Henry Fonda for President

December 6, 2024

After its world premiere at the Berlinale and Austrian premiere at the Viennale, we are pleased to present the Film Museum premiere of Alexander Horwath's directorial debut. A work of art not for the museum, but in the spirit of the museum: The United States seen through the lens of a movie actor's experiences. In Horwath's stirring essay film, Henry Fonda and his roles merge into a single, conflict-laden figure articulating the old and new America. A reserved man who understood himself as a "void" becomes the face of a purported passage from the law of the jungle to civilization. Brilliantly edited, the film is also a kind of road trip through film history in an imaginary cartography of places, times, and characters from the "United States of Fonda." Stefan Grissemann: "Driven by an irrepressible delight in association: a centrifuge of political-cultural knowledge as well as an illustration of the idea that everything, if you just look closely enough, is connected to everything." (Michael Loebenstein / Translation: Ted Fendt)