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
Mark Oosterveen, Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls
UK
2024
In English with open captions
At SFU Woodwards
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
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
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.
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.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A young couple accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it's fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games.
Drop Dead City
New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."
