This sounds like the kind of half-brilliant, half-mad kind of film making that rarely happens anymore. It's called 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero, and it's an omnibus production organized by the city of Talinn, Estonia, featuring the directing talents from around the world. Screening this August in Talinn, the film will be comprised of 60 one-minute silent shorts which will be projected outdoors on a large screen for one showing only.
Because afterwards, the festival organizers will burn the screen and the single existing 35 MM print of the movie.
The current slate of directors includes Mark Boswell, Albert Serra, Mika Taanila, Malcolm Le Grice, Kari Yli-Annala, Ilppo Pohjola, Naomi Kawase, Sogo Ishii, Shinji Aoyama, Joshua and Ben Sadfadie, and Philippe Grandrieux, with more names on the way. 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero is still accepting submissions from filmmakers on their site.
You can read the full invitation to film makers below:
Dear Filmmaker,We are in love with cinema. Passionately, desperately. As you are. Otherwise you wouldn't have received this letter.
THIS IS A LOVE LETTER.
This is a love letter to you, a rare cinematic artist, who has never chosen the easiest route.
This is an invitation. An invitation for a unique cinematic event, taking place in Tallinn, Estonia during august of 2011.
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero is
a compilation of 60 one-minute silent films to be screened outdoors. At the end of the screening, the screen will be burned in flames, and the single 35mm print of the compilation will be thrown in to the fire.We ask you to participate in this installation,
to create 60 seconds of film.You can create your film in any format you wish. You may use celluloid, HD, mobile camera...
At our website we have created a timeline that gives you a graphic idea of the installation to come: www.60sec.ee/register. Our goal is to get the films together by late July 2011.Waiting is death.
There are a couple of directors on that rota whose work I would not want to see burned AT ALL... but that is the point of it, right? That the only surviving bits will be some stills and some shaky mobile-phone movies, and becoming "the stuff of legends".
Hm. I'm in two minds about this.