WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
WATCH THE FULL FILM MANIFESTATION HERE:
MANIFESTATION
Info: / Duration 17min / Language English / Black & White / Aspect Ratio 16:9 / Digital 4K / Year 2019 /
With Subtitles in these languages:
English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, Polish, Dutch. Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Greek, Czech, Slovenian, Slovak, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonian.
– To Select Subtitles click on the CC button in the player.
READ A REVIEW OF THE FILM BY CULT CRITIC
PRESSKIT FOR MANIFESTATIONBOOKLET FOR MANIFESTATIONFILM MERCHANDISE SHOP ON REBUBBLE
Are you from a festival, gallery, museum, tv station, curator, press or other and want more information? Contact me by clicking here Mail to Danny and I will be happy to assist you.
FESTIVALS & RECOGNITION:
M.A.D.S MILANO 2019-2020 WORLD PREMIER AND SHOWING EXCLUSIVE : Link to Gallery.
Won best amateur film at CALCUTTA INTERNATIONAL CULT FILM FESTIVAL September 2019: Link to Festival
The film was a part of the Official Selection at South Film and Arts Academy Festival: Link to Festival
Selected for the monthly edition of November at MIAMI INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL: Link to Festival
Became Finalist at CULT CRITIC MOVIE AWARDS and won Best Poster: Link to Festival
Semi-Finalist as Best Short Experimental and Best Film Poster at the Winter Edition of the Alternative Film Festival in Toronto: Link to Festival
Winner of the THE GOLDEN FOX AWARD 2020 by Calcutta International Cult Film Festival, India: Link to Festival
A full page review from Cult Critic Magazine: Link to Magazine
Winning pre-awards for Best Actor & Best Poster at Berlin Underground Film Festival: Link to Festival
Winning monthly gold award at Virgin Spring Cine Fest: Link to Festival
Official Selection of L.A. Punk Film Festival 2020: Link to Festival
Official Selection of WIPE Amateur Film Festival in Berlin 2020: Link to Festival
Official Selection of BLOW UP INTERNATIONAL ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL in Chicago 2020: Link to Festival
Winner, Best Film, Best Script and Best Sound at SHORT INVICTUS Festival in Portugal 2020: Link to Festival.
Winner of the GOLDEN GALAXY AWARD 2020, by Virgin Spring Cine Fest: : Link to Festival
Nominee at CULT MOVIES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: Link to Festival
Nominee at EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL: Link to Festival
Award Winner at San Francisco Arthouse Short Festival: Winner Best Original Script, August 2022. Link to Festival
Nominee at Austin International Art Film Festival: Link to festival
Winner New York Neorealism Film Awards: Best European Director and Best Arthouse Film. Link to Festival
Short review by Prarthana Mitra from Cult Critic Magazine
MANIFESTATION – DANNY GERMANSEN (DENMARK)
Manifestation is a cautionary tale against ‘othering’ disabled people from mainstream spaces and dialogue. In this semi-autobiographical art-house short, disabled filmmaker Danny Germansen also metaphorically depicts his own personal struggles before he had discovered his place in society and his penchant for filmmaking. In a way, therefore, the film is also a work of true inspiration – marking the successful culmination of Germansen’s video-art therapy to cope with trauma and abuse.
Shot in monochrome, this avant-garde piece of work focuses on a mentally-ill man who is driven to revenge as he feels neglected by his family and society at large. Germansen also addresses seminal geopolitical issues like white supremacy, capitalist exploitation and climate change to present the nihilistic worldview of a social outcast who is overwrought by loneliness, isolation and alienation from society. The film asks a fundamental question: “When life is meaningless and everything is hopeless, where do you go?”
Synopsis:
“WHEN LIFE IS MEANINGSLESS AND EVERYTHING IS HOPELESS… WHERE DO YOU GO?”
