Gamers' dreams become reality in 'Unicorn City'

OREM — If Don Quixote were alive today, who would he be?

“We figured he’d probably be a gamer,” said Bryan Lefler, director of the film “Unicorn City,” which screened at the LDS Film Festival on Jan. 27 and 28.

Role-playing gamers create characters for themselves that often have abilities unavailable in reality, so the idea of Quixote being a “larper” (live action role-player) made sense to brothers Bryan and Adrian, who co-wrote “Unicorn City.”

They did their research at Hastur Games & Comics in Salt Lake City, where a Dungeons & Dragons guild met.

“I would play, Bryan would sit behind me and laugh and take notes,” Adrian said.

Most movies about gamers, Bryan said, make fun of them, so they made sure their film didn’t, or at least not in a negative way.

“Gamers are brilliant, smart and kind," Bryan said. "Everybody we gamed with went against the stereotype."

From their experiences with the guild at Hastur, the Leflers were able to write a lot of gamer-specific dialogue into some scenes.

“Only people that are like way into gaming even catch all that stuff,” Adrian said.

Their efforts were appreciated when the film started screening.

“It’s been great,” Bryan said. “We went to comic cons; they went insane over it.”

The film also won Best Feature Film at the Chicago Comedy Film Festival and was an Official Selection for the San Diego and Heartland film festivals.

Although the film is about a group of gamers, it’s not really about gaming, Bryan said.

“Comedy was going down the tubes,” Bryan said. “What I really wanted to do was make a PG movie that can appeal to everyone. The backdrop is about gaming; (the film is) about friends and family.”

The film explores the idea that people are, or can become, what they pretend to be. “You are what you pretend to be” is the film’s official tagline.

“Pretending to be something more than you are will probably get you to (become) that something later in life,” Bryan said.