The Anti-Banality Union is an American

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

making collective. Since 2011 the group has made four

collage film Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing found footage from disparate sources. The term has also been applied to the physical collaging of materials onto film stock. Surrealist roots The surrealist movement played a critical role i ...

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 dissolutio ...

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) tha ...

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: "☭") zh, s=锤子和镰刀, p=Chuízi hé liándāo or zh, s=镰刀锤子, p=Liándāo chuízi, labels=no is a symbol meant to represent proletarian solidarity, a union between agricultural and industr ...

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, military/ terrorist attacks or global catastrophes su ...

s set in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

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

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

. 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 protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to the ...

protests. It began as a cataloging of police deaths in Hollywood films before growing into a narrative of escalating

police violence Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...

. 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. Lis ...

, into a large battle between police forces. It premiered at Spectacle Theater 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) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible cause ...

. 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 (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

and

climate fiction Climate fiction (sometimes shortened as 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 scientifically-grounded, wor ...

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