HOLLYWOODREPORTER.com - DARKON: LAFF stylin' with 'Prada' opener

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LAFF stylin' with 'Prada' opener
Sundance fave 'Quinceanera' gets Centerpiece slot

By Gregg Kilday

David Frankel's "The Devil Wears Prada" will kick off Film Independent's 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival on June 22 as the festival's opening-night film, screening at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood. Fox Searchlight is releasing the film, which stars Meryl Streep as the editor of a woman's fashion magazine, on June 30.

The documentary competition, which also carries a $50,000 grant from Target, will encompass 11 films: "Beyond Conviction," directed by Rachel Libert; "The Creek Runs Red," directed by Bradley Beesley, Julianna Brannum and James Payne; "Darkon," by Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer; "Deliver Us From Evil," by Amy Berg; "East of Havana," by Jauretsi Saizarbitoria and Emilia Menocal; "Inheritance," by James Moll; "Kabul Transit," by David Edwards and Gregory Whitmore; "Mario's Story," by Jeff Werner and Susan Koch; "Matthew Barney: No Restraint," by Alison Chernick; "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater," by Julie Anderson; and "A Place to Dance," by Alan Berg.

INDIEWIRE.com - DARKON: "The Devil Wears Prada" to Kick Off 2006 Los Angeles Film Fest; Complete Competition Lineups Also Announced

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by Eugene Hernandez (May 31, 2006)

The 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival, running June 22 - July 2, 2006, will open with David Frankel's "The Devil Wears Prada" and close with Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's Little Miss Sunshine. Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's Quinceanera will screen as a centerpiece premiere at the festival. "We are thrilled to be bringing another wonderful slate of films from around the U.S. and abroad to Los Angeles audiences," said Rachel Rosen, Director of Programming for Film Independent and the Los Angeles Film Festival, in a statement. "This year, the Festival has something for everyone from charming comedies to heartrending documentaries. Audiences will also have the chance to discuss the films they've seen with some of our visiting filmmakers and guests."
"The Devil Wears Prada" stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Adrian Grenier, and Tracie Thoms in an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Lauren Weisberger. The film is described as the story of "an aspiring writer (who) has just started a new job as assistant to the most powerful woman in fashion and all-around boss from hell...Editor-in-Chief of Runway magazine."
The lineup for the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival follows (information provided by Film Independent):
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Darkon
Members of a live action role-playing game bring us into their fantasy lives in the make-believe medieval world of Darkon.
DIRECTORS Andrew Neel, Luke Meyer PRODUCERS Tom Davis, Ethan Palmer, Christopher Kikis, Thoma Kikis, Nicholas Levis, Cherise Wolas, Alan Zelenetz FEATURING Skip Lipman, Kenyon Wells, Daniel Mcarthur, Rebecca Thurmond, James Iddings, James Shirk, Domenic Prince, Andrew Mattingly, Gary Black, Frank Kanach, Leah Kanach

THEFILMLOT.com - DARKON INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTORS ANDREW NEEL & LUKE MEYER

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Q: This film definitely needs to break out of the festival circuit!

AN: I think it will. You know the film has a learning curve because…

LM: It’s such a weird form…

AN: Yeah… When we were making the film we really didn’t have a roadmap. We didn’t have anything to compare it too. When we sat down with all the material, we didn’t have any movie that we could reference. Sometimes we’re referencing Grey Gardens and sometimes we’re referencing Conan the Barbarian! I mean that’s like very strange to be referencing those two things together. I think that the fact those two elements are alive in one movie, probably takes a little bit of wrapping your head around. But once people wrap their head around it and see how much people are enjoying it, I think that it will get the distribution it deserves.

But again it’s the courting process that we’re going through right now and there has been a tremendous amount of interest from some really big deal types. So that's exciting!

