I saw Danny Ledonne’s documentary Playing Columbine at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles recently. Ledonne’s film documents and discusses the controversy surrounding the video game he created in 2005 called Super Columbine Massacre RPG! Ledonne had released the game anonymously on the internet, thinking that maybe 25 or so people would download and play it, and nothing would come of it.Reactions from people ranged from incensed to amused, and most journalists at the time condemned the game, many without even playing it.

The game generated more attention than he could have imagined, and when a friend of one of the Columbine High shooting victims did a little amateur detective work, Ledonne’s identity was exposed and the hate mail came pouring in. He submitted the game to the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker’s Competition in 2007, where it was accepted but then later pulled. As a result, most of the other gamemakers in competition pulled out, and the Interactive Media Division of USC pulled their sponsorship for the event as well. Ledonne was recording all of this at the time, and later decided to put it together in what became this documentary.

As both a video game journalist and a film journalist, at first I was trying to decide if this was just the case of someone creating something without much merit, and then backpedaling and trying to cover their facts, or was it the case of an artist trying to get a message across in a non-traditional medium, and then documenting the process? Ultimately, I enjoyed Playing Columbine not because of the treatment of the game, but because of the issues it created and the dialogue it attempts to open about violence in video games. However, I would have at least liked to see some reaction from the victims or perhaps parents or significant others that were involved.

The film is screening this weekend at the Denver Film Festival, and at the Sante Fe Film Festival immediately after that. I spoke with Danny recently, and you can read the complete interview with him after the break.

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