” Perren says. “My suspicion is that they’ll just pivot to other types of franchises and dig deeper into their libraries for things that have gathered a little dust,” as Paramount did recently on Top Gun: Maverick . According to Stevens, “The show has to go on—there’s so much money at this point in that atmosphere” that the idea of studios changing their current strategy is unlikely, despite some criticism from fans, critics and creators alike. “I can’t imagine in California what would happen if something were to happen to Marvel.” Klein agrees. “Overall, I don’t see Hollywood’s reliance on multiplied texts—texts that are repeating things we’ve seen and watched before—I don’t see that really ever changing. I think that’s just how it works.” Who’s Squeezed Out? Back to those Top 100 grossing films of all time. The list looks eerily similar to the top-budgeted films of all time. The No. 2 top grosser, Avengers: Endgame , had a reported production budget of nearly $400 million, capping a building trend of blockbuster Hollywood movies with budgets upward of $100-300 million. What’s discernibly missing from the list of top grossers are films with small and mid-sized budgets. And there are almost no non-English language films in sight. The teen-targeted fare, superhero franchises, event movies and family films filling theaters often explode with action and effects that command a big screen. As the aerial coordinator on summer blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick told The Hollywood Reporter in May, movies like this are “built” to be seen on a “massive screen”—“It’s the only way you’re going to get that visceral thrill ride.” In contrast, small and mid-sized, character-driven and international movies with more narrative nuance and less action might play just as well on a small screen. At least, that seems to be the logic of theaters struggling to attract audiences, especially post-pandemic when global box office revenues were widely reported to have dropped 50% from 2019 to 2021. Commentators and international producers have looked at streaming platforms—particularly “independents” such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+—as potential saviors for small, mid-sized and international movies. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO and chief content officer, suggested in an April 19 call with investors that producers and filmmakers around the world can be more “risk-tolerant” with the streamer’s backing, which “creates an ecosystem for something like Squid Game or for like a Lupin or La Casa de Papel [Money Heist] to exist.” Yet that may be changing. Netflix has had to cut back this year after a poor first-quarter earnings report, and smaller productions could get the ax. On that very call, Sarandos pointed specifically to the streamer’s success with “big movies” such as Don’t Look Up , Red Notice and The Adam Project . “Just a few years ago, we were struggling to out-monetize the market on little art films,” Sarandos said. “Today, we’re releasing some of the most popular and most-watched movies in the world.” Perren notes that Netflix had already been “gesturing” they’d follow the studios’ lead on franchises with acquisitions on properties such as The Old Guard and the rights to comic writer Mark Millar’s Millarworld library. Ultimately, today’s movies are a high-risk business whether they’re released in theaters or online. “You’re not going to see a movie in the movie theater that someone somewhere didn’t think was going to make some money for someone,” Klein asserts. “I’m not saying people can’t be completely creative and also sell their work,” she concludes. “I’m just saying that if we end up seeing it, it’s because it’s sellable.” This article originally appeared in the September/October 2022 Issue of SUCCESS magazine .

This past year has widely been touted as the year of return-to-work. After extolling the value of remote work, especially as necessitated by the pandemic, many companies are now requiring employees to return back to the office in person part- or full-time. For SUCCESS magazine, I spoke with leadership consultant Nick Jankel about advice he has for employers debating whether to hire a digital nomad. Read the full article in SUCCESS magazine 's Digital Nomad issue.

Personal branding expert Claire Bahn, founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based boutique strategic communications and marketing outfit, Claire Bahn Group, says she got into the field professionally after learning to market herself as an actor and a model.   “I found that the people who marketed themselves the best were able to get the jobs they were best suited for,” she says. “If you think about your headshot and all the materials that you have, your reel, all that stuff – that helped me get jobs, as well as my social media presence.”   It’s not an uncommon story. Many people are inspired to forge a niche as a go-to expert in their field after years spent working precisely in that field. They have accumulated knowledge, and now they want to share it – for a fee.   But how do you go about getting your name out there? What are the steps to go from brand idea to thought leader? Here, Bahn explains some of the key stages to building a personal brand and finding your audience.     One caveat: Bahn says it’s essential to have a back-up plan at the start. “You can’t just say I’m going to quit everything, do this and my personal brand is going to work within a month.” It takes time and consistency, so keep your day job or work through gig platforms that take a cut – just while you get started. On a positive note, she says, “In the business world, there’s always room for more.” Continue reading at SUCCESS.com Creative Commons image courtesy of Pix4Free.org

As more and more people rethink the traditional career ladder and in-office 9 to 5 jobs, many are also reconsidering the wisdom of relying on a sole source of income. Welcome to the gig economy, a bustling and growing arena that offers workers with sellable skills flexibility, control and variety.   The projected gross volume of the gig economy in the US has been on a steady rise over the last six years, more than doubling from $204 billion in 2018 to $455.2 billion in 2023, according to Statista.    The pandemic, the so-called “Great Resignation” and a surge in the availability and accessibility of app gigs are three factors fueling the rise, according to Rafael Espinal, executive director of the New York-based Freelancers Union, a national nonprofit formed in 1995 to provide education, advocacy and tools to independent workers. The Union almost doubled its membership post-pandemic, from around 400,000 members after its first 25 years, to nearly 750,000 just four years later.    “The pandemic left millions of people unemployed and gave a lot of folks the opportunity to rethink how they want to create an income for themselves, and because of that, we have seen an increase in folks turning to freelance work” or rethinking how and where they wanted to work, Espinal explains.   With so many people opting to either supplement traditional jobs or go wholly independent, what does the future hold for the gig economy?  Read the full article at SUCCESS.com

