A masterpiece by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, based on themes from Kafka’s novel The Man Who Disappeared. For the cinematic version of the tale of young Karl Rossmann, from his arrival in the New World to his encounter with the Theater of Oklahoma, the legendary filmmaking duo went for a distinctly political angle, clearly reflected in the film’s title as well. “For us, Kafka is the only great poet of industrial civilisation, namely, a society in which people depend on their work to survive.” America represents something of a dream for Rossmann, adrift in a world which is difficult to understand, and strewn with blind optimism and untold violence. Straub-Huillet shot almost the entire film in Hamburg and, in order to achieve the authenticity of the original text, they incorporated the specific dialect favoured by Kafka.