Interkosmos

SYNOPSIS
Jim Finn has made a name for himself in recent years as a short film maker, thanks to his feeling for irony and his capacity to shape something new from propaganda, news and other historic images. Not to forget his very dry sense of humour. Two years ago, he was given a grant for a short musical film about a secret space project in the early 1970s involving an attempt by East German cosmonauts and their allies to establish socialist colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. As Finn got on with building his models and the shooting days approached, his project started to grow. He couldn’t complete it alone, however, so he received help from various different quarters. The result is his first full-length film, filled with plot theories, guinea pigs and beautiful miniature sets, unique visual and above all sound material: hip choreographed musical numbers in which you can see that the makers have wrestled their way through the entire oeuvre of Busby Berkeley, with retro 1970s music that makes it difficult to stop tapping your feet. There are also moments of tranquillity in the almost abstract scenes about the infinity and banality of German-language space travel.
- International Film Festival Rotterdam

ABOUT THE MUSIC
The music for the film was created by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke with additional drum parts by Jim White and additional vocals by Jiha Lee. Besides writing and touring with his band Califone, Jim Becker most recently has toured with the bands Freakwater and the Dirty Three. As well as playing piano in the band We Ragazzi, Colleen Burke recently toured with Smog and is currently collaborating with filmmaker Eve Sussman to develop a musical film in Miami. Jiha Lee has sang and played flute with Bright Eyes and The Good Life. Dirty Three drummer Jim White has toured and recorded with Cat Power, Nick Cave, Will Oldham and recently played percussion on the score of Nick Cave\'s film The Proposition.

SELECTED PRESS
“Jim Finn’s Interkosmos, a retro gust of Communist utopianism, is set to open the New York Underground Film Festival on March 8. A cosmonaut romance set aboard a 1970s East German space mission to colonize the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, Interkosmos weaves together lovingly faked archival footage, charmingly undermotivated musical numbers, propagandistic maxims (“Capitalism is like a kindergarten of boneless children”), stop-motion animation (of a suitably crude GDR-era level), a Teutonic (and vaguely Herzogian) voiceover, and a superb garage-y Kraut-rock score (by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke). Finn’s deadpan is immaculately bone-dry, and his antiquarian fastidiousness is worthy of Guy Maddin.”
- Dennis Lim, The Village Voice

“Poker-faced, often hilarious, and endlessly inventive, this minimalist mockumentary by Chicago filmmaker Jim Finn uses a few established facts to invent a wild narrative about an international communist project to establish colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Finn gets some of his giddiest effects filming his own animals and SF miniatures, imagining a letter written by an Indian astronaut on holiday to a colleague (“P. S. I have bought a hammock that smells of goat and Mexico”), and creating a solemn radio communication about “The Trolley Song.” In short, this is very special. Colleen Burke and Jim Becker wrote the delightful percussive score.
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

\"A delightfully tongue-in-cheek homage to a fictional East German space project, Jim Finn’s “Interkosmos” uses recreated newsreels combined with musical interludes to resurrect the ‘70s in all its Brezhnev-era glory... Color footage is suitably tinged orange-pink with age, and music and art direction are impeccable; as a final tease, exit music is longer than in “Gone With the Wind.”
- Jay Weissberg, Variety

Best Shoestring Sci-Fi of 2006 - WIRED Magazine

Best Undistributed Films of 2006 - indieWIRE

The DVD comes in a beautiful hand-assembled package with letterpressed cover.