Willem Baptist
INSTANT DREAMS is a mind-bending cinematic journey across time and space. The film is a poetic, otherworldly adventure about Polaroids, the impact of future predictions and the necessity of dreams, blurring the line between memories and the imagination. INSTANT DREAMS tells the story of those who eagerly await the rebirth of the classic and recognizable Polaroid photo, and of scientists who are trying to unravel the secrets of the mysterious chemical formula. Each in their own way tries to keeps their instant dream alive. The characters we meet along the way in their journey…
Stefanie Schneider – a free-spirited successful German artist lives in a Polaroid picture-world out in the Californian desert. Her Polaroids are visions of her dreams. As her stock, essentially her lifeblood, runs out, we are treated to one of her last shoots. In New York the scholarly Christopher Bonanos, an editor at New York Magazine, wrote a book on the history of the Polaroid that tries to capture his relationship with his young son. Stephen Herchen, a retired chemist who worked alongside the Polaroid’s inventor, left his family int he US to finish what he started. In his lab in Germany, and in a factory in The Netherlands, he tries to unravel the formula. At night he ponders on what he describes as the chemically most complex manmade thing ever made – something akin to a living organism. Meanwhile in in Tokyo a young girl is just starting to discover it all…Their lives are strangely connected, each in their own way compelled not to let the medium die. In each character we encounter suspense, mystery, quirkiness and humour. We observe touching moments and partake in surreal situations.
Like Polaroids, themselves, we are chemical beings full of unexpected chemical reactions. The emotions we project onto these small canvasses are like mirrors onto our own imagination, or a culmination of our fuzzy memories. Ultimately the Polaroid picture in INSTANT DREAMS is a metaphor and a window into our need and desire to capture and keep evolving reality.
