At the heart of many discussions and questions during the last months of 2020, the experimental film Ambiancé, which was intended to be "the longest film made that does not exist", created by Swedish director Anders Weberg, seems to have disappeared from the radar, leaving us without any projection. So if there is no doubt that the work is now destroyed, as its director had announced from the creation of the project, the mystery remains around this unique film to which we have been able to attribute many meanings, between metaphysical explanations and satanic theories. Back on the history of Ambiancé, the longest film in history that is no more.
The creation of the Ambiancé project in 2012
Before looking at this unique work, let's look at its director, Anders Weberg : this Swede born on August 14, 1968 describes himself on his website as "an artist working with video, photography, sound, new media and installations and who is mainly interested in identity. " In twenty years of creation, he is at the origin of more than 500 films and projects more or less long, which he regularly posts on his Vimeo account. He is also the founder of an artistic video festival, and exhibits regularly in galleries and museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris or the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, Argentina. And when he's not working on his works, Anders Weberg enjoys a simple life in the Swedish countryside, raising animals and producing his own honey and food with his family. 
In 2012, the artist thinks of an ultimate work, which could close his career: the theme of time seems to him to be the perfect place to talk about universal subjects that are close to his heart. Having already directed a film of 9 hours, 9 minutes, 9 seconds and 9 frames on September 9, 2009, he embarked on an even more unprecedented adventure: a film of 30 days. Thus was born Ambiancé, the project of a film of 720 hours (30 full days) that will approach time in an unprecedented way, in which Anders Weberg will weave with this uncontrollable concept a unique link to create the longest cinematographic work in history. It all starts with a first web page: www.thelongestfilm.com. If today the page signs the end of the project, 9 years ago, it announced the arrival with a collage of the first 720 images of the film, which formed in red letters "Ambiancé c'est fini Anders Weberg". "It's over" was then the subtitle of the film, which will be lost as the project progresses to return on December 31, 2020, the day of the end. The circle is complete. 
The director leaves us on top of this encrypted message some information about his project : the year of its release, 2020, the duration of the film and a quoted message: "This will be the last film I would make". A final message is also indicated: a "short" trailer of 72 minutes will be released in December 2012. But it was not until 2014 that new images of Ambiancé appeared.
A first trailer of 72 minutes is unveiled in 2014
On July 4, 2014, the first images of Ambiancé were broadcast on Anders Weberg's Vimeo page, and were relayed in France thanks to the Videoformes festival in Clermont-Ferrand. If the trailer is now not found because voluntarily deleted by the director, some very short extracts of the film are still available. It was at this moment that the project began to really make a name for itself in the international press, with dozens of relays around the world on this event film which aims to be "the longest ever made". Anders Weberg will then post a message on the film's website, bringing a whole new dimension to these images: "I was not at all prepared for this. I shared the 72-minute teaser on July 4th to pay tribute to my son "André" who was found dead 6 months earlier, only 21 years old from a drug overdose. The teaser is what a teaser is supposed to be. Fragments, snippets taken out of context and gathered to promote the film. All these fragments that I have selected concern him in every way and that is why I have chosen them. I didn't have a master plan/marketing plan or anything. So what happened is still very difficult to understand. If I was smart, I'd have a bunch of people working for me and giving me advice on how to react to what's going on and how I could use that to make myself… what? I have no idea. I don't need anything. I'm very happy to continue working on my little project and that's what I'm going to do. " If the first edited images of the trailer then sound like a tribute to his missing son, it should not be seen as the main message of the project: Ambiancé is a work prior to this drama, and even if it will necessarily influence the director in his film, it does not seem to replace the first message: time and its ephemeral aspect.
Early interpretations and the concept of ephemeral
As the success of Ambiancé grew, the public wondered more and more about this UFO of the cinematographic world; new explanations and answers can be found in Anders Weberg's past. While a new information appears on the film's website, it is justified by the bias of its author: after its release in 2020, Ambiancé will be deleted, making the film "the longest film made that does not exist". This decision is not really surprising when we learn that Anders Weberg is the creator of the peer-to-peer movie concept: "The original work is first shared by the artist until another user has downloaded it. Then the artwork will be available as long as other users share it. The original file and all material used to create it are deleted by the artist. " This initiative is thus part of a concept of ephemerality, where the work lives by itself thanks to those who transmit it, and where the creator no longer has any control over it. 
If Anders Weberg plans to broadcast Ambiancé only once, and it is to last 30 consecutive days, then it is impossible for anyone other than the director to see the work in its entirety. "So it will certainly be an ephemeral experience and the only thing that will remain will be the memory of the small pieces and parts that the viewer has seen. " Thus, even when this work no longer exists, the memories of it will be there as long as there are witnesses who share their experience; like human life, Ambiancé is ephemeral and will have an inevitable and programmed death.The only images that will remain of the film will then be the few numbered posters sold on the shop of the site, set up to finance the project, and appropriate a fraction of this story.
