Thank You For Playing

During my time interning for POV Films, Thank You For Playing was easily one of the most beautiful films I had the opportunity to watch. This film follows an incredibly loving family in which the father, Ryan Green is creating a video game called That Dragon, Cancer. The game incorporates their day to day struggles with their son, Joel, who is battling a cancerous tumor in his brain. The film follows the family's life and how they are coping and celebrating Joel's life through the game. A  large part of the film is watching Ryan translate the intense and harsh reality they live in, to an interactive animated 3D universe. The process is tedious but the fruit of their work will leave you in tears. It is revolutionizing the way stories are told in video games and the kinds of games being told through video games. One if Ryan's missions through this game is to get people talking about cancer and show that people effected by it directly or indirectly are not alone. Below is the link to the website for the game.

 http://thatdragoncancer.com/

 As for the film, it's not another hopeless film about a kid with cancer that is just terribly depressing the whole time. It's a story portraying what an unconditionally loving mother and father will do for their beautiful child and how you can turn something so awful and unthinkable into a beautiful work of art. I have watched this film twice and ended up crying more the second time in addition to an hour after I turned it off. It really is a powerful film to the point where you feel like you know Ryan and Joel personally and you just want to give them a hug.

http://www.thankyouforplayingfilm.com/teaser/