A RECONNAISSANCE
In April 2021, the European border and
coast guard agency Frontex, carried out the
first test flight of a military surveillance drone from the island of Malta. The Heron 1, equipped with long-range technology, was deployed to patrol the Southern Mediterranean, monitoring the continent’s borders all the way to the Libyan coast.
With Frontex refusing to answer his questions, filmmaker Stefan Kruse sets out to explore the drone’s launch site — a “militarised landscape of fences and surveillance cameras” — in an attempt to see it, to get closer to it. Using Google Earth imagery and filming on the ground in Malta, assisted by local plane spotters intrigued by his unexpected interest in a drone, he embarks on a speculative investigation into what this machine truly represents, far beyond what the naked eye can perceive: the invisible structures of power at work that are reshaping the territory.
A cinematic essay on the militarisation of surveillance technologies, and the power dynamics embedded in each of the images they produce. Can we resist by answering back with images of our own?
2025
Language: English, Maltese
Video, 28:57min, Color,
Written and Directed by Stefan Kruse
Camera: Asbjørn Derdau
Sound design & composer: Asbjørn Derdau
Art Director: Mads Sandholm
Colorgrading: Fabiana Cardalda
Festivals
04/25 Visions Du Réel - International Medium Lenght & Short Film Competition (World Premiere)
04/25 Istabul Experimental Film Festival - Essays #2
05/25 Hamburg Kurzfilm Festival - German Competition
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