FORGOTTEN SPACE

By Noel BURCH, Allan SEKULA

WILDART FILM - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2009

The sea is forgotten until disaster strikes. But perhaps the biggest seagoing disaster is the global supply chain, which – maybe in a more fundamental way than financial speculation – leads the world economy to the abyss.
The Forgotten Space follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and

Festivals
& Awards

La Biennale di Venezia - Venice FF 2010
Orizzonti Orizzonti Special Jury Prize (full-length films)
    • Year of production
    • 2009
    • Genres
    • Documentary
    • Countries
    • NETHERLANDS
    • Languages
    • ENGLISH
    • Budget
    • 1 - 3 M$
    • Duration
    • 90 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Noel BURCH, Allan SEKULA
    • Writer(s)
    • Noel BURCH, Allan SEKULA
    • Producer(s)
    • Joost VERHEY (Doc Eye Film), Frank VAN REEMST (Doc Eye Film), Ebba SINZINGER (WILDart Film), Vincent LUCASSEN (WILDart Film)
    • Synopsis
    • The Forgotten Space follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and trucks, listening to workers, engineers, planners, politicians, and those marginalized by the global transport system. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-ships shuttling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China, whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. And in Bilbao, we discover the most sophisticated expression of the belief that the maritime economy, and the sea itself, is somehow obsolete.
      A range of materials is used: descriptive documentary, interviews, archive stills and footage, clips from old movies. The result is an essayistic, visual documentary about one of the most important processes that affects us today. The Forgotten Space is based on Sekula’s Fish Story, seeking to understand and describe the contemporary maritime world in relation to the complex symbolic legacy of the sea.
    • Partners & financing
    • VPRO
      Austrian Filminstitute
      ORF
      Eurimages
    • Beginning of shooting
    • Feb 01, 2009