23

Screening: 27 June, 6:30pm

Germany
1998

Director: Hans-Christian Schmid
Production co: Claussen & Wöebke Filmproduktion
Producers: Jakob Claussen, Thomas Wöebke
Screenplay: Hans-Christian Schmid, Michael Gutman
Cinematography: Klaus Eichhammer
Editor: Hansjrg Weissbrich
Sound: William Franck
Music: Norbot Jürgen Schneider
Karl Koch: August Diehl
David: Fabian Busch
Pepe: Dieter Landruis
Lupo: Jan-Gregor Kremp
Maiwald: Stephan Kampwirth
Sergej: Zbigniew Zamachowski
Brckner: Peter Fitz
In German with English subtitles
99 mins
16mm
Certificate TBA

In the eighties, German 19-year-old Karl Koch was involved in one the most notorious cases of electronic espionage. He and his friends penetrated military aerospace and arms industry databases, promptly selling the information they found to the KGB. 23 is the thrilling, true story of a daydreaming hacker who stumbles across a hidden world of intrigue, deception and danger.

Karl Koch is a devout believer in conspiracy theory and a passionate reader of the cult novel Illuminatus!, which advocates the existence of a secret society aimed at dominating the world through infiltration of its power centres. Karl admires and identifies with the fictitious renegade hero, Hagbard Celine. As the novel's far-fetched notions take hold of his impressionable mind, the line between his fantasy world and everyday reality becomes increasingly blurry.

Struggling to rationalise his wild convictions, Karl spends hours surfing through ostensibly secure networks. One night he discovers information that reinforces his belief in the existence of a political conspiracy. Karl is soon embroiled in a complex web of lies and double dealing, a shady universe of industrial espionage and drug trafficking. He begins to operate under the cryptonym Hagbard Celine, plummeting deeper into a state of paranoia. Is he a pawn in a potentially lethal political game, or a super-intelligent being guided by his personal codes of morality?

...Based on the true story, (the film is) a penetrating look into the boundless abyss of paranoia; it astonishes with its ability to convey the perturbed, self-destructive state of the young protagonist's mind.

Dimitri Eipides, Toronto International Film Festival 1998

Official Site
Internet Movie Database listing

Made available with the support of the Goethe Institute

Preceded by...

Science Fiction

Screening: 27 June, 6:30pm

USA
1979

Director: J. J. Murphy
5 mins
16mm

A recycled film that playfully explores the space-time continuum as it applies to narrative structure.

"J.J. Murphy's SCIENCE FICTION, a dazzling five-minute experimental fantasy that at first appears to be a 1950s travelog gone awry, features technical trickery that will impress and bewilder filmgoers and filmmakers."
Max J. Alvarez, Milwaukee Journal

"The second night's surprise was J.J. Murphy's wonderful SCIENCE FICTION. Made from a high school-level film on the effects of relativity, it was Murphy's insight to manipulate the footage and to add a moment here, delete a moment there."
Raymond Foery, Downtown Review

Awards: First Prize, Great Lakes Film Festival, 1980
NY Filmmakers' Exposition (tour), 1981
Ann Arbor Film Festival (tour), 1981.

Canterbury Film Society will be having our 2005 Annual General Meeting at this screeting immediately following the 6:30 screening of Science Fiction and 23 in Cinema 2 at Rialto. The required business of the AGM should take only 15 minutes or so - viewing and accepting last year's accounts and establishing the new committee - so please stick around if you have time and any interest in the running of the society. We need at least 10 attendees for quorum. And please, if you have any suggestions for how better to run the society or if you wish to be involved in the committee, don't hesitate to speak up! Any level of help is most appreciated, so don't feel bad if you could only help a little.

Cheers,
Ryan Rynolds
President