Thank You For Playing

A documentary film by David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall.

When one-year-old Joel is diagnosed with terminal cancer, his father Ryan begins working on an unusual and poetic video game to honor Joel's life. Following Ryan's family through the creation of the game and the day-to-day realities of Joel’s treatment, Thank You For Playing is a thought-provoking testimony to the empathetic power of art, examining how we process grief through technology in the twenty-first century, and the implications of documenting profound human experiences in a new artistic medium: the video game.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

DAVID OSIT is a documentary film director, editor and composer. He most recently edited, produced and composed NO MAN'S LAND, a documentary about the Oregon militia standoff produced by Morgan Spurlock, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. He also edited and produced OFF FRAME, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016, and LIVE FROM NEW YORK!, the opening night film of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, which broadcast nationwide on NBC in 2015. David’s first feature documentary, BUILDING BABEL, which he directed, produced, shot, edited and composed, premiered at True/False in 2012 and broadcast as the series premiere of PBS’s America Reframed in 2013. David studied Refugee Law at the American University of Cairo and attended the University of Michigan as a Wallenberg Fellow, and he received his MFA in Social Documentary Film from the School of Visual Arts in New York. www.davidosit.com

MALIKA ZOUHALI-WORRALL is a director, writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. Her first film, CALL ME KUCHU premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2012, going on to screen at more than 200 film festivals and win 20 awards, including the Berlinale’s Teddy and Cinema Fairbindet Awards. CALL ME KUCHU was theatrically and digitally released in North America and Europe, broadcast on BBC World, and further distributed by the United Nations. Malika has also directed and edited shorts for The New York Times, Vice, and Human Rights Watch. Malika is a Roger Ebert Directing Fellow and an alum of the Film Independent Documentary Lab, the Tribeca All Access program, Garrett Scott Documentary Development grant, and Firelight Producers Lab. She has served on film juries at Hot Docs and Full Frame Film Festivals, and teaches filmmaking at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art in Brooklyn, New York. In 2012, Filmmaker Magazine named Malika one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She is a graduate of Cambridge University, and holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), where she studied with a full scholarship from the Entente Cordiale Scholarship Scheme. www.malikazw.com

THE PRODUCING TEAM

Produced by David Osit & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Executive Producer for ITVS: Sally Jo Fifer
Executive Producer for American Documentary | POV: Simon Kilmurry & Chris White
Associate Producer: Because of Ezra
Impact & Outreach Producer: Laura Vigilante

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