Benjamin Ree has made the film Ibelin about Mats Steen – news Culture and entertainment

– I was extremely nervous, my hands were shaking. I had to take extra asthma medicine, says Ree. The film director tells us that he was in a meeting with the powerful bosses at Microsoft. The company that, among other things, owns the game World of Warcraft. After several years, Ree had completed his documentary film, but was dependent on a yes from the bosses of one of the world’s largest technology companies in order to release it. Documentary after news article The documentary he has made is about Mats Steen, who died of a muscle disease aged just 25. He spent a lot of time on “World of Warcraft”, and his parents therefore believed that their son had lived a lonely life. But it turned out not to be true. GAMER: Mats Steen spent a lot of his time on the game World of Warcraft. Photo: Privat Mats had the rare disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He was in a wheelchair and gradually his muscles became weaker and weaker. Despite the illness, Mats made friends from all over the world through the game. – When he passed away, his parents received fifty messages where people talked about the best friend they ever had, says Ree. news wrote an article about this in 2019, which ended up being the most read ever. – When I read the article on news, I thought that this is the best feature I have read. It was a story about gaming he had never heard before. Benjamin was fascinated by the fact that it was possible to make so many good friends without having met them face to face. Mats and his friends communicated in writing on World of Warcraft, and he spent a lot of time helping the people he met in the game. – In the film we meet someone who is on the spectrum, he struggled a lot, he had locked himself in a room for three years. Didn’t go to school. Mats helped him back. They did that by having their avatars meet in the game, says Ree. Went on a date in World of Warcraft Mats’ family filmed large parts of his life. The private recordings have become an important part of the documentary film. In addition, Ree has been helped to recreate the rich life of “Ibelin”, which is the name of Mats’ character in World of Warcraft. In the film, we get to join Mats’ life in the game. There he got to experience things he couldn’t in real life. In the video below, you can see what it was like when Mats was on a date in World of Warcraft. VIRTUAL DATE: In the film, we get to see Mats’ life as “Ibelin” in World of Warcraft. Here, a voice actor performs a text Mats wrote on his blog about the date he was on in the game. It was just a problem. Ree was dependent on the bosses at Microsoft, which owns World of Warcraft, to approve avatars from the game being used in the film. The film director had taken a wild chance. He had finished making the film before asking for permission. He went to California to show the bosses the film in the hope that they would say yes. – It was completely quiet after we had shown it. I looked up at one of the bosses who was crying, then he said: “We’ll get this done”. The documentary film about Mats has been named “Ibelin”. In December, it was announced that it has been selected, among over 17,000 films, to be shown at the prestigious Sundance festival in the USA. AWARD WON: Benjamin Ree won an award at the Sundance Festival in 2020. Photo: Ingvil Giske



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