Helénes - Apparition Of Freedom

In 1998, Christoph Draeger found in Hungary, in a former civil protection/disaster prevention camp, a storage room with some TV and editing equipment, and shelves with dozens of 16mm film rolls. He decided to smuggle at least one roll out – which is the film Helenés, a dramatic and apocalyptic rendering of one of the exercises they performed during the Cold War, in anticipation of the nuclear holocaust of World War III. In 2005, he decided to subtitle the narrator’s voice with one of George W. Bush's presidential election speeches. That way, both form a new symbiosis.

Director's Biography
Christoph Draeger, geboren 1965 in der Schweiz, beschäftigt sich seit mehr als 15 Jahren mit dem Thema Katastrophe. Er stellte u.a. in der Shedhalle Zürich, im Kunstverein Medienturm Graz, im MoMA Museum of Modern Art New York, beim Euro¬pean Media Art Festival EMAF in Osnabrück und im Centraal Museum Utrecht aus. // www.christophdraeger.com
OK Artist in Residence 2012
Christoph Draeger
Hungary / USA 2005
color
19 minutes