A second trailer that already breaks a record in 2016
As announced on the site, the second trailer of Ambiancé will be released in 2016, on March 17 at the VideoFormes festival and on March 30 on Anders Weberg's Vimeo. This 7:20 a.m. trailer (yes, you read that right) is still available for the curious and brave who want to try the experience: This fixed and continuous shot filmed in black and white, which features the two actors Stina Pehrsdotter and Niclas Hallberg with music by German composer Martin Juhls, explores one by one the concepts stated at its beginning: life, quest, power, death, escape, rest, love. Time seems distended, suspended, the images are superimposed in a double and vertiginous dimension. And for good reason: at its release, the trailer breaks the record for the longest teaser ever made. As a foretaste of the sensory experience that awaits us at the end of 2020. The trailer begins with these words: "Filmed in one take in October 2015 on the same beach where Ingmar Bergman filmed the chess scene in The Seventh Seal. " This mythical scene of the film, which made known the director now established as one of the greatest of cinema, staged a game of chess between death and a knight, so that the latter would obtain a reprieve that will allow him to answer his existential questions still unanswered. 
The trailer of Ambiancé obviously recalls this scene, with this character dressed in white and that of black, these black and white stones that represent the four corners of a chessboard and the omnipresence of death with this central tomb. These elements construct the "absurdity and chance of existence", which can be summed up in these few words: life, quest, power, death, escape, rest, love. The film then takes on a new, more metaphysical dimension, which aims to question the great human concepts that punctuate life and existence.
Meanings are built around Ambiancé and curiosity is created
If the first teaser had already been talked about, this new trailer of 7:20 will really make the fame of the film. The curious will then begin to ask questions around Ambiancé, and Anders Weberg will be granted some interviews, in which he will reveal valuable information about his intentions. First of all, he will evoke the purpose of the work, which was then still obscure: as predicted by some, Ambiancé is not a linear film in the classical sense. Weberg constructs it as a testimony of his life and memories, a "memory film" in his words, where the scenes are linked not chronologically, but sensory and memorial. A memory where one emotion calls for another, and so on. The 720 hours will therefore be fragments of life staged and represented according to a biased vision of time, witnesses of the existence of its director: "In Ambiancé, space and time are intertwined in a dreamlike and surrealist journey beyond places and constitutes an abstract and non-linear narrative summary of the time that the artist spent with the moving image. " And every second that will make up these 30 uninterrupted days has its importance: every image counts, every fragment has a meaning. 
The time of the film itself is also explained by its director: the 30 days would come from a videographic standard, which would impose this precise time to complete the film. And the 720 hours also make up a mathematical singularity, since they are the Harshad numbers: 1x2x3x4x5x6 = 720. As the answers are given around this mysterious film, and the media is talking more and more about this incredible record, the release date is slowly approaching. But not everything will go as planned.
The director disappears and theories spread
On February 1, 2018, a new message from Anders Weberg will shake up the plans of this project: "I'm taking a break". Without further explanation, the director disappears for nearly 3 years and leaves us alone with this abandoned site. A new 72h trailer that was supposed to go online in 2018 will never be released, and no more messages will be published until December 31, 2020. It is around August 2020 that the general public will discover the most massively the history of Ambiancé, but by the truncated look of some youtubers who will fall into satanic theories and sensationalism. Social networks and especially Twitter will seize the subject, with unfounded assumptions fueled mainly by a fake trailer, the release date that would end a chaotic year 2020, and images taken out of context. 
While Ambiancé will be more and more talked about, everyone is waiting for its broadcast on December 31, 2020, which however will not arrive.
December 31, 2020: It's over
As the release date of the film arrives, which was to take place simultaneously worldwide in some museums as announced, nothing happens. On December 31, 2020, only one message was left by Anders Weberg on the page of the site, which is now the same: "It's over", with the original release date and the name of the director. So what happened to this work? Will it have been broadcast in the greatest secrecy? Or kept intimately, or never finished? We tried to contact Anders Weberg, who for the moment remains silent on the subject, keeping to himself the precious answers that are missing from our understanding. If Ambiancé will certainly remain in the secret garden of its director forever, the incredible story of this film and the few images that remain will be the testimony of an extraordinary personal and experimental art, which certainly inspired many others later: the metaphysical trace of a passage on earth, which questions our existence and the ephemerality of our lives.
Sources: https://www.weberg.se http://www.thelongestfilm.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1fsU7Pu6hg https://www.lepoint.fr/insolite/le-film-le-plus-long-07-09-2014-1861009_48.php https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4eydmt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yXBIigZbg https://vimeo.com/weberg
