Holofiction

A montage using thousands of moments from fictional recreations of the Holocaust in search of a pattern – shared images, motifs, gestures. An intellectually engaging and emotionally devastating essay film on our shared visual history.

How much of what we think we know about the Holocaust derives from its depiction in cinema and television – fictional recreations (usually based in one way or another on documentary evidence) which have turned one of the worst chapters in the history of mankind into a genre, for which IFFR-veteran Michal Kosakowski coined the expression “Holofiction”? What are the visual and narrative building blocks of this narrative type, its motives and stereotypes, key scenes, dramatic arcs? What kind of tale about the Holocaust did cinema create – and why do we feel comfortable with believing it?

Kosakowski found an utterly unique way of analysing this particular world of images, characters and stories: by editing snippets from hundreds of films into sequences and clusters that unveil their generic core – set to a newly composed score that at the same time heightens the abstraction while adding a distinct emotional level to the experience. Which makes Holofiction an essay film on our shared visual history that is at the same time intellectually engaging and emotionally devastating.

– Olaf Möller

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