PLAYING COLUMBINE Documentary Competition

By reenacting one of the nation’s most infamous school shootings , the video game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (the initials standing for “role-playing game “) instantly provoked more debate and discussion than any game in recent years. Media pundits pointed to it countless times as an example of a society gone off the rails. How ever, many foiled to recognize that Super Columbine is more than a violent impulse fantasy In fact, some who hove taken the time to play it hove found Super Columbine to be therapeutic and even life changing. Danny Ledonne’s film serves as an introduction to the controversial game, exploring its coverage in the press, the phenomenon of school violence and the evolution of video games as on expressive medium. It asks us to reconsider games as more than just play and asks us which subjects are fit to become interactive experiences It introduces us to artists who are using the emergent form to explore larger societal issues. And it reexamines the film’s most controversial moment, when, after being selected as port of Slamdance’s Guerilla Gamemaker Competition, it was unceremoniously bumped by the festival director. Most of the other competitors pulled their projects in response, a clear signal of how button-pushing and polarizing this one game would become.