AND THE KING SAID, WHAT A FANTASTIC MACHINE
Creative documentary one-off, 85 min., 2023
“A feature documentary about the history of the camera and our present-day media culture - a humorous and thought-provoking film about the impact it has on our lives.”
The camera is a fantastic machine.
FANTASTIC MACHINE is a thought-provoking examination of humanity’s infatuation with itself, and with framing the world through the camera’s lens.
Filmmakers Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck (Ten Meter Tower, Jobs For All!) once again turn their cameras directly on society, this time to explore, explain and expose how our unchecked obsession with image has grown to change our human behavior.
In the process, the filmmakers also raise the question of societal consequences stemming from the image output of 45 billion* cameras on the planet (*total expected in 2022) and how humanity went from the image of a backyard to a multi-billion-euro content industry in just 200 years without a road map.
Directors Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Edited by Mikkel Cee Karlsson, Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Sound designer & mixer Anne Gry Kristensen
VFX-artist & compositing Peter Toggeth Karlsson
Creative advisor Kalle Boman
Produced by Plattform Produktion
Co-Produced by Bullitt Film, SVT and Film i Väst
Marketing Producer Kathleen McInnis
Executive Producers Erik Hemmendorff & Ruben Östlund
With the support of Swedish Film Institute, Danish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, DR TV, ARTE G.E.I.E, Swedish Arts Council, Gothenburg Municipality and See-through Films
Screenings World premiere at Sundance 2023 winner of World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Creative Vision, International premiere at Berlinale 2023 winner of Youth Jury Awards - Special Mention, Official selection CPH:DOX 2023, Opening Film and competing in Main Competition at Tempo Dokumentärfestival 203, Winner of Youth Jury Prize for Best Feature at Seattle International Film Festival 2023, Winner of Beldocs Teen Award Beldocs at International Documentary Film Festival 2023
TRAILER
Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Filmmakers Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck have collaborated since 2013 under the banner of the Swedish production company, Plattform Produktion.
The two filmmakers work both as a directors and producers of their own films, under the umbrella of Plattform Produktion, home of two Palme d’Ors winners (Ruben Östlund’s The Square and Triangle of Sadness). Plattform Produktion is a small company that works like a collective: colleagues nurture each other with conversation and ideas, and see to it that their films come out the best possible way.
As in their previous work, Axel and Maximilien’s feature film debut, FANTASTIC MACHINE, also studies human behavior, but this time from the perspective of our modern media landscape: When image overtakes all other forms of communication, does it shift our fundamental human behaviors? FANTASTIC MACHINE uses nearly 100 % archive images to create a fun, intense, breathtaking ride—with human beings at the center.