Visionary game developer Bruce Straley helped define modern gaming, then stunned the industry by walking away. STRALEY'S NEXT LEVEL follows Bruce’s return as he and a small, diverse team attempt to rewrite the rules of how games are made and who gets to be a hero.
What does it mean to be a hero? It's a question the $180 billion video game industry thinks it’s already answered, repeatedly, for decades. Young. Male. Heavily armed. For nearly two decades, legendary game developer Bruce Straley helped tell that story.
At the powerhouse Sony studio Naughty Dog, Bruce helmed titles that sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, including The Last of Us, one of the most acclaimed video games of all time. Yet his name is absent from the HBO adaptation of his most celebrated work. At the peak of his career, burnt out and disillusioned, he walked away. Now, for the first time, Bruce is revealing the deeper reasons behind his departure from the industry, and why he's chosen to return. He's assembled a diverse new team and a bold vision for a game that pushes the boundaries of what the medium can do, both in how it's built and in who it highlights. The hero of the game is an elderly woman, inspired in part by Bruce's mother and her struggles with Parkinson's disease. She survives not through force but through empathy and connection. This is a radical act in today's game industry.
What follows is a David vs. Goliath story about a team of artists fighting to make something original and meaningful against a monolithic gaming industry and the rising tide of A.I. The film offers an unprecedented look inside the creative process of one of gaming's most visionary developers, and an emotionally revealing portrait of an artist at a crossroads. At a moment when the industry he helped build is collapsing under its own weight, Bruce is daring to ask what it could still become.
DAVA WHISENANT's directorial debut, the critically-acclaimed musical comedy BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY, garnered her the Best New Documentary Director award at the Tribeca Film Festival, a Writers Guild Award for Best Documentary Screenplay, and an ACE editing nomination. BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY was executive produced by Blumhouse, Impact Partners, and David Letterman, and is distributed by Focus Features. Dava has worked in both narrative & nonfiction film for more than 2 decades, with an emphasis on music and comedy. She recently completed 3 comedy pilots with her creative partner, former LETTERMAN writer Steve Young, and she directed 2 comedy shorts that won numerous Best Short and Best Comedy awards on the international festival circuit. In addition to writing and directing her own projects, Dava also enjoys assisting other filmmakers as an editing & story consultant and her recent work can be seen on HBO, FX, HULU, and Netflix. She is currently in post-production on a documentary she's directing about installation artist Thomas Jackson.
Main Subject - Bruce Straley
Director/Writer/Producer/Editor - Dava Whisenant
Producer - Gretchen Landau
Producer - Tiffany Kimmel
Cinematographers - Bryan Donnell, Helki Frantzen
