Oops, I died

This exquisitely filmed short follows a group of four children as they play an online multiplayer game, collaborating on their strategies to advance while each trying to stay alive. As we watch the kids battling unseen onscreen opponents, the same group dynamics that might occur on a playground become evident in the virtual space. With their faces lit only by the light from their devices, the physical world fades away, the fictitious reality contained in the screen becoming increasingly dominant. Oops, I died exists at the intersection of those two worlds, exploring the children’s relationships and their hybridised consciousnesses. Despite the young age of its protagonists, the film comfortably enters a space of metaphysics and existentialism. “Who are we when we’re not online?”, it seems to ask. If we are interpersonal beings, what is the impact of being digitally connected but physically separate? What does it mean to be alive, to have meaning? What does it mean to “die”?