World on a wire


The Institute for Cybernetics and Futurology’s most important project is
Simulacron 1 – an electronic monster designed to put ordinary computer
technology on an entirely new plane. Simulacron is able to make accurate
predictions of social, economic and political events as if they were really
happening in the present. This feature makes Simulacron of interest to two
groups of people: those who are keen to improve living conditions in the
future, and those who are hoping for information that will give them an
advantage over their competitors. The research project’s initiator and director
is Professor Vollmer who, however, dies suddenly, in mysterious circumstances.
His death is quickly agreed to have been suicide – after all, shortly
before his death he did show signs of a strange mental illness – and Siskins,
the institute’s powerful head, appoints Dr Stiller as the scientist’s successor.

However, Stiller’s colleagues soon begin to detect similarly bizarre symptoms
in the new project director. Stiller attempts to forget his problems by
throwing himself into his work on Simulacron. To him, Simulacron is not just
a lifeless machine but a whole microcosm and, although he knows that the
so-called "identity units" are simply the result of electronic processes they
sometimes look just like real people. Is Stiller schizophrenic? Many would
seem to think so. But then, one day, during a routine transfer of his consciousness
into the Simulacron′s chip, Stiller thinks he may have spotted an
old acquaintance. – This Berlinale screening marks the theatrical premiere
of the restored version of this film.

Source: 60. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)