Stefan Kruse
Germany, Denmark | 2025 | 28 min
World premiere
Languages : English, Maltese
Subtitles : English, French
Information is scarce around Heron 1, a longrange military drone patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and surveilling the borders of Europe. Starting as a desktop research into the drone, this investigation about the present and future of surveillance technology drops us at the crossroads of Frontex, the military industrial complex and a plane spotter community.
In April 2021, the European Union’s anti-immigration agency, Frontex, launched its first military surveillance drone from the island of Malta. The Heron 1, equipped with long-range technology, was deployed to patrol the Mediterranean, monitoring the continent’s borders all the way to the Libyan coast.
With Frontex refusing to answer his questions, filmmaker Stefan Kruse sets out to explore the drone’s launch site — a “militarised landscape of fences and surveillance cameras” — in an attempt to see it, to get closer to it. Using Google Earth imagery and filming on the ground in Malta, assisted by local plane spotters intrigued by his unexpected interest in a drone, he embarks on a speculative investigation into what this machine truly represents, far beyond what the naked eye can perceive: the invisible structures of power at work that are reshaping the territory. A cinematic essay on the militarisation of surveillance technologies, and the power dynamics embedded in each of the images they produce. Can we resist by answering back with images of our own?
Mourad-Anis Moussa
With Frontex refusing to answer his questions, filmmaker Stefan Kruse sets out to explore the drone’s launch site — a “militarised landscape of fences and surveillance cameras” — in an attempt to see it, to get closer to it. Using Google Earth imagery and filming on the ground in Malta, assisted by local plane spotters intrigued by his unexpected interest in a drone, he embarks on a speculative investigation into what this machine truly represents, far beyond what the naked eye can perceive: the invisible structures of power at work that are reshaping the territory. A cinematic essay on the militarisation of surveillance technologies, and the power dynamics embedded in each of the images they produce. Can we resist by answering back with images of our own?
Mourad-Anis Moussa
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The Migrating Image, 2018
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A Lack of Clarity, 2020
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Screenings and tickets
Tuesday 8 April 2025 20:15
Usine à Gaz 2, Nyon
In the presence of the director
Friday 11 April 2025 16:15
Usine à Gaz 1, Nyon
Trailer
Screenplay
Stefan Kruse
Photography
Asbjørn Derdau
Editing
Stefan Kruse
Sound
Asbjørn Derdau
Production
Stefan KruseUte DilgerKunsthochschule für Medien Köln
Sales contact
Stefan Krusemail@stefankruse.dk+4525341349
