Filmoteka Muzeum

Industrial Regression (1990) is one of Marcelo Zammenhoff’s last works shot on 8 mm film. He comments on the piece as follows: “This time, it is a narrative epopee devoted to a structure which has a symbolic meaning for me, and which used to greet visitors entering Warsaw by train from the east: the monumental gasholder in Rembertów. A strange thing happened during its demolition. Two workers fell down 80 metres along with the gasholder’s entire dome; one of them died at the scene, the other survived uninjured. This filmic story, which also features magical-campy scenes (albeit unintentional), became a pretext to weave an atmospheric, dreamlike tale. Notably, it was a period of my extensive experiments with hallucinogens. During the first screening at the Museum of Artists in Łódź (ca 1992), organised by Józef Robakowski, I was weaving that story live in front of the microphone to the soundtrack of Esplendor Geometrico’s music from a tape recorder. The film was later copied to a VHS tape with a simultaneously added soundtrack. It is the only version preserved until today (the original 8 mm film was stolen).”

(ND)