On the heels of well-received mainstream video game adaptations like HBO’s The Last of Us or Prime Video’s Fallout , the timing of fantasy dramedy short film Chuck and Fern couldn’t be more appropo. Making its world premiere at the Oscar and BAFTA qualifying LA Shorts International Film Festival on Friday, the short follows the story of two video game characters, Chuck (Lorena Jorge), a D-List villain, and Fern (Mateo Mpinduzi-Mott), a happy-go-lucky Link inspired swordsman as they face an existential crisis when they learn that the child playing their game is facing some tough times at home. Here, playwright-filmmaker Henry Alex Kelly spoke with Dead-line about the importance of creative escape, the power of crowdfunding and working with fellow Afro-Latino cast and crew.
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Why use the world of gaming to help tell this story? HENRY ALEX KELLY : Yeah. It’s a heavy story, but I like making entertaining stories that also have medicine in them. There’s this aspect of this little boy escaping into games.
For me, seeing people playing video games...
everybody has.