Opening 20 Jan 2022
Directed by:
Jens Meurer
Writing credits:
Franziska Kramer, Jens Meurer
“My wife tends to the theory that I am one of the world’s biggest losers,” says Florian “Doc” Kaps with humor. Doc prefers to think of himself as a visionary, with a vision towards bringing the past into the future. This documentary begins with Doc’s vision of saving the Polaroid instant camera. He starts by getting help from his friends to buy the last film manufacturing factory in Enschede, Netherlands. Since he only purchased the machines and not the name, nor, as he later learns, the secret to producing the instant film, he chooses Impossible as the new name for this project because that’s all he hears.
The rest of the film follows Doc pursuing his passion with all things analog; those things that engage all five classical senses. For instance, after the click of the camera and whoosh as the photograph rolls out, there is that uniquely chemical aroma of a Polaroid print developing in front of your very eyes as you hang on to a slightly damp, sticky corner, during which you can almost taste the processing. Turning his passion into profit, however, is not so easy. And actually, not even the point for Doc. Doc and the other analog junkies present an amusing and sobering perspective of what we may have lost, or are about to lose, in this dawn of the digital ages. Abruptly landing in Silicon Valley, Doc questions, what does Facebook smell like? With people spending more time lost in their digital phones, laptops, iPods, mp3s, or smart TVs and talking to cybernated voices like Alexa, totally absorbed in the pixels or digits of the moment, perhaps we are all among the world’s biggest losers. Be sure to catch this film and see what we all have to lose. (Mary Nyiri)
