Tiger College: Dead Man’s Wire

Best of both worlds: one of the finest movies of the festival, preluded by an
introduction by one of the Erasmus University academics researching media and
politics. Delia Dumitrica will introduce Dead Man’s Wire by prompting us to think
about how news, drama, injustice and anger intersect. Can someone be a hero
when doing bad things to get their point across? And, what role do the media play
in normalis ing such serious acts?

Dead Man’s Wire tells the captivating true-life tale of Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård), who
held his mortgage agent at gunpoint while pleading his case to the American nation
through the media. Proclaimng himself a hero, Kiritsis addressed demands via
telephone to the police and the media – especially Fred, a smooth radio DJ (Colman
Domingo), believing he is doing a good deed.

Director Gus Van Sant presents us with a complicated ‘hero of the people’,
simultaneously foolish and righteous, in the United States of the 1970s. A true story that
is still relevant today, as when health insurance agent Brian
Thompson was killed by Luigi Mangione – a folk hero or brutal murderer? And a world
that can no longer be imagined without everything being on display via large-scale
media.

Dr. Delia Dumitrica is an Associate Professor in Political Communication at Erasmus
University Rotterdam. Her research focuses on the hype around digital technologies in
politics and activism. She has been awarded the Comenius Senior Fellowship for her
work on innovating education.

This Tiger College is a collaboration between International Film Festival Rotterdam
(IFFR) and Studium Generale.