L’Incréée, Die Unerschaffene

1634. During the siege of Ratisbona a soldier proofs his invulnerability after eating a mysterious biscuit. The Walloon alchemist Heribert Rem is assigned to find out more about the origin of these biscuits in order to end the war. He traces an English opera singer, who got lost during the war. Does his voice have the power to overcome death like Orpheus? And how’s all this linked to an imprisoned woman, who is said to be no human but a living machine?

What makes us human? This question is raised once again as artficial „intelligence“ starts to challenge humanity’s USP as highly flexible imitators. For René Descartes, who considered the human organism as completely mechanical, it was speech and reason, subsumed as soul (donated by God), which therefore animals would not have. In reflecting humanity over centuries animals have been „the others“. In future times it will be computers. What would Descartes have thought about ChatGPT? He would have had to find a new definition of soul to exclude AI. But the day will come, when androids demand their right to have a soul. They will say: Just because you were biologically conceived you’re not better or more valuable people.

Increata” is the story of the first android. But it does not exist in some distant future, but 400 years ago. It is trapped in the body of a dead woman, executed for witchcraft and magically revived by her loving husband, an alchemist. But her soul does not return. Instead there’s something else. Something new. Something not created by God.

So why put this sci-fi-topic into a historical setting? Because we want to grab it by the roots. Since when can consciousness (or the mind) be interpreted as by-product of a material process inside the human brain? When did the concept of the immortal soul collapse? And why? 

The time of the Thirty Years’ War was the brutal final battle of a long dispute over the relationship between God and Man. It ended with the victory of the modern individual and a materialistic worldview, in which God’s creation only provided the raw material for human creativity. The alchemical idea of creating an artificial human (Homunculus) was the first step eventually leading to the technical production of androids.

The brutal climax of the witch hunts also falls into this period. The extreme paranoia about evil magic cannot be explained without the emerging modern human image. It was the fear of human’s magical power against which even God was powerless. It might be no coincidence that women were the main victims of the witch hunts, while at the same time first feminist debates were taking place in bourgeois salons.

The Thirty Years’ War was primarily a war against civilians. Much of it resembles today’s civil wars, in which rulers, rebel groups, and mercenary armies financed from abroad fight each other and ruthlessly depopulate the country. Peasants and town citizens were not protected by anyone. They were systematically tortured and plundered by the soldiers. Flight, expulsion, hunger, disease, and death were omnipresent.

In the midst of this chaos the first artificial human tries to find out why she exists, even though she is not part of creation. And why she has feelings, even though she is denied a soul. The alchemist Heribert Rem, who cares for and monitors her, is torn between old religious beliefs and modern scientific curiosity. He does not know what is right and postpones all decisions – until it will be too late…

To me historical films are much more than funny costumes and a bit of dirt on the actors’ faces. They allow a glimpse into a time when people had a completely different world view than we have today. Historical authenticity can be incredibly inspiring. I am trying to reconstruct an atmosphere shaped as much by fear as by progress. The omnipresence of the devil and the brutal war for the right belief spread an end-time mood. People mentally escape into antiquity, everything becomes an analogy to the myths and deeds of the Romans and Greeks. Excessive formalities in language and fashion regulate everyday life, but the war enables simple soldiers to rise socially and questions the class order.

INCREATA is a completely independent production. I financed and produced the film myself. Despite the popularity of historical and fantastic films, they are rarely produced in Germany. It is generally said that they are too expensive. I wanted to prove that this is not necessarily so. By now INCREATA is a short film. But I will continue to work on the story and produce additional scenes. It is an organic project that grows and will eventually transform into a feature-length film.

Cast: Kristof van Boven, Sophia Schober, James Newton, Johann Jürgen, Jonathan Stolze, Viola von der Burg, Helena Wagner, Nicolas Stöcklein, Christoph Franken, Ben Brummer

Current length (2024): 24 min.