ION MAGAZINE - DARKON

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BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE NERDS
DARKON

Words Michael Mann

"NerrrRRRDDSS!"
-Ogre in Revenge of the Nerds

In most cases you wouldn't have to specify that the quote comes from
Revenge of the Nerds but when talking about the Darkon, a quote from
"ogre" could mean any number of things. Directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew
Neel, Darkon is a new documentary currently doing the festival circuit
that brings the viewer into a world of live action role-playing, or
LARPing. What is LARPing? Neel explain: "I guess simply, people who create
a character. Get dressed up in some sort of costume then go out and play a
game. Usually physical, though there are a lot that are more mental."
Meyer adds, "It's like Dungeons & Dragons, but instead of making decisions
by rolling a dice it's played out by people physically with foam weapons.
Either settling wars, like two-sided disputes, or through adventures."
The idea came to Neel while in film school and he was working on a short
about online worlds. After completing that, he developed the idea into a
feature length intended to be on Dungeons & Dragons. Through his research
he discovered LARPing and Darkon, a group of LARPers in the DC area. After
some coaxing, he got members of this community to agree to be in a
documentary, which follows the lives of these people in and out of the
game. Aside from interviews and talking heads, Darkon features cinematic
battle sequences, complete with crane shots and embedded cameramen. Hardly
typical documentary conventions, but this is hardly a typical documentary
subject. Like Murderball that introduced us to wheelchair rugby, or
Spellbound, which brought us into the world of elementary school spelling
bees, documentary film makers are showing us that, sociologically
speaking, there's still a lot of undiscovered land out there that needs to
be mapped outŠ even if this land is in the Middle Earth.
Beyond the obvious what makes LARPing an engaging subject for a
documentary ­the spectacle, the bizarreness, the hyper-nerdery­ Neel
thinks it brings a lot more to the table. "It's interesting ethnographic
subject matter in terms of watching human behavior. Americans, and the
world, are very interested in virtual worlds right now. Our existence as
human beings is becoming increasingly psychological. This game manifests a
lot of
interesting topics that have a lot to do with that. It very clearly
represents the way that human beings try to bridge the gap between fantasy
and reality in the world of the mind and the world that's in front of us."
Immediately coming to mind when a lot of people first hear about Darkon is
a video that was circulating the Internet a few years back. In it, a
portly fellow screams "Lightening Bolt! Lightening Bolt!" while throwing
foam bolts of lightening at fellow nerds in armor. I was told that LARPers
hate that video and that "One of the cool things about Darkon is you get
some of the football jocks from high school and some people who are really
interested in what can be a rigorous physical exercise." Whether or not
putting on a suit of armor and fighting overlords with crossbows will
replace Bikram's Yoga remains to be seen.
Like many, I've had a roll of the 50-sided die to determine whether or not
a treasure chest contains a runed wand of the abyss or an angry mage who's
going to cast a magic missile spell on me. But I was in a young, stupid
and experimental stage of youth. The people in this movie are full-grown
adults with day jobs. Skirting around the issue I politely ask: "Who are
these people that are into live action role playing?" hoping that they'll
confirm my suspicions that it's only nerds doing this thus allowing me to
sleep better at night. Meyer claims that "one of the most surprising
things to me was how wide the spectrum was. It goes from high school kids
to lawyer parents to whatever."
Okay, but is it just nerds? I get an emphatic "No" from Neel. But after a
short pause he concedes, "There's no question that a good percentage of
the people that are in the game did play Dungeons & Dragons. I guess dorks
are the way of the world right now. We're all IT managers and computer
people. That's sort of connected to the idea that our world is becoming
psychological. In our everyday lives our effect on the world is not always
very tangible. If you're working as a stockbroker or whatever you're doing
you don't really get to see things move in front of you when you do
something. This game allows you to do that. Maybe that's dorks. I guess it
is and Luke [Meyer] and I would have to consider ourselves part of that
category."
True dork and nerd are no longer dirty words. That there are six million
people (500,000 people online at any given time) all pretending to be
minotaur shaman or night elf rogues in The World of Warcraft shows that
role-playing is hardly the closeted behavior of nerds that it used to be.
So fly your nerd flag high, without shame, because you are not alone. May
all your treasure chests contain enchanted chainmail armor.

