Keven McAlester’s second documentary The Dungeon Masters, which takes a look at three people who run Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, was at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. It could have easily been a comedic film, poking fun at people who are generally called geeks or nerds, but it ends up becoming an intimate glimpse of personalities and situations that are often touching and tragic.
I sat down with Keven and talked to him about how he set about making this movie, how he got into documentary filmmaking and working with Lee Daniel, and how he was able to put together such a good look into the D&D lifestyle, despite having never played the game. Read on after the break for the interview.
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One of my favorite things about film festivals is the chance you’ll have at seeing something that you’d probably never come across otherwise when you visit the multiplex or browse your rental queue. When the Toronto International Film Festival schedule was released last month and I saw Keven McMcAlester’s documentary about Dungeons & Dragons gamemasters, The Dungeon Masters, listed, I knew I had to see it. It wasn’t that I’d seen Keven’s earlier documentary about Roky Erickson, You’re Gonna Miss Me, and wanted to see this, nor did I want to see what fine cinematography Lee Daniel had crafted for the movie. No, I wanted to see this one for the geek in me. Heck, it even made Karina’s list of Films We’re Betting On for TIFF, and she doesn’t dole out the nerd love lightly.
Although Dungeons & Dragons came out in 1974, the game is still played across the world, and has directly contributed to the creation and success of online sword and sorcery games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Almost everyone you as about the game knows that there’s a certain nerdy/geeky vibe associated with it, although most people probably couldn’t tell you anything else about it. The Dungeons Masters attempts to show you the personalities behind the dice-rolling by taking intimate looks inside the lives of three different dungeon masters who, in effect, become the game themselves.
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The 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival begins today, and Kevin Kelly and I will be there for the next ten days reporting back. What follows is not exactly an iron-clad preview of our Toronto coverage––in addition to some of the films below, I’m definitely planning to see new works by Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Jonathan Demme and Richard Linklater, and would of course recommend that anyone on the ground see some of my favorites from past festivals, including Medicine for Melancholy and A Christmas Tale. This is more of a list of predictions of what everyone else is going to be talking about, while I’m pushing my glasses up my nose and rushing to to the next screening of the a South Korean movie about drunken lonliness. Enjoy! If you have your own predictions for what will catch fire in Ontario, let us know in the comments.
1. Zach and Miri Make a Porno (TIFF screening info)
Obviously, anything with “porno” in the title has a certain automatic contingent (hello, Google searchers! Sorry to disappoint!) But then, so does anything with the credit “written and directed by Kevin Smith.” And then there’s the leading man. Some perspective: Smith’s last three films have grossed an average of $26 million each; the last three films starring Seth Rogen have grossed an average of $117 million each. With Jay and Silent Bob finally retired (we think/hope), and Rogen in tow for the usual, MPAA-baiting Smithism, Porno could––however ironically––become what Jersey Girl was supposed to be: the tipping point that expands the Smith fan base beyond the longtime Clerks faithful.
2. Slumdog Millionaire (TIFF screening info)
Crowdpleasers make me itch. But then, to borrow a line from David Fincher, I’m an asshole. Assuming you are not, you might be interested to know that Slumdog Millionaire shows all the symptoms of becoming The Next Juno. Like Juno, Slumdog premiered in a TBA slot at Telluride, where reaction from all but our own Kevin Buist was enthusiastic, even hyperbolically so. Also ike Juno, it’s a music-fueled piece of pop art in which young love results from unlikely circumstances. And, thanks to Warner Brothers’ loss of faith in this tier of the distribution market, it’s now being distributed by Fox Searchlight––just like Juno. If looking for The Next Juno is now part of our jobs, at least Searchlight is taking all the arduous work out of it.
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