Arquivo

“There once was a man. This man came into the European war. Germany captured this man. He wishes to return to India. If God has mercy, He will make peace soon. This man will go away from here.” Mall Singh’ cracking words are heard as he spoke into the phonographic funnel on 11th December 1916 in the city of W√ºnsdorf, near Berlin. 90 years later, Mall Singh is a number on an old record in an archive : one amongst hundreds of voices of colonial soldiers of the First World War. The recordings were produced as the result of a unique alliance between the military, the scientific community and the entertainment industry. In his experimental search, filmmaker Philip Scheffner follows the traces of theses voices to the origin of their recording. Like a memory game : which remains incomplete right until the end : he uncovers pictures and sounds that revive the ghosts of the past. His protagonists‚Äô words intersect along the concentric spirals the story follows. Those who pressed the record button on the phonographs, on photo and on film cameras were those ones to write the official history. Mall Singh and the other prisoners of war at the Halfmoon Camp disappeared from this story. Their spirits and ghostly appearances seem to play with the filmmaker, to ambush him. They pursue him on his path, to bring their voices back to their home countries.