Home Invasion

Forum Expanded 2023

A nightmarish essay film on the history of the doorbell, tracing its invention and constant reinventions through 19th-century labour struggles, the nascent years of narrative cinema, and contemporary surveillance cultures. Along the way producing a terrifying portrait of the technological ideologies that have shaped our present and the nightmares of the people they emerged from.
Made in bed with a mixture of found materials from archival patent illustrations, domestic security footage to suspenseful horror movie clips, soundtracked by historical prepared-piano pieces and manipulated field recordings – the film asks what is to be done with machines that don’t work for us? With systems that hinder radical futures, that profit off convenience and use our fears against us. What happens when our homes and our dreams have been invaded?

by Graeme Arnfield United Kingdom 2023 English 92’ Colour & Black/White World premiere

Crew

Director	Graeme Arnfield
Screenplay	Graeme Arnfield
Editing	Graeme Arnfield
Producer	Graeme Arnfield

Produced by

Graeme Arnfield

Photos

Graeme Arnfield

Graeme Arnfield, born in 1991 in the UK, is an artist, filmmaker, and curator living in London. He graduated with a Masters in Experimental Cinema at Kingston University. Producing sensory essay films from found, often viscerally embodied networked imagery, his films use methods of investigative storytelling to explore issues of circulation, spectatorship, and history. Research topics have included: the politics of digital networks, the material distribution of ecological matter, and the adaptive capacities of global and local histories. His work has been screened in different film festivals around the world. His short film Asbestos (with Sasha Litvintseva, 2016) was part of the 2017 Forum Expanded program.

Filmography

2014 I'm Sorry I Have to Run; 16 min. 2015 Sitting in Darkness; 15 min. 2016 Colossal Cave; 10 min. · Colossal Cave; 11 min. · Asbestos; with Sasha Litvintseva, 19 min., Forum Expanded 2017 · Asbestos 2017 Shouting at the Ground; 17 min. 2018 Pedigree; 21 min. 2019 The Phantom Menace; 36 min., Forum Expanded 2020 · The Phantom Menace; 36 min. 2021 Pervading Animal; 31 min. 2022 Home Invasion

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2023