On April 2-3 the University of Dalarna will hold the annual Existential Film Festival, to discuss whether there is a rise in unhappy endings in modern cinema and its possible causes. The theme of this year’s festival will be “Collapse and Renewal”
Translated from the festival webpage. (Bold text mine)
We think we see a clear trend in which happy endings on the screen are increasingly overshadowed by a dark perspective; No Happy End. Is cinema in this manner reflecting a growing desorientation and confusion in the present, a lack of confidence and a sense of imminent collapse?
We see signs of disruptive forces in the western way of life. A growing climate crisis, a slow and inexorable threat to human civilization, demonstrated in such films as The Planet and WALL-E. A small, growing, super-rich elite, anxious and entrenched behind walls and a rising anger among those outside of La Zona or at The Edge of Heaven. Even films that affect human collapse where humanity and compassion is challenged, as in The Secret Life of Words or Young Freud in Gaza. And how do we respond to this? With inertia and apathy? Or with the mobilization and re-orientation?
Good to see my countrymen continuing to lift spirits after the death of Bergman.
Gone Elsewhere 