Sat 21:00 / Movie 3
TROUBLE FEATURES
One evening, two movies, one discussion committed to cinematic dissent: That’s the TROUBLE FEATURES by curating society Diskollektiv. They celebrated their festival premiere at Crossing Europe in Linz in 2018 and gleefully enter into their fourth round this year – juxtaposing the Marxist computer game essay HARDLY WORKING with a surprise film that takes the proverb “Time is money” literally. In their latest short HARDLY WORKING, the Austrian artist collective Total Refusal makes an excursion to the enormously successful Western game “Red Dead Redemption 2”. In the disembodied camera’s focus: the NPCs (short for “Non-Player Characters”), whose hustle and bustle fills the game world with life. But what kind of life is that? The digital extras seem trapped in meaningless Sisyphean loops, bullshit jobs, and alienating everyday routines. Doesn’t that kind of ring a bell with us, the viewers? Aren’t we all NPCs in a global role-playing game called Capitalism? And if so: What leeway is there really in our unfortunate situation? Immediately after this humorously unsettling miniature, Diskollektiv presents a feature-length film of a totally different style: a deliberately contradictory combination intended to challenge and inspire vivid discourse. Such will take place after the two film screenings. We want to ask ourselves in the cinema: Do NPCs dream of plastic bags filled with money? Does fate like to play ego shooters? And how many extra lives – and alternative futures – has humanity got left? Discuss, together with Diskollektiv and super special guests Total Refusal. Let there be trouble!
