Metropolis x Kinetophone

Steaming machines, a bionic woman, and a cityscape that looks surprisingly familiar in 2026: since 1927, Metropolis was the image people had of the future for half a century. With the most expensive silent film ever produced, Fritz Lang created an iconic classic in which technology and city life took centre stage. Underneath it all lay a class struggle that certainly stemmed from the ideas of Karl Marx, but which still seems painfully relevant today. Between 1927 and 1936, the film was cut and a large part of it was even lost, with each screening lasting only 91 minutes, until an intact copy was found in a film archive in Argentina in 2008.

The ideas and impact of Metropolis lie mainly in the images: science fiction was rarely so far ahead of its time. Even now, the city scenes still look futuristic; you can see a blueprint of how later blockbusters such as Star Wars and Blade Runner were designed. This restored film print is accompanied by live music by KINETOPHONE, which underlines the retrofuturism and, like Metropolis, draws on the contrast between natural and mechanical, organic and synthetic... Man... and machine!