Short review by Prarthana Mitra
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?”
