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Grand Theft Hamlet film image; video game people standing in field and on top of a limousine

Grand Theft Hamlet

Spectrum

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Out-of-work, UK actors Sam and Mark are in a pickle about what to do with their time in lockdown. Escaping into the violent online world of Grand Theft Auto V, they happen upon an amphitheatre. Inspired, they decide to mount a full production of Hamlet in the city of Los Santos, a perfect setting for Shakespeare’s blood-soaked tragedy. Together they conduct auditions, scout locations, and rehearse. Thus, the game’s afoot and the newly assembled troupe suffers the slings and arrows of producing virtual theatre: scheduling conflicts, technical difficulties, and the constant threat of a PvP ambush.

When the Bard wrote “All the world’s a stage,” he certainly didn’t have the virtual world in mind, nor could he have imagined the cast of players ranging from professional actors with limited gaming experience to mechanically skilled Shakespearean noobs, a menagerie of eccentric avatars, including a mute stage manager and the unforgettable ParTebMosMir, a naked, green alien and agent of chaos who quotes from the Quran and handles security. Grand Theft Hamlet celebrates the joy and community in creating art.

Delightful. Innovative, highly amusing and often touching.

Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter

Directors
Featuring

Mark Oosterveen, Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls

Credits
Country of Origin

UK

Year

2024

Language

In English with open captions

Film Contact
18+

At SFU Woodwards

19+

At The Rio

90 min
Animation Comedy Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Women Directors
Project 1961, Grasp the Nettle Films

Book Tickets

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Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Beth Levison, Sam Bisbee, Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Cody Ryder, Will Clarke, Will Clarke

Producer

Julia Ton, Rebecca Wolff

Screenwriter

Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane

Original Music

Jamie Perera

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Pinny Grylls

After founding Birds Eye View Film Festival, Pinny Grylls became an award-winning documentary and commercial director. Her first short documentary, Peter and Ben (2008), won awards at Aspen, London Short Film Festival, and SXSW. Since then she has specialized in making documentaries about theatre, opera, and dance. She is a proud member of the hard-of-hearing/deaf community and is learning British Sign Language. Her first fiction feature Hear My Voice is in development with BFI funding. Grand Theft Hamlet is her debut documentary feature.

 

 

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Sam Crane

Sam Crane is an award-winning machinima video artist and actor. In a theatre career spanning 20 years, he has been critically acclaimed for his performances at the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, in the West End, and on Broadway. His recent acting credits include Harry Potter in the West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2022) and as Jacques-Louis David in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023). His machinima film We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On (2022) won awards at Milan Machinima Festival and the Athens Digital Arts Festival. He is a PhD candidate at York University’s School of Arts and Creative Technologies and a member of the PEERS programme of artistic researchers at Zurich University of the Arts.

 

 

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