Essayist Georg Wasner used fragments from three films to breathe new life into a text from 1909. This was the year that Norman Angell published his manifesto Europe’s Optical Illusion, in which he warns of violent reactions to globalisation, which even then was in the air. Angell developed his ideas in the book The Great Illusion (1913), about the delusion that war can bolster the status of countries in an ‘economically civilised’ world. This work later formed the basis for Jean Renoir’s classic La Grande Illusion (1937). The term ‘accelerando’ is borrowed from science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. The best-known footage used by Wasner is from The Battle of the Somme (Geoffrey Malins & John McDowell, 1916), released in 18 countries at the time and perhaps the most-watched of all documentaries on World War I. In addition, he uses footage from the German propaganda films Fabrik Poldihütte (1916) and Metall des Himmels (1935).
All Short films at IFFR 2017
Film details
- Country of production
- Austria
- Year
- 2016
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2017
- Length
- 40"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
You may also like this
-
Burning Mountains That Spew Flame
Immersing the viewer in the darkest corridors deep in the earth, this film suggests all sorts of underground activities, from the political to the
-
Mansfield 66/67
A campily designed documentary about the last year in the life of voluptuous actress Jayne Mansfield, who shortly before her death developed a
-
Imai Norio: Severed Film/Jointed Film
In the first international show case of the work of Imai Norio, part of the art collective Gutai, film, video and dia’s are screened that pla