One Of Netflix's Best Documentaries Features 3D Animation Done By Only One Person [Exclusive]

I was captivated by director Benjamin Ree's mesmerizing documentary "The Painter and the Thief" back in 2020, so I perked up when I learned that his newest film would be playing at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The new movie, which was acquired by Netflix and now titled "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin," tells the story of Mats Steen, a Norwegian boy who is born with a muscular disorder that ultimately kills him at the age of 25. Confined to a wheelchair and unable to participate in physical activities like traditional sports, Mats spends long hours immersed in World of Warcraft on his computer, which his parents viewed as something of a tragedy: They wished their son could have experienced love, meaningful friendships, and heartbreak like they did growing up. But when Mats died, his family received a wave of messages from their son's online pals, which opened his parents' eyes to the rich, emotion-filled digital life Mats lived in a World of Warcraft community. While the first few minutes of the documentary are full of archival footage and talking head interviews, the movie shifts to another level when it shows us lengthy CG recreations of Mats' interactions with his friends and lovers in the digital world. The result is compelling and deeply emotional; the movie is among the best films of 2024.

I had the opportunity to speak with Ree about this powerful, revealing documentary. He had never worked in animation before, so I asked him if, when planning to make the movie, he even knew if it would be technically possible to achieve the visual style he wanted here, where a big part of the movie appears to be set inside a fictional world that looks familiar to gamers.

"I did actually not know anything about what to do," he admitted. "So for a little while, I actually had to take some sleeping pills to sleep at night, because [I was thinking], What have I done? What kind of project is this? I've never played World of Warcraft, I've never done animation before. I've only done observational documentaries. So I was freaking out a bit. I've never worked with voice actors before. So in the 'me freaking out' part, together with a colleague, we did research on YouTubers. There's a huge YouTube community that makes fan animation based upon the games, and they are doing that independently of the companies owning those games. There, we found a Swedish company called Pivotal, and they made amazing animation based upon World of Warcraft. It's such fantastic animation, and it was also very authentic to the game."

As Ree and his team would soon discover, though, Pivotal wasn't a traditional company.

So far, we have a director who's tracked down a visual effects company when preparing work on a project. Pretty typical story so far — nothing unusual going on there. But it wasn't long before Ree met the leadership of the company and made an amusing discovery:

"Then I met the boss of that company. He was called Rasmus [Tukia], and the first thing he told me was that it's actually only him working at that company. Then the second thing he told me is that in the daytime, he's studying and working in storage, it's in the evenings that he's doing these animations on YouTube. And the last thing, when I asked if we could go to his offices, [he said], 'I'm living together with my mom and dad.' So we went to his place with his mom and dad, and Rasmus, he has done all the 3D animation in this film alone. Together with two other people — they did a lot of lighting and rigging and rendering background characters. But he has done all 3D animation alone in the film, which is just incredible, if you think about it, from his room at his parents' place. He got a good salary, so now he's moved away from home because of this film, which is fantastic."

You can see some of Tukia's other work on his ArtStation page, where he says he's been a self-taught animator for nearly a decade, and over at his YouTube channel.

To hear my full interview with "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" director Benjamin Ree, check out today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast below:

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"The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" is now streaming on Netflix.