Sitting through a movie for two hours is someone’s best past time, but that is not everyone’s cup of tea. Many people can not go through an hour of a movie in the dark before yawning or even falling asleep. A film that spans over 720 hours has very little chance of being watched even by people who can binge watch an entire weekend. Despite this, a Swedish director Anders Weberg is creating the movie Ambiencé that will go on to play for 30 days continuously.
Anders Weberg has worked in the field of visual arts for over two decades, and he plans to close it down in 2020, in a very unique way. His pick is the 720 hours long Ambiencé that he plans to screen only once, in all seven continents, simultaneously. He plans to destroy all copies of the movie right after the screening, so it will never be played again.
In case you are imagining a thriller that won’t let you leave your seat for all 30 days, well, don’t. Ambiencé is what Weberg says not a “scripted, dramaturgical piece.” He explained the thought behind the movie saying, “My process is that I collect glimpses of light with the camera and take that with me into the computer where the real work begins, taking all these glimpses and arranging and rearranging them into a flow that I feel represents the emotion I try to express. There is a lot of post production behind it where I run all the captured material through numerous processes. I use After Effects for that part, so this will be for sure an ephemeral experience, and the only thing that will remain is the memories of the little bits and parts the viewer got to see.”
You would think it is the first attempt at making a movie that long but it really is not. In 2011, Modern Times Forever came out that set the record for the longest movie ever spanning a total of 240 hours. The director has already filmed 400 hours of Ambiencé which according to him puts him in a good place to be able to publish the movie by the scheduled date. The rest of 320 hours of the movie still requires lots of time and work. I have to completely finish at least 1 hour of edited film each week making my goal for now. That means I need 7-8 hours of raw material each week,” Weberg said.
The trailers of Ambiencé were made public as soon as 2014, and the first of which was only 7 minutes. The second one came out in 2016 that is 7-hours-long, but the last trailer planned for 2018 will be 72 hours long. Wanna try watching it?
The movie has a cast of 100 actors, some who are known and some others, who have contracted only for the film. There is a bright chance that the movie will have no dialogue at all. The 400 hours of the footage shot so far has no dialogues, and that is likely to continue for the rest of it. The reason is director’s opinion that dialogue is overused and unnecessary for sending a message.
You might be wondering who would be absurd enough to fund something like that. Well, there is one person, and that is Anders Weberg himself who is not only funding it but is also working on the project almost alone. What a commitment!