The Grannies
2021 · 17m · United Kingdom
Directed by Marie Foulston
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, surreal, whimsical
A group of older gamers ventures beyond the intended boundaries of Red Dead Online, narrating their discoveries in unfinished digital terrain.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The Grannies is a premise that *should* be cute-viral nonsense, but Foulston refuses that—instead mining genuine uncanniness from the gap between player intent and digital architecture, which is way more interesting than the hook deserves.
Formally, this sits at an interesting intersection of documentary and net art tradition, though it leans more toward contemporary digital flaneurism than the rigor of structured essay film; the contemplative tone works better as mood piece than argument.
The masterstroke here is the decision to let the grandmothers' narration breathe over long, uncut shots of unfinished terrain—that restraint, that trust in their voices and the strangeness of the geometry itself, turns what could've been a gimmick into something genuinely moving about curiosity and the edges of designed spaces.