Some people have problems sitting through a 2-hour movie without falling asleep, but that’s merely a blink of an eye compared to Ambiencé, an upcoming film by Swedish director Anders Weberg, which will last for a whopping 720 hours. That’s 30 days of continuous screening time. After working in the field of visual arts for over two decades, Anders Weberg plans to end his career in 2020. But he wants to go out with a bang, by creating the longest film in the history of cinema. Called Ambiencé, the epic 720-hour work of art will be screened simultaneously on all continents, for one time only, after which the Swedish director plans to destroy all copies, so that it can never be screened again.

Photo: The Longest Film

If you’re hoping for a plat to keep you on the edge of your seat for 30 days, Ambiencé isn’t it. Weberg claims that his masterpiece is not a “scripted, dramaturgical piece”. “My process is that I collect glimpses of light with the camera and take that with me into the computer where the real work begins, taking all these glimpses and arranging and rearranging them into a flow that I feel represents the emotion I try to express,” the director writes. “There is a lot of post production behind it where I run all the captured material through numerous processes. I use After Effects for that part, so this will be for sure an ephemeral experience and the only thing that will remain is the memories of the little bits and parts the viewer got to see.”

Photo: The Longest Film

To set a new record for the longest film ever made, Anders Weberg needs to beat 2011’s Modern Times Forever, which lasts a respectable 240 hours. Technically, he has already done it, as last year he revealed that he had already filmed 400 hours of Ambiencé, claiming that he was in a good position to finish it by the scheduled date. He still has a ton of work ahead of him, though. “I have to completely finish at least 1 hour of edited film each week making my goal for now. That means I need 7-8 hours of raw material each week,” Weberg said.

Photo: The Longest Film

To give his audience a taste of what they can expect by watching the longest film in history, the Swedish artist has been releasing trailers since 2014. The first lasted only 7 minutes, which was way too short for a 720-hour film, but in 2016 he released a new trailer, this one 7-hours-long, and, in 2018, he plans to release the final trailer, which will take 72 hours to watch from start to finish. Interestingly, Ambiencé will feature around 100 actors, some of which Weberg has worked with in the past and some contracted only for this movie, but it may have no dialogue at all. The director say he hasn’t put in any dialogue in the over 400 hours he’s made so far, and may skip it for the entire thing. He claims dialogue is overused in cinema these days, like beats in music, and that it is not needed to send a message.

 

Anders Weberg has been working on the film pretty much by himself, and is also the only one funding the project. He says that experience has taught him that once you accept someone else’s money, you lose control and are forced to make concessions.