The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Netflix release poster
Directed by	Benjamin Ree
Produced by	Ingvil Giske
Cinematography	Rasmus Tukia Tore Vollan
Edited by	Robert Stengård
Music by	Uno Helmersson
Distributed by	Netflix
Release date	January 19, 2024 (2024-01-19) (Sundance)
Running time	104 minutes[1]
Country	Norway
Languages	English Norwegian

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is a 2024 Norwegiandocumentary film directed byBenjamin Ree.^[2]

The film premiered, under its original titleIbelin, on 19 January 2024 at theSundance Film Festival where it won 2 awards in the World Documentary Competition—the Audience Award and the Directing Award. The film also won aPeabody Award^[3] at the 85th Annual Ceremony.

Mats Steen, a Norwegian man born withDuchenne muscular dystrophy, becomes increasingly unable to participate in everyday activities. As a result, he spends most of his time playingvideo games, particularlyWorld of Warcraft. His parents worry that he will miss out on life, unaware of what he does in the game.

Towards the end of his life, he starts ablog about living with the disease. When he dies at the age of 25, he leaves behind the password to it. His family uses the blog to announce his death, leading to various replies from his friends. The film tells the story of his life in the World of WarcraftguildStarlight—where heplayed the character Ibelin Redmoore—through animations based on the game, interspersed withretrospectives from his guild members, family, and excerpts from his blog.

As Ibelin, Steen kept his identity and medical condition a secret, worried that other guild members would treat him differently if they knew. He refused to communicate outside text chat, but he still developed close relationships with other guild members. He was perceived as a reliable friend they could share their problems with.

Steen's condition worsens over time, and it becomes harder for him to play the game. He appears more agitated, causing drama regarding his relationships in the guild, eventually leading him to lash out at a guild member. As his condition deteriorates, he develops severe breathing difficulties and has to be hospitalised. The guild member he lashed out at becomes concerned regarding Steen's absence, and confronts him about it. He explains his condition, and his fear of others' reactions. The friend encourages him to tell the other guild members, and he decides to apologise to the guild about his previous behaviour, later sharing his blog with them.

Eventually, Steen dies from muscular dystrophy. Five guild members from abroad attend his funeral inOslo. The rest gather in the game, which becomes a yearly tradition. The film ends with a shot of his gravestone, which reads Mats "Ibelin" Steen.

Benjamin Ree, the film director, first read about Mats Steen in a 2019NRK article^[4] about his life.^[5] After learning that the family had recordedhome movies throughout Steen's life, he reached out to them about making a film. Steen was also a member of aguild inWorld of Warcraft namedStarlight, which had logged 42,000 pages of their text chats in the game. Ree was able to retrieve about 4,000 pages for the script.^[5]

Ree was researching ways to visualise Starlight's text chats when he discovered an animation studio ran by Rasmus Tukia and hired him as an animator.^[5] Tukia had previously posted hisfan-madeWorld of Warcraftmachinimas onYouTube.^[6] Most of the film's game animations were made and edited by Tukia using assets fromWorld of Warcraft, but he collaborated with two other animators on "background characters, rigging and rendering".^[6]

World of Warcraft is created and owned byBlizzard Entertainment. Ree and the producer, Ingvil Giske, did not contact them until three years into production, when the film was nearly finished. They were invited to screen the film at Blizzard's Californian office, where they were given permission to "use whatever [they] need[ed]".^[6] In July 2023, before the film premiered, Blizzard added a replica of Steen'sgravestone toWorld of Warcraft.^[7]

Ibelin premiered on 19 January 2024 in the World Documentary Competition at the2024 Sundance Film Festival where it won 2 awards, the Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary and The Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary. Shortly after,Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film.^[8] The film continued to screen at festivals such as the Chicago Critics Film Festival in May and theNew Zealand International Film Festival in August, with the title expanded toThe Remarkable Life of Ibelin.^[9][10] It was selected for theMAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024, under the World Cinema section.^[11]

On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 97% of 59 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8/10.^[12]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[13]Variety praised the film, stating "It's a world unto itself, and a glowing example of how moviemaking—like a person's digital footprint—can be a form of immortality that soothes even the most devastating loss."^[14] Other reviews were also extremely positive.^{[2][15][16][17]} Cineeuropa found that Ree "ends up with a film that's not about death; rather, it's about friendship, love and life."^[18]

• The Remarkable Life of Ibelin atIMDb 

• 2024 films
• Norwegian documentary films
• 2024 documentary films
• World of Warcraft
• Films about diseases and disorders
• Films about games
• Films directed by Benjamin Ree
• 2020s English-language films
• English-language Norwegian films
• 2020s Norwegian-language films
• Netflix original documentary films
• English-language documentary films

• CS1 Norwegian-language sources (no)
• CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from March 2024
• Template film date with 1 release date