Péter Lichter’s most recent essay used found footage to tell the story of a machine, conceptualised from the texts of poet Edgar Allan Poe who was obsessed with and used scientific thinking, to bring to life a machine that never existed.
In 1921, a manuscript appeared whose fragmentary texts sounded suspiciously like they had come from Edgar Allan Poe – except for the fact that it was illustrated with technical drawings, and accompanied by massive mathematical formulae. After a few decades it dawned upon researchers that this might not be a piece of literature (however experimental), but rather a design for a machine, a machine that attempted to recreate Poe’s mind, as a bot.
More decades would pass till someone was finally able to put this plan to work… Péter Lichter’s latest essay on the connection between literature and cinema, film theory and avant-garde praxis turns into a beast of especially disturbing fury, even if there’s nothing particularly unbecoming or offensive to be seen. And yet, this odd feeling of found-footage horror, combined with the now archaic looking textures of computer programming’s ancient evenings for a tale of AI terror creates a frisson that is surprisingly intense. Lichter proves again that he’s one of modern experimental cinema’s few minds that can come up with sights and sounds never seen and heard so far.
– Olaf Möller
Also in this combined programme
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The Death of Dracula
A re-imagination of the 1921 classic, and the first Dracula movie directed and produced by Transylvanians.
Trailer
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Film details
- Countries of production
- Hungary, Estonia
- Year
- 2025
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2025
- Length
- 65'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
