In Event of Moon Disaster
2019 · 7m · USA
Directed by Francesca Panetta, Halsey Burgund
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: dark, melancholic, provocative
Using deepfake technology, this short film imagines an alternate history in which the Apollo 11 moon landing failed, presenting a synthetic but eerily convincing video of President Nixon delivering the real contingency speech prepared for that scenario.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Deepfake Nixon delivering the never-given Apollo 11 contingency speech — this is the rare gimmick film with a real point and real teeth. Yes.
The MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality deploying deepfake Nixon to deliver the real never-given Apollo 11 contingency speech — this is a Harun Farocki-adjacent media-archaeology gesture and an important artifact of the deepfake era. Conceptually first-rate.
Seven minutes of fully deepfaked Nixon delivering the real never-given Apollo 11 contingency speech, produced by MIT's Center for Advanced Virtuality — that's an art-installation-grade conceptual piece whose entire point is the technical execution. Vimeo gated the page but the MIT pedigree is enough.
Reviews
So persuasive it leaves Kubrick far behind — manages to be both frightening, in showing how convincing deepfakes can be, and, however paradoxically, inspiring.
Watch the disturbing MIT deepfake video of Nixon announcing Apollo 11 tragedy — meant to serve as a warning of the coming wave of impressively realistic deepfake false videos.
Festivals
- IDFA DocLab 2019, Special Jury Award for Creative Technology
- Tribeca Film Festival 2020
- Cannes XR 2020
- Emmy Awards 2021, Emmy Award for Interactive Media Documentary