Streamed online June 16 through June 22
Austrian entrepreneur Florian “Doc” Kaps is a fan of analog technologies. He not only enjoys the delights of the retro, but believes that the future is about referencing and reviving the past. This dedication drove him to acquire, a decade ago, the last remaining Polaroid factory in the world ahead of its slated demolition in the Dutch city of Enschede, and to revive Polaroid instant photography methodology for the home user. Kaps’s fascinating adventures with analogue did not stop there, however. In his home town of Vienna he opened a business called Supersense in an ornate art nouveau building in the Leopoldstadt district. Here visitors can handle, use, and purchase gadgets and products of the past in a sort of cabinet of curiosities that might, at any one time, include a working letterpress, 1950s telephones, typewriters, a recording studio, phonographs, vinyl records, foods and scents, and more. An Impossible Project follows Florian Kaps on this often-rocky adventure into a bygone era, even as it raises a multitude of issues about the present. (Jens Meurer, 2020, 99 minutes)