Two days before 11 September 2001, Commander Massoud, the most credible opponent to the Taliban, was murdered. Two al-Qaida suicide bombers posing as journalists killed him with an exploding camera. The connection between his assassination and 9/11 is certain, but this act has been almost completely forgotten because of the magnitude of the events a few days later.

Constructed with the dissected body of a video camera lying on a table, Exploding Camera is a kind of destroyed medium able to produce live an experimental historical film reinterpreting the events of the war since 2001. The video images are produced live by direct illumination of the camera’s light sensor. Dots of light spread throughout the space, are recorded by the camera and trigger light explosions.

By using theatrical methods and turning the exhibition space into an experimental film studio thought of as a battlefield, the “exploding camera” expresses the stupidity and importance of the actual facts in relation to a historic fact and through its process of image production.

Co-produced by the Rotterdam Film Festival 2007