Holofiction

Documentary filmmaker Claude Lanzmann (Shoah) once stated: “Fiction is a transgression. It is my belief that the depiction of certain things is prohibited.”

In his XXL supercut, director Michal Kosakowski takes this provocation head-on. Drawing on more than 3,000 fiction films and television series, Holofiction interrogates Lanzmann’s claim through a simple, crystal-clear yet painstaking methodology. The film demonstrates how profoundly our collective memory – and our practices of remembrance – have been shaped by the entertainment industry. In doing so, it reveals the Holocaust film as one of cinema’s most prominent subgenres, deeply reliant on repetition, tropes and archetypes. At a moment when the Palestinian genocide is being live-streamed to our devices, Holofiction also invites reflection on how certain injustices are foregrounded, while others remain at the peripheries of shared awareness and historical perception.

– Thomas Streekstra