The camps have been created for different reasons: a German prosecution office has designed a simulation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in order to investigate a 94-year-old defendant; a 27-year-old software developer from Israel is inspired by his belief in reincarnation to reconstruct his previous life as a Sonderkommando through a virtual exploration of his own camp-based computer game; and a German architect who has been surveying the camp for 15 years is working together with an Israeli historian on a highly accurate computerized model.
The film is constructed as a mosaic in which the avatars of each of these creators walk around the virtual camps and talk about them. As they do so, they gradually reveal a deeper layer of the film: the obsession of reconstructing the 'Other Planet' – the insatiable urge to document and enrich the historical and cultural memory of the Holocaust. (Amir Yatziv)
Programme
How do you prepare for a double suicide? Do you go to the same place to die together or do you decide to die at the same time, yet far away from one another? We see one of the lovers and hear him, almost tangibly, practicing his lines in a rugged landscape somewhere
55'
Spain
IFFR 2017
Animated documentary about encounters in virtual simulations of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The film follows the makers – from Poland, Germany and Israel – through their virtual camps. Each is different in style and every maker has different aims for creating such a parallel world.
48'
Germany
IFFR 2017
Boys and girls from the colourful West-African Fulani people are raised separately on the savannah. Their daily activities are regularly interrupted by rituals that lead to adulthood. Filmed up close, you can almost feel the pain and endurance that accompany the rituals and daily experiences.
59'
Belgium
IFFR 2017