The Anti-Banality Union is an American

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

making collective. Since 2011 the group has made four

collage film Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing Found footage (appropriation), found footage from disparate sources (archival footage, excerpts from other films, newsreels, home movies, etc.). The term has also been applied to the physical ...

s that use found footage from Hollywood studio films, re-edited to draw out political themes.

Description

The collective began with three members but has changed over time; its members remain anonymous. They have cited the

Situationist International The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

as an influence but distinguish their form of

détournement A détournement (), meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),'' Report on the Construction of Situations'' (1957) t ...

as "letting the integrated spectacle speak for itself" instead of "using the master's tools to say something you already wanted to say." The group's logo is an exclamation mark and question mark arranged to form a

hammer and sickle The hammer and sickle (Unicode: ) is a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between industrial and agricultural workers. It was first adopted during the Russian Revolution at the end of World War I, the hammer representing wo ...

symbol.

Works

The group's first film ''Unclear Holocaust'' assembles 50

disaster film A disaster film or disaster movie is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters may include natural disasters, accidents, offensive (military), military/terrorism, terrorist att ...

s set in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It premiered in 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. The Anti-Banality Union's second film was conceived of while waiting for the release of a friend arrested at

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a left-wing populist movement against economic inequality, capitalism, corporate greed, big finance, and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial ...

protests. It began as a cataloging of police deaths in Hollywood films before growing into a narrative of escalating police violence. They edited 122 movies together to create ''Police Mortality''. The film's narrative begins with the suicide of a retired police officer and continually escalates, through protests and a

police strike A police strike is a potential tactic when law enforcement workers are embroiled in a labour dispute. Sometimes military personnel are called in to keep order or discipline the strikers. Police strikes have the potential to cause civil unrest. Li ...

, into a large battle between police forces. It premiered at

Spectacle Theater Spectacle Theater is a collectively run, independent movie theater that operates out of a small space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York City, New York, United States. History Spectacle Theater opened in September 2010 at 124 S. 3rd Street ...

on February 26, 2013. The group's third film ''State of Emergence'' uses footage from

zombie film A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror ...

s, removing zombies from the narrative. It shows its characters' struggle to survive while escaping a rapid

societal collapse Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an Complex adaptive system, adaptive system, the downf ...

. The film premiered on October 19, 2014, at Spectacle Theater. Following several years of inactivity, the Anti-Banality Union began work on ''Earth II'', which took five years to complete. It depicts a climate collapse, drawing from a wider range of sources but concentrating on

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

and

climate fiction Climate fiction (sometimes shortened to cli-fi) is literature that deals with climate change.Glass, Rodge (31 May 2013).Global Warning: The Rise of 'Cli-fi' retrieved 3 March 2016 Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science ...

movies. Compared to the collective's earlier works, it more closely resembles a Hollywood blockbuster and adheres to a traditional three-act structure. ''Earth II'' premiered at Spectacle Theater in January 2022.

Filmography

* ''Unclear Holocaust'' (2011) * ''Police Mortality'' (2013) * ''State of Emergence'' (2014) * ''Earth II'' (2022)

References

External links

* * * {{IMDb name, 12578312 American experimental filmmakers Anonymous artists Collage filmmakers Year of birth unknown