“A MENTALLY ILL PERSON FEELS NEGLECTED BY SOCIETY AND TAKES REVENGE”
INSPIRED BY THE LIFE OF DANNY GERMANSEN
Manifestation is an semi-autobiographical art-house short film about a mentally ill person who takes revenge on society because he feels neglected by his family, the social system, the community around him, and Society in general. He was mentally abused as a kid and adult by a psychopathic father. The film draws parallels to the environmental issues of the present and to the white supremacy that created our capitalist society that we live in today. It’s a tale of a social outcast who suffered weltschmerz and lived a life of loneliness, alienation and isolation in a society that is emotionally desolated. During the 17-minute film, the viewer experiences a nihilistic view of the world from the social outcast’s point of view.
Artist Statement by Danny Germansen:
In 1998 I had to stop my education at European Film College and go back home to my birth town. I had to stop school because of problems I was not aware of before now, here over 20 years later.
What I returned home to was my broken family. My parents’ divorce years before and my father’s recent bankruptcy that was caused by his alcoholism.
My father’s deviant lifestyle was not helping the fact that I had been an invalid and handicapped since I was 9 years old; and had spent most of my childhood in and out of hospitals. Still, I fought my way back to school and my good friends with a lot of physiotherapy training.
I had been living in a family that was full of narcissist and psychopaths, which I was not aware of until 20 years later after my father’s death and after many years of work with a psychologist. Now when I make this film, I can see what happened to me.
My childhood was full of neglect and mental abuse. I had to live with mental violence combined with all my illnesses. And the only way to live with big egos is to brake your own ego, bow your head down, and try to fit in, just for a chance to survive. Just to get through the day.
So the neglect made me feel worthless. And every time somebody showed me that I had value, I was not able to handle that emotion and always fled the scene; and also, without being aware of it, pushed good people around me away. Those were positive emotions, and I could not handle them. And I would go into a panic and hide myself.
This happened when I was 21 years old and I isolated myself in my apartment. I was depressed that life had not worked out as it could have happened – if I was not neglected as a child I would have been able to finish my education and live the life I was supposed to. A lot of loving and friendly people tried to help me and wanted me as a friend to work in art and in film. And that’s where my problems caused by the neglect had a devastating effect on my life. I had just turned 21 years old. But I pushed all those friendly people away and ended up isolated in a small apartment used and abused by my alcoholic father.
During the period of my isolation and depression, people I knew started to ignore me, avoid me and dislike me. Some of them were mean. They used my illnesses to mock me and put me down so they could feel stronger and better than me the same way my father would do. This kind of behaviour made my loneliness and isolation complete!
It is that period of my life that inspired this film.
I spent 20 years to work myself out of the situation by using making short films and video-art as therapy: That work can be seen on this webpage.
Cast & Crew:
MAREK MAGIERECKI as X – The Lead Character
MIKKEL W. KNUDSEN as Upperclass Man / People in Dream / Shooting Victim #4
BIANCA KLINGENBERG-DUPONT as Angry Frisbee Girl
SUZANA LUNGU as Girl who Connect / People in Dream / Shooting Victim #1
ASK BRINK as Homeless Person
ELVIRA KLINGENBERG-DUPONT as Cowgirl
LÆRKE BRINK as Store Clerk / People on Street
SIGRID BRINK as Shooting Victim #2 / People on Street
BENJAMIN DALL as Shooting Victim #3 / People on Street
KEVIN HANSEN LEWANDOWSKI as People in Dream / Shooting Victim #5 / People on street
OLE BARKENTIN LAURITZEN as Father in Dream
HERDIS BRINK as People on Street
KRISTIAN BRINK as People on Street
Director of Photography : STEFFEN GRAUMANN
Original Soundtrack by DARIA BAIOCCHI
Sound & Light : STEFFEN GRAUMANN
Color Grading & Sound Mastering : STEFFEN GRAUMANN
Written / Produced / Directed & Edited by DANNY GERMANSEN
Subtitles Translation:
Daria Baiocchi: Italian
Lizet Benrey: Spanish
Marek Magierecki: Polish
Alberto Guerreiro: Portuguese
An Behind the Scene video with still photography by SUZANA LUNGU
