IMAGINING A FUTURE-WEST / JUST ANOTHER COUNTRY
“The Collapse of the West” has always been a “problematic” concept, usually wielded by right-wing ideologues as an all-purpose scare tactic to oppose diversity, change, and openness. But what if the decline and fall of the West is far more mundane than apocalyptic? What if a nation like the United States, ever convinced of its own “exceptionalism”, turns out to be just another country? (And what a relief would that be?) Here we present various ways to imagine the future of the West – from bleak ghost town to neo-pastoral experiment and beyond. [Introduced by Starlee Kine (Writer/Producer, This American Life radio show)]
I hate Karl Marx – Rainer Ganahl (Germany 2010, 05:43 min)
In the Europe of the future, Karl Marx’s legacy comes back to haunt him in the form of an angry young woman cursing him in Mandarin.
Ghosts with Shit Jobs – Chris McCawley, Jim Morrison, Jim Munroe, Tate Young (Canada 2012, excerpt)
This Econocollapse mockumentary by novelists, comic writers and game developers Chris McCawley, Jim Morrison, Jim Munroe, and Tate Young profiles a down-on-its-luck North American city, through the concerned eyes of a Chinese news program.
The Woods – Matthew Lessner (USA 2011, excerpt)
In a collision of hipster culture and “Lord of the Flies”, emerging film- maker Matthew Lessner posits a futuristic forest where Western youth work to remake civilisation – they may be hapless, but at least they’re stylish.