EVEN ASTEROIDS ARE NOT ALONE
digital video, color, sound, 17’, 2019 (Iceland)
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
In the vast and hostile world of New Eden, trust is not a given. How can one make friends in the depths of space? Even Asteroids Are Not Alone explores social relationships within Eve Online, a multiplayer game where hundreds of thousands of players mine, trade and fight their way through computer-generated galaxies far away from the world as we know it. By weaving together the experiences of fourteen individuals from around the globe, the filmmaker shows a different story: The ability of online games to forge communities and bridge the space between people, countries, and continents. Entirely shot within Eve Online, Even Asteroids Are Not Alone is a insightful ethnographic video game essay.
Jón Bjarki Magnússon is an award-winning journalist, writer, and filmmaker from Iceland currently living in Berlin, Germany. He studied Creative Writing at the University of Iceland in 2009-2012, published a book of poetry ― The Lambs in Cambodia (and you) ― in 2011, and received a Master of Arts in Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie Universität, Berlin. Even Asteroids Are Not Alone was his first film, followed by Half Elf (2020), a feature length documentary. Even Asteroids Are Not Alone won the RAI and Marsh Short Film Prize at the RAI Film Festival 2019 and was screened internationally at several festivals, including Transmediale.