Directed by Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujică
Original title: Videogramme einer Revolution
Germany, 1992, 106 minutes.

For Videograms of a Revolution Andrei Ujica and Harun Farocki collected amateur video and material broadcast by Romanian state television after it was taken over by demonstrators in December 1989. The audio and video represent the historic first-ever revolution in which television played a major role. The film’s protagonist is contemporary history itself. 

“We get all of the broadcast glitches, unedited feeds, power-grabbing chaos, and epochal please-stand-by ellipses; as civilians literally defend the TV station with combat rifles, unidentified counter-revolutionary snipers hole up in massive and empty high-rise buildings the dictator had built and then abandoned. The sense of exhilarating liberation and history made as we watch is consistently leavened by the weird distance, between citizens and their own revolt, occupied by TV cameras and monitors. By the end of the week, and the Ceausescus’ executions, nothing is real — or historical — until it is seen on television.” — Michael Atkinson, Village Voice