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The Light Bulb Conspiracy | |
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Directed by | Cosima Dannoritzer |
Written by | Cosima Dannoritzer |
Produced by |
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Cinematography | Marc Martinez Sarrado |
Edited by | Georgia Wyss |
Music by |
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Production companies |
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Distributed by | Banijay Rights [1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 75 minutes |
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The Light Bulb Conspiracy, also known as Pyramids of Waste, [2] is a 2010 documentary film written and directed by Cosima Dannoritzer. An international co-production of France and Spain, the documentary thematizes the planned obsolescence of industrial products for commercial reasons.
The film documents planned obsolescence in industrial production, i.e. the deliberate limitation by manufacturers of the lifespan of their products in order to thereby secure the sale of replacement and follow-up products. In addition to describing concrete examples, the film also deals with the economic and ecological consequences of consumer society. Among others, the French economist and philosopher Serge Latouche has his say as a representative of the concept of degrowth.
The film screened internationally at numerous film festivals as well as on television and was broadcast on German television several times on Arte [3] [4] and Phoenix [5] starting in 2011. In the same year, it ran as a side event at the European Commission's Green Week. [6]
Internationally, it was shown with the following titles:
Three years after the premiere of the film, the documentary was published as a book.
Arte is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
Mark Achbar is a Canadian filmmaker, best known for The Corporation (2003) and Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1994).
Fatih Akin is a German film director, screenwriter and producer of Turkish descent. He has won numerous awards for his films, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his film Head-On (2004), Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival for his film The Edge of Heaven (2007), and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film for his film In the Fade (2017).
The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October.
The Phoebus cartel was an oligopoly that controlled the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs. They appropriated market territories and lowered the useful life of such bulbs. Corporations based in Europe and the United States founded the cartel on January 15, 1925 in Geneva. Phoebus based itself in Switzerland. The corporation named itself Phœbus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l'Éclairage. They had intended the cartel to last for thirty years. The cartel ceased operations in 1939 owing to the outbreak of World War II. The cartel included manufacturers Osram, General Electric, Associated Electrical Industries, and Philips, among others.
Göteborg Film Festival (GFF), formerly Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF), known in English as the Gothenburg Film Festival, formerly Gothenburg International Film Festival, is an annual film festival in Gothenburg, Sweden and the largest film event in Scandinavia. When it was launched in 1979 it showed 17 films on 3 screens and had 3,000 visitors. Today, the film festival takes place over 10 days each year at the end of January and beginning of February. In later years around 450 films from 60 countries are screened for 115,000 visitors. The film festival is also an important market place for the contractors in the movie industry.
The Centennial Light is the world's longest-lasting light bulb, burning since 1901, and almost never turned off. It is located at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California, and maintained by the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. Due to its longevity, the bulb has been noted by The Guinness Book of World Records, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and General Electric.
Giles Slade is a Canadian freelance writer and social critic, best known as author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America.
DamianPettigrew is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, author, and multimedia artist, best known for his cinematic portraits of Balthus, Federico Fellini, and Jean Giraud.
László Nemes is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. His 2015 debut feature film, Son of Saul, was screened in the main competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. He is the first Hungarian director whose film has won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Son of Saul is the second Hungarian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2016, Nemes was a member of the main competition jury of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
Governments around the world have passed measures to phase out incandescent light bulbs for general lighting in favor of more energy-efficient lighting alternatives. Phase-out regulations effectively ban the manufacture, or importation of incandescent light bulbs for general lighting. The regulations are based on efficiency, rather than use of incandescent technology. However, it is not unlawful to continue to buy or sell existing bulbs, which are unregulated.
The Berlin International Film Festival, usually called the Berlinale, is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of the "Big Three" alongside the Venice Film Festival in Italy and the Cannes Film Festival in France. Tens of thousands of visitors attend each year.
Christian Baumeister is a German cinematographer and award-winning director focusing on nature and wildlife productions.
Frederick Douglas Stephan "Fred" Baker was an Austrian-British filmmaker, media scholar, and archaeologist.
A lightbulb socket, lightbulb holder,light socket, lamp socket or lamp holder is a device which mechanically supports and provides electrical connections for a compatible electric lamp base. Sockets allow lamps to be safely and conveniently replaced (re-lamping). There are many different standards for lampholders, including early de facto standards and later standards created by various standards bodies. Many of the later standards conform to a general coding system in which a socket type is designated by a letter or abbreviation followed by a number.
Tim Fehlbaum is a Swiss film director.
Diego Fulvio Fiori, simply known as Diego Fiori is an Italian artist, director and film producer who is mostly active in the field of Video art and particularly known for the short film The Words Hear the Light. This short was presented out of competition in 2015 at the Cannes Film Festival and awarded with the Bronze Award for Editing at the American Movie Awards.
75 Watts is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by John Cullen and released in 2011. The film centres on Matt Giordano, a drummer from Denver, Colorado who has Tourette syndrome, which he describes as being like "a 75-watt lightbulb that's been plugged into a thousand-watt outlet", and profiles his efforts to cope with the challenges of the condition through music.
Bettina Stephanie Walter is a German documentary film producer.
Cosima Dannoritzer is a documentary filmmaker and film producer, whose documentaries focus on science, technology, ecology and history. She became known internationally as the screenwriter and film director of the multi-award-winning documentary The Light Bulb Conspiracy, which looks at the history and impact of planned obsolescence.