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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

City of Progress

Justin Bennett | Netherlands | 2009 | 11' | | IFFR 2011

Bennett traces the growth of an imaginary city. Organic urban growth is soon curbed by laws and regulations, reshaped by project developers or armed conflicts. The creative act of drawing, and of founding a city, comes under scrutiny. The film embodies our quest for utopia, while attesting to the difficulty of attaining it.

Also in this combined programme

  • Liquidator

    Innovative use of existing archive images from Willy Mullens’ silent film Haarlem (1922). By Karel Doing, with sound design by Michal Osowski.

  • Majesteit

    Video poem by eddie d in which pompous rituals around ‘Prinsjesdag’ are exposed and reduced to their very essence by means of canny editing.

  • Flashings in the Mirror

    Flashings in the Mirror is a video composed of shared flashing-in-the-mirror photos, found via Google Images.

  • Everytime

    With a reinterpretation of a pop song released in 2004 by Britney Spears, this video demonstrates how reality and (mass) media today are strongly i

  • Birth of a Nation

    How to become an ideal woman? At a cadet school in Moscow, girls are trained to be ideal citizens of the homeland. A research on patriotism.

  • Brothers of Metal

    Heavy metal witnessed its heyday in the 1980s as a controversial and loud music genre, with a dedicated fan base. Metal knows many subgenres…

  • The Origin of Creatures

    Futuristic vision of a world after a catastrophic disaster. Dark parable in which miscommunication makes it hard for the mutated limbs to cooperate

  • Dawn

    Second part of a diptych by Erwin Olaf which consists of Dusk (2009) and Dawn (2010). The latter is almost literally a negative pendant to the form

View the entire programme

Film details

Country of production
Netherlands
Year
2009
Festival edition
IFFR 2011
Length
11"
Medium/Format
DV cam

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