Ralf Schmerberg's Film "Problema"

There are very few Guinness records that carry a social conscience, which makes the documentary "Problema" more than a movie. Nonprofit group Mindpirates took on a feat of social scruples with a massive round table in Berlin's Bebelplatz public square. The challenge was an experiment for 100 intellectuals, artists, and activists to answer 100 of the world's most urgent questions.

The program was presented as "Dropping Knowledge" at the "Table of Free Voices." The event garnered an unintentional Guinness record for world's largest round table, which was just a necessity for a lofty meeting of minds. On September 9, 2006 filmmaker Ralf Schmerberg documented each simultaneous response to the 100 questions in a panoptic sea of murmurs.

The documentary triumphs an editing nightmare, but moreover Schmerberg beautified the film with visual accents. The planet's brightest minds evoking a streaming dialogue amongst the historic Bebelplatz is in itself a documentary worth experiencing. The added confluence of footage both breathtaking and terrifying justifies the film's toted label of "unprecedented philosophical art cinema experience."

The Visuals of "Problema"

A picture's worth a thousands words, but priceless when adorning thought bombs from highly stimulated thinkers. There is the photography of Eadweard Muybridge and a cadre of daring photojournalism. There is then the artistic works of, to name a few, William Blake, Banksy, Dali, Magritte, Caravaggio, Manet, Rembrandt, Hieronymus Bosch, Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Frida Kahlo, Max Ernst, Goya, Kandinsky, da Vinci, as well as Jonathan Meese and Fang Lijun who were voices at the table.

Amongst the barrage of news, documentary and historical footage is the interspersed cinema of Sergei Eisenstein, Godfrey Reggio, Abel Gance, Alain Resnais, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Guy Debord, and Fritz Lang.

The Questions of "Problema"

The inaugural question of the documentary is "Who are we in the 21st Century?" That question alone forces reflection as a species, not just humankind. It challenges us to go beyond nationalism, economy, race, and history by questioning those very realities.

The Table of Voices was provoked with, "Should we have the right to choose where we live?" "What if all Chinese people want a car?" "Does our wealth depend on the Third World being poor?" "What does courage mean now?" "What is God's religion?"

This is barely a sip of the boiling vat of 100 heated questions infecting our world's problems. "Problema" intelligently discusses all the things we aren't supposed to talk about at the dinner table. More importantly the voices challenge the very definition and essence of the terms that weigh upon us.

The Voices of "Problema"

The questions were moderated by the gracious activist Hafsat Abiola and one of the few actors with real footing in activism, Willem Dafoe. The talking heads that endear their gallant voices to us consist of Poets, Activists, Artists, Authors, Physicists, Philosophers, Designers, Musicians, Athletes, Technology Innovators, Biologists, Journalists, Neuroscientists, Choreographers, Filmmakers, and Lawyers.

For those with a finger on the pulse of, frankly, lefty social movements, environmental science, and human rights, these are familiar friends. While I won't go as far to say that there is a political agenda behind the film and event, there is certainly a social and environmental agenda. That said there is a hopefulness and penetration of ideas here that are transcendent and borderless.

After viewing "Problema" at the Festivus Film Festival in Denver resistance to head for the website to match backgrounds with voices was futile. Though, you don't have to hunt down a film festival for a chance to see Schmerberg's "Problema," it's free to download and view online. If you can't shake the burning message and want to fan the flames, you can host a screening of your own too. "Problem" is a documentary difficult to review, as the visuals absorb your ability to critically disengage from the voices and the questions are too provoking to allow a thorough cinematic critique. At least upon first experiencing the sheer immensity of the film, its lasting impression rocked me to the core.