Record of War is a very rare screening exploring Fascism, colonialism, propaganda, and the aesthetics of warfare, inspired by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. First staged two years after the invasion, as the international situation worsened, Record of War is live cinema, ‘cut’ in the projection booth. Reels from two films about the invasion, one Italian, one Soviet Russian, radically opposed in viewpoint, are ‘dovetailed’ by the projectionists to create an experience both shocking and illuminating. One film shows what the other conceals; The Path of the Heroes (1936), shown at the 1936 Venice Film Festival, is full of Futurist bombast, while Abyssinia (1936) shows those on the receiving end of Mussolini’s war machine. A unique third film, created in the moment, Record of War is a form of counter-propaganda, as relevant now as it ever was.
