The Halfmoon Files (2009)

Synopsis: Mall Singh’s crackling words are heard as he spoke into the phonographic funnel on December 11, 1916 in the city of Wünsdorf, near Berlin. 90 years later, Singh is a number on an old Shellac record... Mall Singh’s crackling words are heard as he spoke into the phonographic funnel on December 11, 1916 in the city of Wünsdorf, near Berlin. 90 years later, Singh is a number on an old Shellac 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 THE HALFMOON FILES, Philip Scheffner follows the traces of these 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’ words intersect along the concentric spirals the story follows. Those who pressed the record button on the phonographs, on photo and film cameras, were the ones to write the official history.

Mall Singh and the other prisoners of war of the Halfmoon Camp disappeared from this story. Their spirits and ghostly appearances pursue the filmmaker on his path, urging him to return their voices to their homelands. Yet the story of these ghosts escapes the control of the narrator. And the ghosts do not disperse. --© Anthology [More]

Director: Philip Scheffner

Director: Philip Scheffner
Studio: Anthology Archives