The Gteborg film festival has stunts. It has featured screenings for a single audience member at a North Sea lighthouse, as well as coffin screenings in which lucky viewers were buried inside a sarcophagus to enhance their sensory empathy.
The entire audience is going to be hypnotised for three screenings at the festival. A hypnotist will perform on stage to transform the audience's state of mind in accordance with the movie.
The spell would be broken after the screening. They didn't comment on what would happen if the hypnotist was unavailable between the opening and closing credits, or what effect it would have on audience members who might need to access the bathroom during the film.
Memoria is the most prominent of the films, it is a near dialogue-free English language debut for its Thai director, and it has Tilda Swinton playing the only person on Earth who can hear new sonic booms.
The experiment was intended to raise questions about submission, transgression and control, which were more pertinent during the Pandemic.
He said that watching a film in the cinema can be very relaxing. It is much harder to maintain focus at home when you have a tablet. The experience of watching films at the movie theatre is an extension of the Hypnotic Cinema.
The Goteborg film festival runs for 10 days.
