Cabinet - film/animation short, 18 mins 20secs shot in Montana, Wyoming and London's Bethnal Green.

Cabinet is a film/animation first premiered at the 36th International Rotterdam Film Festival (2006), the catalogue of which emphasised that the organisers regarded film/animation shorts as significant in themselves regardless of whether they constituted “a prelude” to later feature length work.

The aim of Cabinet was to develop an episodic narrative which tells the story of the extreme effects of modern living on Ted Kaczynski, better known as the ‘Unabomber’, and at the same time evoke the contrast between his deeds and the poetry of his domestic surroundings in Montana. Kaczynski’s mission was a one-man terrorist crusade against the erosion of freedom. His targets included universities and industrial magnates. His legacy is a lengthy manuscript Industrial Society and its Future. Part of Cabinet’s narrative is the journey of the manuscript as it is typed, word-processed, made into a media-story, reprinted and replayed. It communicated the workings of history as the manuscript passed from the private to the public spheres and from an individual’s private battle to a national scandal.

Archive research identified an authentic film location in Montana, 1940s Movietone News footage, a vintage typewriter and soundtrack extracts including birdsong recordings from Cornell University, a recording of the Shaker song ‘Encouragement’, and a Richard Wagner composition based on the old German carol ‘O Tannnenbaum’ (O Christmas Tree).

Cabinet was screened at numerous venues including the Centraal Museum in Utrecht as part of the 17th Impact Festival, at Lincoln Centre New York Video Festival, at the 5th Hull Film Festival and at the Transmediale07 Festival for Art and Digital Culture, Berlin (prize winner) as well as at the touring programme, which includes the Multi-Media Arts International Lab & Forum, Beijing.

http://www.transmediale.de/site/award/

LAFDA funded the production costs, John Wynne mastered the soundtrack and it is distributed by LUX/Vertigo.