When we landed in Madrid this past summer, the first thing we did after dropping our suitcases at the apartment was walk to Casa Dani for a pincho de tortilla , a slice of Spain’s traditional, treasured egg-and-potato dish. Casa Dani is widely considered to serve the best tortilla in the capital city. Or maybe the entire country, if you believe the 2019 jury of the National Tortilla Championship . It's also wildly popular. Located in the upscale Mercado de la Paz in Madrid’s tony Salamanca district, the restaurant reportedly serves more than 100,000 tortillas a year. True to form, on the hot July afternoon we wandered in, jet-lagged and hungry, there were lines at the venue's indoor and outdoor locations. We were offered seats at the bar inside, so we grabbed them and ordered tortilla and cañas (glasses of beer), as well as a couple other tapas, and congratulated ourselves on our victory. Few Ingredients, Many Opinions Traditional tortilla española or tortilla de patatas has just five ingredients: egg, potato, onion, oil and salt. Still, they elicit much discussion. Should the eggs remain a little runny? Is it acceptable to exclude onion? How many eggs per potato? How much oil? How best to slice the potatoes? Everyone has an opinion. According to Tapas Magazine , Casa Dani’s award-winning recipe includes: 1 kilo of Agria potatoes from La Mancha, 8 fresh eggs, onions, sunflower oil and salt. Here are a couple other local recipes from books we keep at home, all with notably vague instructions. Great tortilla, it seems, is a matter of taste... and maybe some trial and error. Teófila's Tortillas I still think my mother-in-law’s are the best I’ve ever tasted. Teófila had her tortilla down to an art form. She knew exactly how long to let it sit over the gas flame to ensure a slightly crisp exterior and silken interior. I have many memories of her shuffling around the house while she beat the eggs or running to the kitchen to flip the tortilla (more on this below). Sometimes during summers in the village, we’d wander out of the hot sun into other families’ kitchens and find another abuela making tortilla with her own special twist. The kids loved this because they were often treated to a few fried potatoes as a mid-morning snack. These memories come flooding back to me when I taste homemade tortilla. 5 controversial ingredients -> Fry the potatoes and onions until browned, remove excess oil, gently fold into beaten eggs Tortilla Technique I have a long history of flat, dry, burnt and malformed tortillas. You might think a dish with so few ingredients would be relatively easy to make, but this is no ordinary omelette! My personal error usually involves overcooking, but I’ve also been known to drop the half-cooked tortilla mid-flip, resulting in what I try to pass off as "scrambled tortilla." For you see, after frying the potatoes and onions, mixing them into the beaten eggs and pouring the mixture into the pan to cook, you have to flip the whole concoction over to cook the other side. This involves gingerly placing a flat dish over the pan, lifting it all up, flipping the half-solid tortilla onto the plate, then sliding the entire thing back into the pan. Yes, this is as difficult as it sounds. Apparently, two-sided pans exist solely for flipping tortillas, but that just seems like cheating. Cooking the tortilla evenly on both sides involves a complicated flip procedure midway through the process. Not As Good As Abuela's I made tortilla recently. My latest might have been just a little dry for some members of my family, but in terms of size, appearance, consistency and taste, I thought it turned out pretty good. I used 8 eggs, 2 more than usual, and paired them with 5 large potatoes and one whole onion. This will be my new approach because the quantities tasted just right. It's a far cry from one of my first tortilla efforts in our early days in Madrid, when I didn't realize you had to peel the potatoes! Here are a few basic tips I’ve picked up over the years (if you’ve made tortilla, please add your own in the comments below!): 🐣 Figure out the right amount of oil for your taste – you want enough so the potatoes and onions sauté nicely, but not so much that the final product feels greasy or fried. Sometimes I have to pour some out once the potatoes are done, leaving just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. 🐣 Add the fried potato-onion mixture gently into the beaten eggs before pouring it all into the frying pan, not the reverse. Using a slotted spoon or spatula will help you avoid scooping up too much oil. 🐣 Some people cook the first side at high heat then turn the heat off after flipping. Teófila, I believe, cooked her tortillas at low heat on both sides for quite a long time (the oil would deliciously bubble up the sides of the pan and the enticing aroma would waft out the front door to the street). 🐣 Sometimes we make "false tortillas" using crushed-up potato chips. In Spain, pre-packaged tortillas are enticingly convenient (my favorite comes from the swanky El Corte Inglés supermarket, but I’m not above discount grocer Mercadona’s version either). 🐣 You can eat tortilla at any temperature – cold, room temp or still steaming. You can also eat it any time of the day – for breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner. It’s a standard tapas option and really one of the most versatile dishes around. What's your comfort food? What dishes elicit the most memories for you? ❤️

This is a unique and emotional movie that will persist in your mind long after the closing scene and end credits roll. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is indeed remarkable, both for the life story at its core and in the mesmerizing way it's brought to screen. It starts with home videos, played forward then rewound when the tale takes an unexpected turn, and woven in again as Mats' story is retold, infusing each previously seen image with an entirely new meaning. It's an ingenious way to visualize the feeling Mats' loved ones must have had when they realized everything they thought they knew about his life was incomplete. How brave and generous of them, then, to share this story. They learned that Mats' short existence held essential messages about the values and experiences that give life meaning. In the hands of a different director, those messages could have been heavy-handed or been undermined by judging virtual life as somehow less than IRL. As the muscular Ibelin runs through fields and flirts with girls, "breaking the chains" of what real-life Mats could actually do, it all becomes clear. Benjamin Ree uses their dialogue archives to bring their shared past in an online fantasy world to life through new animations. Several different people explain how their digital lives with "Ibelin" supplemented and improved their real lives. It adds up to a heartrending, inventive, and unforgettable movie and life story. Read the full review on Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Netflix