Holofiction
Experimental/Documentary/Essay • Germany/Austria 2025 • 102 min
a film by Michal Kosakowski
Music by Paolo Marzocchi
Holofiction is an experimental film that explores the visual representation of the Holocaust through a montage of thousands of excerpts from fictional films and television series produced between 1938 and the present.
Official Trailer
Synopsis
Drawing from an extensive archive of over 3,000 narrative works HOLOFICTION critically examines how Holocaust imagery has been codified and reproduced in cinema across decades. The film exposes recurring visual motifs and narrative patterns that have become iconic in the portrayal of the Holocaust. Inspired by Claude Lanzmann’s skepticism toward visual representations of historical trauma, the film questions the possibility and implications of depicting such an atrocity in fictional cinema. Through its essayistic approach, HOLOFICTION invites audiences to reflect on the ethics and responsibility of cinematic storytelling, urging a deeper understanding of how these representations shape collective memory and historical perception.
Director’s Statement
“Fiction is a transgression and it is my deepest conviction that any representation [of the Holocaust] is forbidden.”
– Claude Lanzmann (1925–2018), on the possibility of representing the Shoah in fiction, upon the release of Schindler’s List (1993)
Using this statement as a point of departure, my film reconstructs the chronology of the Holocaust through images drawn entirely from cinema. World War II and the Holocaust are among the most frequently portrayed historical events in film history. The sheer volume of fictionalized material created around them is immense.
It is precisely the tension between Lanzmann’s call for a prohibition against fictionalizing the Holocaust and the existence of a vast body of such fictions that inspired my research—and ultimately led to the creation of an experimental film composed of cinematic depictions that, in Lanzmann’s view, should never have been made.
From these “transgressions” I extract film clips in which actors—both celebrated and unknown—have portrayed victims and perpetrators alike. In HOLOFICTION, these actors encounter themselves across roles, films, and contexts, revealing the strange afterlives of performance within this historical framework.
My film also aims to expose and interrogate the iconographic patterns that persist in cinematic representations of the Holocaust. By assembling and juxtaposing scenes from a wide range of film archives, I seek to examine how notions of authenticity are constructed and repeated in our visual memory of historical events.
The representation of politics, history, and violence in media has long been a core focus of my work as a filmmaker and media artist. I have been deeply engaged with the interconnected subjects of World War II and the Holocaust for many years. With HOLOFICTION, I wish especially to reach a younger audience—one that often feels its knowledge of these topics is limited, particularly in a world shaped by ongoing societal transformation and radicalization.
As the generation of eyewitnesses gradually disappears, I believe it is more urgent than ever to offer new forms and proposals for how we remember.
Michal Kosakowski
Festivals/Venues
82nd Venice Film Festival • World Premiere / Competition • Venice Classics - Documentary on Cinema • 27 August - 6 September 2025
DARK TOURISM is a research-based artistic project conceived and developed by Michal Kosakowski. Comprising ten thematically interrelated sub-projects, it investigates the visual representation of World War II and the Holocaust in contemporary media and collective memory. Central to the project is a critical examination of the image as a site of meaning production, ideological projection, and cultural negotiation.
Through this inquiry, DARK TOURISM aims to uncover the mechanisms by which visual media shape historical consciousness, and to challenge established narratives and aesthetic conventions. The project seeks to open up new perspectives on how traumatic histories are mediated, circulated, and consumed—particularly in an age marked by image saturation and digital reproducibility.
Simultaneously, it serves as a response to the growing skepticism toward scientific knowledge. By combining rigorous visual analysis with sensorial, affective modes of presentation, DARK TOURISM endeavors to render complex historical and epistemological questions both accessible and experientially tangible—thus bridging the gap between academic discourse and public engagement.
www.darktourism.org
Credits
Produced by
Uli Aigner
Michal Kosakowski
Written, edited and directed by
Michal Kosakowski
Music composed by
Paolo Marzocchi
Sound design and additional music
Andrea Veneri
Music performed by
WunderKammer Orchestra
Conducted by
Paolo Marzocchi
Mezzosoprano
Valentina Coladonato
Solo viola and voice
Danusha Waskiewicz
Flute
Michele Benini
Saxophones
Francesca Virgil
Federica Paoli
Clarinets
Michele Fontana
Marco Messa
Bassoon and contrabassoon
Alex Rossi
Horn
Marco Elia Righi
Trumpet
Tommaso Scarpellini
Trombone
Giovanni Ricciardi
Accordion
Raffaele Damen
Harp
Rebecca Vian
Percussions
Ivan Gambini
Rosa Pitino
Giosuè Scarponi
Violin
Simona Cavuoto
Viola
Darya Filippenko
Cello
Ulyana Skoroplyas
Contrabass
Anna Tedaldi
Choir of treble voices
Novello InCanto
Scuola Media Statale “Guido Novello” Ravenna, Class III.c
Sara Ballanti, Lucia Cavicchioli, Alice Dirani, Lucia Gigliucci, Elena Miglietta, Isabella Miglietta, Emma Mucciarella, Breanna Perez, Adja Sene, Bianca Spitali, Ilenia Zafferano
Conducted by
Elisabetta Agostini
Music orchestrated by
Paolo Marzocchi
Additional orchestrations
Gabriel De Pace
Damiano Ferretti
Music recorded and edited in
Applied Music Department
Conservatorio Statale “Giuseppe Verdi” Ravenna
Music editors
Alessio Mastrorillo
Paolo Marzocchi
Andrea Veneri
Mixing engineers
Alessio Mastrorillo
Andrea Veneri
Assistant mixing engineer
Omar Vaenti
Original soundtrack published by
SZ Sugar
and distributed by SZ Sugar under exclusive license to
Creazioni Artistiche Musicali C.A.M. Srl
Concept and research
Michal Kosakowski
Creative consultant
Uli Aigner
Scientific consultant
Marcus Stiglegger
Film historian and copyright researcher
Elias Savada
Language consultants
Goran Mimica
Therese Davies
Research assistants
Elżbieta Kosakowska
Tom McCallie
Legal consultant
Andreas Schardt
Business affairs
Andrea Staerke
Title design
Rafal Kosakowski
Post production and mastering
Holger Hummel / Celluloid VFX
Tobias Schaarschmidt
Supported by
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
Kulturland Niederösterreich
Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich
Additional support by
Ursula Sax
Carla Rotaeche Imaz
John Benad
Bruno C. Choquet-Despicq
Michael A. W. Scherz
Elias Savada
Georg Folian
Gerhild Stangl
With the kind support of
Rainer Rother & Peter Mänz
Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen
