Encounters with Your Inner Trotsky Child
Jim Finn (The Juche Idea, New Horizons 2009), a master of confabulation and subversion, is back, this time in science fiction. Imagine an alternative version of history. The Cold War may be over, and an era of raging neoliberalism may have been ushered in, but the Trotskyists are still fighting for the soul of the American government. One of their methods is "strengthening one’s inner Trotsky child" – a slogan that, not accidentally, brings to mind New Age guides for spiritual development. Encounters with Your Inner Trotsky Child is an instruction video for home use. Just as Jane Fonda’s aerobics videos were meant to improve the bodies of American women, this video is meant to strengthen the morale of the militants of the revolution. The message of personal development is transferred to political agitation while maintaining the visual look of VHS cassettes from the early 1980s. Throw in a few exercises for affirmation, a strategy for conscious breathing, and your inner Trotsky child will be ready to do battle with the fat offspring of fascism.
Ewa Szabłowska
Jim Finn
Born in 1968, Jim Finn is an American filmmaker known for his black humor and ironic reading of propaganda images. He has also investigated revolutionary artistic practices, critiques of capitalism and also of left-wing propaganda. Finn is particularly interested in mutations of ideology, which, isolated from the original, take on the most bizarre forms. He is known for his Marxist trilogy: Interkosmos, La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo (The Shining Trench of President Gonzalo), and The Juche Idea.
Selected filmography
2006 Interkosmos
2007 La trinchera luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo / The Shining Trench of President Gonzalo
2008 Zasada Dżucze / The Juche Idea
2011 Sunday School with Franz Hinkelammert
2013 Spotkania z twoim wewnętrznym trockistowskim dzieckiem / Encounters with Your Inner Trotsky Child (short)