The 4,500-kilometer (2,800-mile) Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhgorod gas pipeline connects the second-largest gas field in the world in Urengoy, West Siberia with the Western European market. It has become one of the most vital arteries of the Russian economy, with Vladimir Putin claiming that its gas and oil revenues account for half of Russia’s disposable capital.

For 104 days renowned director Vitaly Mansky followed the course of this Trans-Siberian gas pipeline through seven different countries. He explores what it’s like for ordinary people to live in its vicinity, along a route connecting two extremities of the European continent.

The film is made up of unique miniatures eloquently illustrating the often absurd banality of contemporary Russia: a wedding celebration on the border between Asia and Europe; a group of men pulling out a load of stinking dead fish from an ice-hole in freezing Siberia; the desperate attempts to dig a grave in the frozen ground; and a traveling clergyman trying to get converts with a train for a church. This visually refined road movie offers an unsettling portrait of the legendary Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, on which much of Europe is still reliant.

Directed by Vitaly Mansky
Duration: 117′
Year: 2013

This screening is kindly supported by Deckert Distribution

VHS or Betamax? Is video rental a good idea? Should the public even be allowed to have physical access to films? On Tuesday 3 September, these were some of the era-defining issues raised at the Frontline Club’s screening of Rewind This!

Directed by Josh Johnson, Rewind This! beamed the audience into a time when the idea of the rewind button – or even having the ability to choose when to watch something at home – was a pioneering concept. Overcoming the initial fear and resistance from major film studios, the meteoric rise and eventual demise of the home video empire draws many parallels to the expanding internet video markets today; most notably in the success of your medium being defined by its relationship to the adult film industry. The idiosyncrasies of home video, from the intricacies of box cover art to sub-genres of cult horror movies – and the impact it had on a generation – is told by the passionate characters who are trying to save home video, and perhaps themselves, from obscurity.

Director Josh Johnson taking questions from the audience via Skype. Photo: George Symonds

Joining via Skype, director Johnson began the Q&A with an explanation of his motivations:

“I feel like the home video revolution is what changed my life more than anything else and really shaped the person that I am. When I was a child I was able to wander the aisles of the video store and imagine what might be contained in those boxes. And then I was also able to take things home – sacks of tapes – and then I was exposed to all the film history from a very young age. . . . So that was a big part of wanting to make the film, because that part of the story of the home video world hadn’t been told.

 

“And then the other aspect that was really appealing about it was the contemporary relevance, because there were so many thousands of titles that were at risk of being lost. So it didn’t feel like it would just be looking back, it would also be looking to the future.”

A central theme in the documentary was archiving and the potential loss of many films. Johnson was asked if there had been improvements in the archiving or digitising process of VHS tapes.

“What is happening,” he replied, “is that a lot of these collectors, a lot of these people who have access to material are aware that it’s very scarce and that they’re at risk of losing it, and they are starting to digitise and back up things. And you see a lot of file sharing sites on the web and other ways of sharing this content. So it’s legally questionable at this point but people are trying to do it. And I think what’s happening online right now, with the torrenting and file-sharing of a lot of these rare films that are only available on videotapes, is that they’re setting up a good model for what that system should look like once it becomes a more official thing.”

An audience member then asked for the director’s thoughts on the idea of ownership – or false ownership – with the development of internet. Johnson responded:

 “I think the only risk is that people think everything is going to be made available to them and I think that’s probably not going to be the case. I think when a studio owns everything, and they are able to provide their entire catalogue, it really makes more sense for them to provide various segments of a catalogue at different times. And I don’t think everything will be widely available.”

“I think what you have now, with Netflix and other sites where they have them for a window of time, and then they go away and then they might come back a little later. But I think the idea of endless access to everything that’s ever been created is unrealistic. So for me, the value of physical media is that when something is released and I purchase it I can back it up. I can hold onto it and I have access to it when I want it. Whereas on the online space when everything goes completely digital or is hosted in the cloud or hosted elsewhere I don’t feel as confident that I’m going to  have the level of access that I want.”

Following on, Johnson was asked if his comparison of physical video rentals and contemporary online video consumption was pre-planned. “That was definitely pre-planned,” said Johnson.

 “We wanted to make something that was definitely motivated in part by nostalgia and would take people back to a time in their lives, or for a younger audience introduce them to a time that they didn’t live through or that they weren’t aware of. . . . But we also didn’t want to make a film that didn’t hold any contemporary relevance.
“What’s interesting about the current online distribution system is that it actually does seem to be doing what they were fearful of in the early video days, which is that people are going to be able to access so many things so conveniently and so inexpensively that they’re not as motivated to go and see movies in the theatre. So we are seeing that negative impact on the box office. . . . It’s essentially a new version of that same home video concept, but it actually is taking over and becoming the dominant way that people see films.”

In the words of a contemporary VHS enthusiast featured by Johnson:

“When you see a Be Kind Rewind sticker on it [a VHS cassette], there’s something deeply moving about that. It’s such a call to arms and a suggestion or imperative about the way to live your life. To be kind, and rewind. Go back, and  hang on to those things that are important to you; and not let them disappear, and not let other people take them away from you. Find what’s important and preserve that – and help it to endure.”

Rewind This! was the last in a series of the Frontline Club’s summer screenings, exploring the role of technology in how we document our world.

