Stranger 109

Today I had originally planned to spotlight the Molotov Alva film that was the center of this week’s big deal between HBO and Douglas Gayeton but was surprised to find that it had been taken down from the original site as well as YouTube. The only version available is one that I found with Spanish subtitles which does not appear to be an official release. I certainly understand HBO making moves to protect its investment; however, pulling it out of the viral loop seems like a mistake given the increased exposure it would have otherwise generated. Nonetheless, this just allows me to bump up the next film on my list which also takes place in Second Life. As I have indicated before, I am huge proponent of the political uses of gaming technology, particularly machinima that tries to do more than entertain. Therefore, I want to focus today’s attention on a film from the Global Kids’ Digital Media Initiative entitled A Child’s War.

For those of you unfamiliar with this organization, it is a MacArthur Foundation funded nonprofit project designed to offer opportunities to youth from underserved schools. Their latest effort, The Virtual Video Project, provides instruction to these kids on how to use the Second Life engine to create their own machinima. Similar to other organizations like the Educational Video Center in Manhattan that teaches students how to make documentaries, this project aims to provide a voice to the concerns of these youths in a forum previously unavailable to them. With machinima expanding in popularity and the visibility of videogames growing exponentially, it makes sense to educate students in this emerging medium.

A Child’s War premieres tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens at 6:00 pm for those who live in NYC. Its truly a great cause to support, so try and make it out if you can. The piece starts out as an interview of a former child soldier from Uganda named Anthony who stands in front of the International Criminal Court Building in The Hague just before testifying against the warlord that took him from his family. The majority of the film offers up a dramatic reenactment of the events of Anthony’s life. First, his brother initially leaves his family to join the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) to protect them from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). But later Anthony was abducted by the LRA and forced to kill for a cause he did not believe in. Because Second Life is not a game in the traditional sense and is not designed to create violent shoot-outs, it serves this sort of narrative well. While the atrocities of the conflict in Uganda are brought to light here, they are not sensationalized at all due in large part to an engine not designed for warfare. And though the events of the story are fictionalized, they are informed by thoughtful research done by the creators. Hopefully more projects like the Virtual Video Project will emerge as tools like Second Life become more widely available so that we have an even more diversified landscape of voices being heard.