THE CASE OF THE VANISHING GODS

a new feature film from the maker of NOTFILM

 

Vanishing

WATCH THE TRAILER

 

Who is the mysterious DOCTOR LABYRINTH,
and who is his tormented AMNESIAC PATIENT?

What is their deeper connection to the ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS?

And why do they all have strings coming out of their heads??

THE ANSWERS LIE IN THE DEPTHS OF

PsychoWard

 

A FICTION / DOC HYBRID EXPLORING THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS
OF OUR UNCONSCIOUS MINDS, AS SEEN IN CLIPS
FROM CLASSIC AND NOT-SO-CLASSIC WORKS OF CINEMA


Disguised as a sci-fi TV series, integrating live actors with vintage and artist-made puppets, The Case of the Vanishing Gods expands the possibility of archival documentary and pushes the essay film into exciting new territory.


The story:

Our host, DOCTOR LABYRINTH encounters a ventriloquist's dummy with a troubled past. Only through the Doctor's most daring efforts can HUGO learn the nature of his troubles -- a process that takes them on a rollercoaster journey through the history of ventriloquism, from the prophetic tradition to the present day.

 

WORLD PREMIERE AUGUST 2021:

Locarno



Featuring DAVID ISAACSON as Doctor Labyrinth

and JEFF DORCHEN (voice) and KARL HERLINGER (controls) as Hugo

Lead Puppeteer: AUDREY DENSMORE

Music by MIHALY VIG

Written, Photographed, Directed and Edited by ROSS LIPMAN

 

Winner, Selezione Pixel (awarded by Corriere Del Ticino to the three most innovative films in the Locarno Film Festival 2021)

"a black phantasmagoria on the relationship between cinema and ventriloquism in which puppet theater meets animation and Greek tragedy borders on horror.... The film enters a dimension between history, spirituality and the unconscious which, through a diversity of animation techniques, ventures to the very origins of ventriloquism." - Sylvia Nugara, Il Manifesto

"Ross Lipman, one of the most important contemporary independent cinema innovators, explores a fraction of film culture with surprising freedom, cutting, stretching and creating a unique collage of history, cinema, and ventriloquist art. There is no shortage of fear, and plenty of liberating laughter. The Case of the Vanishing Gods sets a clear direction for independent cinema, establishing the increasingly important role of essay films beyond the mainstream cinema."
- Mateusz Tarwacki, Zawieszony

"Horror and psychoanalysis join in a beautiful, creative and damned disturbing work." - Alessio Gradogna, Orizzonti di Gloria

"a welcome experience that skillfully assembles, repurposes and recycles archival images to produce new sensations. Lipman confirms his talent as a film essayist, already displayed in NOTFILM and BETWEEN TWO CINEMAS. A great essay film."
- Monica Delgado, Desistfilm

"I thought I'd outgrown my fear of sentient dolls on a murderous rampage, but now I need to re-evaluate that belief. One thing's for sure, if I ever saw a doll coming at me and go under a bed/sofa, there is no way I'd bend down to look under it because that way only leads to pain."
- Cara-Lynn Branch, Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal

"One of the most original essay film artists now working in the U.S. I don't know another body of work even remotely similar to his."
- Thom Andersen