Full details of upcoming screenings for Rewind This!  in the UK and beyond can be found on the official website and on Twitter.

Tuesday 30 July 2013, 7:00 PM – Side by Side

For almost one hundred years there was only one way to make a movie: photochemical film. Over the last two decades a digital process has emerged to challenge this initial form of filmmaking. At a moment when digital and photochemical filmmaking coexist, Side by Side explores what has been gained, what is lost, and what the future might bring.

Tuesday 6 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Pirate Bay: Away from Keyboard

The largest and most famous torrent website in the world, The Pirate Bay, quickly became one of many antagonists of the entertainment industry. The three Swedish founders face $13 million in damage claims by the media establishment. TPB-AFK chronicles a historic drama beyond the copyright debate and tells a human story torn by cyberwar.

Tuesday 20 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Human Scale FULLY BOOKED

The Human Scale: it’s a ticking time bomb. In the next 40 years the number of people living in cities will nearly double. There is not enough time to build the necessary infrastructure to accomodate all of us. According to revolutionary Danish city planner Jan Gehl, even the largest of megacities must be re-thought, re-designed and re-sized to the human scale.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Andreas M. Dalsgaard

Tuesday 27 August 2013, 7:00 PM – Google and the World Brain FULLY BOOKED

Google and the World Brain connects the central story of Google Books with fundamental issues related to the Internet – privacy, copyright, data-mining, downloading and surveillance. Through interviews with experts from across the world we learn about the implications of one of the most ambitious and simultaneously controversial projects ever conceived on the Internet.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ben Lewis.

Tuesday 3 September 2013, 7:00 PM – Rewind This! BOOK NOW

Home video changed the way the world consumed films. Low cost equipment and the rise of VHS created unprecedented opportunities for the film industry. Rewind This! looks at media consumption, zero budget filmmaking, unchecked global piracy and an exploding film industry, through the rise and fall of VHS. Developments that laid the foundation for today’s digital culture.

Tuesday 30 July 2013, 7:00 PM – Side by Side

Tuesday 6 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Pirate Bay: Away from Keyboard

Tuesday 20 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Human Scale BOOK NOW

[vimeo clip_id=”67638874″ width=”400″ height=”225″]

Tuesday 27 August 2013, 7:00 PM – Google and the World Brain BOOK NOW

Tuesday 3 September 2013, 7:00 PM – Preview: Rewind This! BOOK NOW

The largest and most famous torrent website in the world, The Pirate Bay, quickly became one of many antagonists of the entertainment industry. The three Swedish founders face $13 million in damage claims by the media establishment. Director Simon Klose followed them between 2008 and 2012, offering a glimpse into secret worlds, like a subterranean data bunker, all glass and chiseled rock.

Unified less by a shared ideology than by an often juvenile humour and disdain for the establishment, the three main players are put on trial for copyright infringement. Spokesman Peter is happy to defend their site under freedom of speech grounds, while Fredrik and Gottfrid are in it for the technological challenges.

TPB-AFK chronicles a historic drama beyond the copyright debate and tells a human story torn by cyberwar. Klose tells the inside story of how a cluster of hacktivists built the internet’s largest filesharing site, challenged the entertainment industry and helped shape the debate about intellectual freedom.

Directed by Simon Klose
Duration: 81′
Year: 2012

This screening is part of a summer season looking at the way technological changes are shaping the way we document the world and interact with it. See the full programme here.

Home video changed the way the world consumed films, it had an enormous cultural and historical impact. Low cost equipment and the rise of VHS tapes created unprecedented opportunities for the film industry. For the first time, video made it possible for small independent production companies to operate on an even playing field with the major film studios.

More movies were released on VHS than DVD could ever hope to see. A vast amount of culture seems to have been lost, with a huge number of films released during the VHS years that never transferred over to DVD. Rewind This! goes further than the discussions of those who fetishise obsolete technologies. Genre celebrities like Frank Henenlotter (whose film Basket Case became a VHS cult), Charles Band and Roy Frumkes discuss how VHS changed the ability to make and distribute films, in an enlightening and nostalgic look back at a now dead technology.

Through the rise and fall of VHS, director Josh Johnson discusses media consumption, zero budget filmmaking, unchecked global piracy and an exploding film industry where everything was possible – developments that laid the foundation for today’s digital culture.

Directed by Josh Johnson
Duration: 93′
Year: 2013

This screening is part of a summer season looking at the way technological changes are shaping the way we document the world and interact with it. See the full programme here.

[vimeo clip_id=”67638874″ width=”400″ height=”225″]

The Human Scale: it’s a ticking time bomb. In the next 40 years the number of people living in cities will nearly double. There is not enough time to build the necessary infrastructure to accomodate all of us. According to revolutionary Danish city planner Jan Gehl, even the largest of megacities must be re-thought, re-designed and re-sized to the human scale.

Director Andreas M. Dalsgaard travels around the world to explore how Gehl’s vision of a human megacity – intimate, lively, safe, sustainable and healthy – is being implemented in places like New York, Chongqing and Christchurch. Thinkers, architects and urban planners across the globe question our assumptions about modernity. Against the backdrop of powerful shots of urban landscapes, they explore what happens when we put people at the heart of our planning.

Directed by Andreas M. Dalsgaard
Duration: 77′
Year: 2012

This screening is part of a summer season looking at the way technological changes are shaping the way we document the world and interact with it. See the full programme here.