California City

A ghost city in the Mojave Desert, haunted by the American Dream.

Known to its remaining inhabitants as "Cal City", California City was conceived to become the largest city in California. Successive attempts to transform this barren stretch of the Mojave Desert into a thriving metropolis all ended in failure. The most recent effort came during the housing boom of the early 2000s, when prefabricated houses were rapidly built across the desert landscape. When the housing bubble burst, the project collapsed entirely, leaving behind an illusion of utopia, a vast and silent mirage.

California City, directed by Bastian Günther and produced by INDI FILM in co-production with ZDF in collaboration with ARTE, follows an anonymous man as he moves through this ghost city like an astronaut on Mars. Dressed in a white protective suit, his job is to treat the stagnant pools of foreclosed and abandoned homes, eliminating potential pest infestations. As he navigates this desolate post-apocalyptic environment shaped by the housing crisis, he reflects on alternative ways of living and retreats into his own solitude.

The film is a hybrid work that fluidly crosses the borders between fiction, documentary, and essay. The form reflects the protagonist's inner state through feature-film elements and an impressionistic use of images, photographs, and narration. His methodical wandering is disturbed by the incessant reappearance of his ex-girlfriend Chelsea, who returns in granulated, colourful psychedelic sequences that punctuate the film's documentary texture.

The film premiered at the Internationale Hofer Filmtage in 2014 and went on to screen at Visions du Réel Nyon, Festival Max Ophüls, and Achtung Berlin. It received a preselection for the Deutscher Filmpreis 2016 in the Best Feature Film category and was nominated for the German Film Critic's Award for Best Documentary.