Baltimore City Paper: Sword Play - Ready Or Not, the Live-Action Role-Players Of Darkon Get Their Closeup

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Sword Play
Ready Or Not, the Live-Action Role-Players Of Darkon Get Their Closeup

By Cole Haddon

Two armies face each other beneath a blistering midday sun, the glean from their regal armor almost blinding. Fists drum against emblazoned shields. Generals stir in each line of warriors an almost religious fervor to die gloriously for their great countries. Humans and elves raise their weapons—swords, battle axes, maces—and roar so that even the gods can hear them.¸

“Charge!” howls one of the generals. His noble enemy across the field of battle orders the same. Slowly, overwhelmed perhaps by the prospect of death, warriors charge forward and collide with each other in a flurry of carnage that may be retold for centuries in song and myth. Watching from the sidelines, some 60 or so family and friends shout their support. Their mini-vans wait to whisk them away.

Afterward, the wounded are tended to, holy clerics say prayers over the dead, and corpses are dragged from the field. “There’s definitely a feast at a local watering hole where the myth begins,” says Skip Lipman, one of those warriors. “The reality of the day is over, and then the storytelling starts. And if it’s Sunday afternoon during football season, we’re trying to find the game. It’s definitely just guys out having our fun.”

On any given weekend in the Baltimore-Washington area, epic battles that play out very much like this are taking place in local parks and campgrounds. The men and women of the Darkon Wargaming Club Inc., dress in medieval-style costumes and armor and pound on each other with foam-padded weaponry. They give themselves names specific to their game realm, Darkon. And it has evolved into a complex game/sport of character role-playing and physically challenging battles with a membership of more than 1,000 strong with some 300 active participants. For the layman, they make The Lord of the Rings a simulated reality. And they’ve been doing it since 1985.

In the fall of 2003, filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer began regularly making the long drive from their New York homes to Baltimore in order to transform the Darkonians’ stories into Darkon, from which the above scene comes. The documentary premiered at the 2006 South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Documentary Award along with some of the fest’s loudest buzz. Getting Darkon’s members to agree to the movie wasn’t the easiest task...

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VIDEO: CBS 13 WJZ Baltimore - Morning Show "People Are TALKING" Maryland Film Festival

Darkon on the CBS 13 WJZ Baltimore Morning Show "People Are TALKING" Maryland Film Festival...

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PAGESIX - NYPOST.COM - SIGHTINGS - DARKON

May 3, 2006 -- . . . NATALIE Portman with Gael Garcia Bernal at the premiere of "Darkon" in Toronto.
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HOTDOCS DAILY - LINES AT DARKON PREMIERE in TORONTO

Crowds lined up outside the Bloor Cinema for the international premiere of Darkon.

THENEWSPAPER - DARKON - REVIEW - GRADE: A

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May 2, 2006
Review: Darkon

It may seem like an odd pastime for non-initiates, but the live-action role playing (LARP) game Darkon is not only pervasive, but remarkably fascinating. Set in Baltimore, Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel take us through the world of elves and kings and gold pieces, all being acted out by everyday adults dressed up in homemade costumes and wielding weapons that were painstakingly hand-crafted. Darkon introduces us to the legions of warriors that assemble every weekend to battle and scheme for maximum domination over their lands, but also lets us delve into the psyche of the LARPer and understand their motivations.

Skip Lipman, or perhaps Bannor of Laconia, is the star of Darkon, and it is immediately clear why: both he and his alter-ego are infectiously engaging. Using this charismatic central character to power the plot of the documentary, Meyer and Neel explore not only the game of Darkon and LARPing in general, but also probe into the general human propensity to act on fantasy. After all, in the world of Darkon, you can be whoever you want to be. The film is comedic and insightful, and never lags. In fact, Darkon functions just as well as a sports-ish movie than it does as an exploration of a bizarre game: you’re dying to know who wins.

The LARPers in the audience received many more questions than the filmmakers during the Q&A, which is a testament to the power Darkon has in humanizing the players and making them sympathetic to the audience. Despite being a quirky and bizarre game that may not be for everyone, there is hardly anyone out there that will not enjoy this movie.