Milan Machinima Festival 2022: Cinema Meets Video Games in Hybrid Edition

The fifth edition of the Milan Machinima Festival is underway until March 27, 2022, curated by Matteo Bittanti, Gemma Fantacci, Luca Miranda, and Riccardo Retez. The theme is drawn from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard: 'Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.' After two fully online editions in 2020 and 2021, the festival adopts a hybrid format this year, maintaining online screenings while adding a physical event on March 26 at the MIC – Museo Interattivo del Cinema in Milan, featuring exclusive programming. The online program is divided into thematic sections unlocked daily, with works including 'It’s Just Math' by Mathias Wolff, a documentary on predictive policing using Grand Theft Auto 5; 'Obit' by Phil Rice, a semi-autobiographical short set in Red Dead Redemption 2; 'Polarized Interactions' by Sjors Rigters, a video essay on non-player characters in Grand Theft Auto 5; 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on' by Sam Crane, a Shakespeare performance in Grand Theft Auto Online; and 'This Is Not a Game' by Arne Vogelgesang, a documentary on QAnon as a LARP/ARG. Notably, three of four selected machinima use Grand Theft Auto 5 by Rockstar Games (Take Two), and the fourth uses Red Dead Redemption 2, highlighting the studio's dominance in the machinima scene. The festival also runs the ongoing online series VRAL, featuring works like 'Kingdom of Shadows' by Amir Yatziv and 'Welcome to My Desert Nexus' by Kara Güt.