Over the years, many films have laid claim to the distinction of being the longest of all time. Whether they’re making documentaries about a building decaying or just stitching random clips together to a feature length, filmmakers have slowly escalated their running times in a battle for this ignoble title. From 2006 to 2011, the record jumped from 95 hours to a whopping 10 days. There will always be arguments about what constitutes a film, but it appears that soon, the records will be annihilated.
Filmmaker Anders Weberg recently released a 72-minute-long trailer for Ambiancé, an experimental stream-of-consciousness film that he hopes will be the longest ever conceived. Its trailer already beats the length of some feature films, and Weberg plans to up the ante by releasing longer teasers every few years. The next trailer will run 7 hours and 20 minutes. Then one that’s 72 hours. The final film, scheduled for release in 2020, will run 720 hours, which comes 30 days. (Even more bizarrely, the film will only be screened once, then destroyed.)
No one will ever watch these films in their entirety, but the total insanity of creating an unwatchably long film seems to be the point. There’s likely a great meaning behind Ambiancé, possibly about impermanence and futility, but frankly it’s too big and weird to wrap our heads around.
If you want to learn more about Ambiancé, you can visit the official website. We’ve embedded the trailer above, but it will be removed in one week. (This is just a disclaimer so future generations will understand why there’s no picture in this post.)