An Impossible Project review – charming doc on the future of retro

Can our nostalgia power our future? It’s a question at the heart of An Impossible Project, a documentary about eccentric dreamer Florian Kaps, an Austrian scientist who sees beauty in analogue technology, and seeks to keep it alive in our increasingly digitised world.

An Impossible Project captures Kaps’s life from 2008 to the present, taking in his various business ventures to revitalise Polaroid cameras, re-open a creaky old hotel, start up a retro-themed café and more. It makes for a slightly lumpy and slow film, and the question of where Kaps keeps getting his money from is never satisfactorily answered, but the man himself is charming company, infectiously enthusiastic whenever he extols the virtues of analogue products.

Not only do they give us a greater connection to the world around us than, say, smartphones, Kaps argues, but analogue is also the most consumer-friendly way of selling products – it is easy to learn to deconstruct and repair these items and keep them going long term, instead of having to buy into planned obsolescence.

His arguments are intermittently compelling, but made all the more interesting by the fact that Kaps is hardly a polemicist. He recognises the value and convenience of digital and his mission is not to destroy it, but provide people with a genuine choice between the alternatives.

In dialling in so specifically to Kaps’s worldview and hit-and-miss business career, An Impossible Project is definitely a niche film, and one that may try your patience from time to time. Kaps is so excited by his vision of the future, though, that it’s hard to not get swept up.

An Impossible Project is now available to stream on various digital platforms.