Leon, a shy young man who has just lost his father, is desperately attempting to write a eulogy for the upcoming funeral when he is interrupted by his well-intentioned uncle with an invite to join in on a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

The message I want to embody in Dads & Dragons is around the idea of connection vs isolation, and the impact this has on the ways we grieve and memorialize those who we’ve lost. When someone close to us dies all we are left with are memories, which in isolation often take the form of an incomplete, single-perspective narrative with irreconcilable loose ends. Going through the cycle of grief alone can make the grieving process painful and isolating (Mortazavi et al., 2020), but if we come together to recount these memories with others they transform into stories, narratives we share and build upon that immortalize the people we have lost and keep our memories of them robust and alive.

There’s a line in the Haunting of Hill House episode Open Casket that expresses this in a beautifully succinct way, “When we die we turn into stories. And every time someone tells one of those stories, it’s like we’re still here for them. We’re all stories in the end.”.

At the core of role-playing games like D&D is the concept of the collaborative storytelling experience, narratives are built by interacting and reacting to the stories of others. With that in mind the game of D&D that Dads & Dragons is built around acts as a very suitable vehicle for our key message. Just as role-playing games involve both recounting tales about the past, and forming new stories through the actions of players, we aim to illustrate the parallels in our own lives. Our protagonist Leon finds a sense of wholeness by becoming part of a storytelling process, not just sharing stories about his father, but actively writing his own story by forming these connections with others.

A reason why I think this story is important for an audience in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic is that worldwide we have been experiencing an unprecedented time of social and emotional isolation. The dual cruelty of a pandemic that causes mass loss of life and also prevents those left behind from gathering together to mourn in company has impacted the normal cycle of grief for millions (Mortazavi et al., 2020). Coming of age films like this one are an opportunity to communicate something deeply personal and invite both the filmmakers and audience alike to look inward and reflect on their own experiences and moments of growth (Fox, A., 2018).I want to get people thinking about moments of grief in their own lives and how their connections with others are valuable always, but especially so in times of crisis.