persistence of vision
"A filmmaker who shoots propaganda for a dystopian police state infiltrates a terrorist group, finds himself drawn to its radical ideology, and learns to see his world in a new light."
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French film theorist Andre Bazin once said, “Cinema encourages us to think in a dreamlike way. It allows us to question the value of absolutes.”
Set in a world where images are a religion and reality is only what a camera captures, PERSISTENCE OF VISION is a unique thriller about the power of cinema and ideology. The film was born out of my interest in Dziga Vertov and Andre Bazin's competing film theories, where one side sees the camera as a means of intruding and distorting reality, while the other wants to stay back and allow the camera to record reality as unobtrusively as possible. It raises the question of what cinema is meant to do: Show the world as we know it, or the world as it could be?
Andrew Bassel is straight-laced propaganda filmmaker working for a police state known as THE SYSTEM. Their antagonist is THE NEW WAY, a group of radical art "terrorists" working to expose the System’s lies. Andrew is tasked with infiltrating The New Way and help to bring them down. But the more time he spends with them, the more he sympathizes with their methods and ideology. Now caught between two worlds, Andrew has to choose which path will lead him--and his world--to the truth. PERSISTENCE OF VISION is a Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalist.
Andrew Bassel is straight-laced propaganda filmmaker working for a police state known as THE SYSTEM. Their antagonist is THE NEW WAY, a group of radical art "terrorists" working to expose the System’s lies. Andrew is tasked with infiltrating The New Way and help to bring them down. But the more time he spends with them, the more he sympathizes with their methods and ideology. Now caught between two worlds, Andrew has to choose which path will lead him--and his world--to the truth. PERSISTENCE OF VISION is a Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalist.