Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

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Dear viewer,

yes, you are spending too many hours on your smartphone

and on YouTube, Instagram and deep down, you hate it.

You keep saying you want to do something about it.

Sure, we all do.

This film is about an alternative,

going the other way, digital detox.

If you like what you see here, do try it at home.

♪ I'm a fool to want you ♪

♪ I'm a fool to want you ♪

♪ To want a love that can be true ♪

Today, the Eastman Kodak Company

used explosives to demolish two buildings

following the move to digital photography.

Once a household name,

Kodak is understood

to have demolished more than 80 buildings on the site

over the past 10 years

and plans to demolish at least 16 more by years end.

Polaroid has closed factories

in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands.

Job cuts include 150 positions to be eliminated

over the next couple of months.

With a further 300 workers laid off in Mexico

and in the company's headquarters

in Enschede in the Netherlands.

Today, we're introducing an iPod, a phone

and an internet communicator.

This is one device.

And we are calling it iPhone.

The smartphone changed everything

when it came to photography.

We take more photos now than any time before.

This is analog camera sales

and they kind of peak in '99

and then they start falling

'cause digital cameras get invented.

And then digital takes a huge step forward.

There's more people taking photos than ever before

'cause more cameras are out there.

And then they fall, too.

And they fall because the smartphone gets there

and the smartphone really changes the game.

♪ There will come a time ♪

♪ When I will leave you ♪

Analog was truly dead.

Film, records, books, letters, outdated, obsolete, gone.

Iconic companies were disappearing.

Our future was digital, easy, convenient, free.

A brave new world was out there and we couldn't wait.

Or could we?

In Vienna, I met a man who thought,

this is all a big mistake.

This is his impossible story.

Whoa.

Vienna is the most analog city in the world

and this place we created,

we wanted to bring all the machines

and all these magic treasures together,

new generation, old generation.

So people, customers,

and most importantly also investors can feel it.

They cannot see it in a PDF or in whatever.

So one of our main weapons

to really destroy any concerns of investors is this machine.

It looks pretty ugly.

It's this Spanish style but

when you select your favorite vinyls

and then you already hear a magic sound.

Investor's gonna cry,

stand in line outside here and say,

"Take my money, please."

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

Shit.

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ 'Cause I need it slow ♪

♪ And I need it ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ Take it slow ♪

♪ 'Cause I need it slow ♪

♪ And I need it now ♪

Doc, who is the Doc?

Why are you Doc?

Where does the Doc come from?

Yeah, somehow the Doc is a leftover

from my scientific studies.

It was very easy.

My parents didn't put any pressure on me.

They just said, "Whatever you do, be the best doing it."

So, pretty soon I found out

that the only chance for myself

being the best doing something

is if I do things that nobody else is doing.

So I am the world's most important

spider eye muscle expert.

My father always asked me, "What is this all for?"

And so basically the Doc is the only outcome from back then.

So this title I carried on since then.

I always tried to look at things differently.

When everybody was running in this direction,

I thought, hey, maybe it's cool

to look in the other direction.

60 centimeters.

Oh yeah, that's good, it start blinking.

Again without mineral, good sign.

10 years ago, Doc had found a new calling.

While we were all salivating over our first iPhone,

Doc decided to resist.

He became the self-appointed

patron saint of all things analog.

Step one, he set up a venture selling expired Polaroid film.

It was called Unsalable.

My theory is that the biggest difference

between digital and analog

is the fact that digital

always just tickles two of your senses.

It's always I can see it, I can hear it,

but it's always behind the glass screen.

So I cannot really touch it,

I cannot smell it,

I cannot lick it.

So it only, you know, it's nothing real.

And therefore the young generation, who grew up digitally,

there's so much longing for this real thing

they can touch, caress, hold in their hand,

that they can fully sense.

It was the beginning

of an unlikely business adventure.

You know,

I often tell stories that

are not 100% true,

but this one really is 150% true.

Do you have your Polaroid Colorpack Camera?

In the '70s and '80s, Polaroid was everywhere.

And even today, we all recognize that classic white frame

of a Polaroid instant photo.

But in 2008, the cultural icon

was a mere shadow of its former self.

No one believed analog photography had a future

and all Polaroid factories were being closed down.

All but this last one in Enschede in The Netherlands.

Once churning out millions of packs of film,

it was about to vanish.

♪ I feel the breeze ♪

♪ I feel the breeze ♪

♪ Take me on your boat one day ♪

♪ We'll fade away and slip away ♪

♪ We'll go away with me ♪

♪ We'll stay away ♪

Doc had been invited to the closing party.

He couldn't resist.

He knew little about film chemistry

and even less about running a business,

but he had a vision.

This factory must be rescued.

It was beautiful and important.

What everyone else saw, "Doc, that's impossible."

My wife said, "Don't go there, give up on it."

But I went there and you know, the machines,

all of them were still in perfect shape.

So I said, "There is still a chance.

We have to try it."

So I went to the Polaroid management say,

"Do you really want to kill it

or do you want to give it for adoption

and you know, we take care of it?"

So when Florian came in and said,

"I want to buy this film factory in Enschede, Netherlands,

don't wind it down",

to the owners of Polaroid corporation,

it was a no-brainer to say,

"Sure, if you want to take it over,

it saves our wind down costs."

The crazy thing is they said, "You have one week.

We have an agreed scrap value of the factory parts

for 180,000 Euro.

So if you sign the agreement

and transfer me the 180,000 Euro,

the factory is yours."

So that was it.

I didn't have the 180,000 Euro,

but I immediately started to make

something like a business plan.

They loved the business plan.

Business plans was for sure, one of my best,

my best specialties.

With a small group of friends,

Doc bought the business.

They were going to keep Polaroid alive.

It sounded crazy.

A 1940's tech for the 21st century?

♪ Like a broken sail ♪

♪ But I'll never give you up ♪

♪ If I ever give you up ♪

♪ My heart will surely ♪

One of the many snags,

Doc wasn't allowed to use the brand name Polaroid

but he soon found a new one.

It was really literally during a meeting with Polaroid

where they continued to tell me,

"This is impossible.

This is impossible.

This is impossible."

So it was just,

I gave up and said, "Yeah, let's call it Impossible."

So Polaroid was reborn as The Impossible Project

which would prove an interesting choice of name.

Nevermind, the beginning was fabulous.

Life was returning to the factory.

♪ You can swing ♪

♪ You can fail ♪

♪ You can blow my mind ♪

In the beginning,

we started with 10 people at the factory.

It was really a hard year.

Everybody thought that it was impossible

to get it all running

and now, well here we are.

Something already created before I was born.

That's amazing.

And I am creating it now daily.

That's wonderful.

Doc took Impossible headquarters

to Europe's startup capital Berlin,

where he found a team of well digital natives

who shared his belief in the magic of analog

or at least succumbed to his unrelenting enthusiasm.

I would love to say that all of this

was part of a very clever strategy

based on my extended studies in business.

It's not quite true to be honest.

Basically it just happened.

This wasn't nostalgia.

This was about rediscovering the value of real things,

authenticity.

A good way to just look

and in order to understand why Impossible exists

let's go back into the year 1946

when a guy called Edwin Land,

who was an incredible inventor and visionary,

thought about the beginning of instant photography.

I look forward to the dream

of being able to take a wallet out of my pocket

and perhaps open the wallet,

press a button, close the wallet

and have the picture.

Grand machines for a grand purpose.

♪ Express yourself ♪

♪ Express yourself ♪

♪ You don't never need help ♪

♪ From nobody else ♪

♪ All you gotta do now ♪

♪ Express yourself ♪

♪ Whatever you do ♪

♪ Do it good ♪

From the beginning, it was clear

that this is a magic material.

It's not a clone.

You cannot print it 500 times

with the right iconic frame.

It was one of no other kind.

Back in the days,

instant photography and Polaroid was everywhere.

♪ Some people have everything ♪

♪ And other people don't ♪

♪ But everything don't mean a thing ♪

♪ If it ain't the thing you want ♪

♪ Express yourself ♪

♪ Express yourself ♪

♪ Oh do it ♪

♪ Oh do it ♪

♪ Do it too ♪

Good morning everyone from Impossible.

We are now on our way to Enschede

to the film factory.

We are twins.

Am I doing the talking all alone?

No I can do it.

The fascination of a lost technology

and the big challenge to bring it back.

And he told me about this thing, you know, called sX70

Fucking crazy.

And he was like, "You know it, you know it, you know it,

it's so cool."

I've never been to the factory before

so it's super new experience for me.

Doc saved the factory from closure

and kept all the sort of old machines

and had to look at the reformulation

of the new films for Impossible.

Oh look at this.

Everything's painted.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

This is incredible.

Hi.

Hello.

Oh, the godfather of camera repair.

This is like heaven.

Oh Betsy.

She missed me, you know?

If only there weren't the problem

with the Polaroid formula.

It was tragic.

Doc had bought the factory.

He got the machines back from scrap metal

and persuaded the workers to return.

But then they discovered

that the formula to actually produce Polaroid film

had been lost forever

because the chemicals didn't exist anymore.

Instant film

is the world's most chemically complicated

man-made product ever.

There's never been a completely manmade product

that is more chemically complicated than that.

Doc and his team

were continuing to make instant film,

but their product was, well, awful.

Colors were all over the place,

bits of the image would disappear

and a photo took 45 minutes to develop.

It wasn't pretty.

Oh my God.

You know, we had this killer crystals

and we had leaky pods

and we had pictures disappearing.

I don't understand,

the film worked or it didn't work?

Of course it worked.

It was perfect,

but you know in a very special way.

Well, yeah, I mean there was many skeptics.

We had a lot of people that we were still talking to

who were long-time Polaroid veterans

and they all said that it'll never happen.

There's no way.

Oh my God.

This is an innovative product

'cause the images disappear.

This is, you know, one of the very first images

and everybody was super excited

that we get any result at all.

But it was also the beginning of us understanding

that there are a lot of challenges in front of us.

Nevertheless, we said, "Please support us

and go on this journey with us.

We don't want to fuck you

but this is an adventure and this is what we can do."

When he first launched the first film,

we analyzed it and it was terrible.

I mean it really was.

The images looked like ghosts

and these weren't of good quality.

And so it was disappointing to us.

We were really hoping it would be great.

But I think Florian didn't realize

just how complicated it was.

There were two customers in the beginning.

The one said,

"Ooh, yeah it was nice before it disappeared."

And the other one said,

"Call me when you really make film."

It would take them years

to reinvent the formula.

But Doc wasn't going to be stopped easily.

He traveled the world

in search of fellow believers and converts

and there was some good news.

Doc could see signs of analog coming back.

In New York, advertising billboards

were again being hand painted.

Impossible wasn't alone.

We're on the 22nd floor of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

This is the famous GM building.

Rockefeller Center is that way.

And Apple, iconic Fifth Avenue Apple store

rebuilding their glass cue.

They're making it bigger.

They're making it bigger.

Doc's been a hero

because I've followed The Impossible Project

since it was truly impossible

and bought the very earliest Impossible film.

So I thought, well, I'll write this guy,

he's iconic in the field

and see if he responds, and you did.

So we had the digital Skype conversation and-

Then we changed to analog.

And then we changed to analog.

I love collecting art

and I love the intersection of art and technology

and there is an intense beauty

I think that that has been incorporated

in the design of analog products.

This is a famous phone by AT&T

from the '60s and '70s called the Touch-a-matic.

And so

That's the outside line.

I have a message.

Just so intensely beautiful in the way its designed.

And look at the way the speaker phone is designed.

It's very cool.

So these are the incoming outside lines

that are punched down on the punch down block.

These are line cards.

And so when I go off hook,

then if I put it on hold,

you can hear the interruption.

It cycles through mechanically

and it's very reliable.

I mean these things were really engineered well.

I have my housekeeper here.

I've got the package room, et cetera,

and you can program in all these different numbers.

And so if you call.

Housekeeping, good afternoon, Shelly speaking.

Oh hi Shelly.

Wrong number, sorry.

There you go.

Why do this, David?

Well, I wanted to make telephone calls so.

I mean it's connected to the outside world and it's ready.

The Impossible Project,

this was the good luck

that all of these machines worked somehow like this.

So if something breaks, you still can exchange it

and you can understand it.

It's not a black box.

So I think this is very similar

because it's much easier

than all this hidden technology that we have today.

Renaissance, okay Oskar, here we go.

And I'll say from David and Doc.

Great.

Put a few stamps on here

And then we're just gonna send this off.

People were starting to get it.

Analog was a decision,

to keep something and to use it,

a choice each of us can make.

Right, right.

Yes.

Okay.

Look at me.

Okay, that way.

Hold and hold and stay.

What's the camera we're using?

You're using an Aeroflex 35 SL camera,

probably one of the most sophisticated sync sound cameras

in the world.

It's a fairly lightweight handheld camera

and we've had quite a few of them

and they're still being used today.

It's a 35 millimeter film camera.

It's film, it's incredible.

You know, we love film.

Isn't film meant to be dead?

Well, film is actually not dead.

You have a nice clean frame and cut.

You can use it as a cut and everything, okay.

It's beautiful, beautiful.

Now we're walking into,

this is the safe room.

This is where all the gold is.

It's not gold, it's like lenses.

They're so expensive.

They're like gold and we love them.

And here they are, there are all these lenses.

They're worth a lot of money, a lot of money.

I would have to sell my house just to buy this, you know?

♪ For I was born to glory ♪

♪ You kiss forever more ♪

The Impossible Project expanded to New York.

Whether it's instant photography or film,

it's a rebellion against technology making things

too easy or too quick.

You have a lot of things with customers

where things don't work out with the film.

You know, I remember having people saying,

"Hey, my wedding was a disaster.

The film didn't work."

Of course, it's pretty upsetting,

but it's one of the things you have to factor in

with that kind of unpredictable media.

Sure, we could all be making iPhone apps

but to what end?

Over time, I really had to ask myself

why I was working for The Impossible Project.

You know, I really came up with this idea

that human beings, we're analog.

And I think that's part of the reason

why we gravitate towards analog things still,

even though we're in this very digital realm.

Do you think this enthusiasm for analog,

do you think it is a passing stage

or it is something that is here to stay?

You know, I really think that this is just the beginning

of a very huge rediscovery of analog

across all forms of media.

I have the very good feeling

that because of the digital acceleration,

they are really looking for a digital detox.

Oh my God, I love that.

I really like that one.

How does that even happen?

It sometimes does it.

I think it's from the chemicals.

That's crazy,

like it looks a bit like it's burned.

Sometimes it's annoying

but mostly it really makes sense that it happens

and you're like, wow, okay that makes it even better.

It's so trippy

but it balances the picture at the same time.

Is Impossible the business?

Absolutely.

I'm very happy that you didn't ask

if it's a sustainable business or a profitable business.

Well that's what I meant.

Not yet.

We are still at the very beginning.

This is suddenly the wonderful thing

about what we are doing.

You know everybody wants to leave some traces in this world.

If people don't use analog materials

then they will go away.

So you want to sort of promote the fact

that it's out there, that it's good.

It's different and it's special.

It's experiencing the real

and not the image of something real.

So many digital products feel a little bit similar,

so bright and the color's so good

from even every amateur.

People crave something that's a little weird,

a little wrong almost.

I'm talking about a little weird.

I should think that's the moment to take a weird picture.

Am I in this?

You're in this.

We're made of chemistry.

Film is made of chemistry.

When I see an image shot on film,

I feel an affinity for it

that I simply have not been able to feel

towards digital images.

Photography wise,

it's not just about the perfection of the material.

It's about the emotion you connect with it.

Even the people hate it,

that there's chemistry that they have this stuff.

Oh are you kidding?

It's a mess, but come on, it's the best.

Exactly, nowadays it is the best.

You know, when I was working on the book I wrote,

I cannot tell you how many people told me

the smell of the reagent on the negative

took them to their childhood

or to some sexy time they'd had with Polaroid

or to their grandparents' house.

Smells are evocative.

It's not that I think digital is bad.

In fact, I think the argument about film versus digital

is really old, it's kind of done.

For me, it's keeping a choice alive.

For technology to eliminate something

simply because it's more convenient is really shortsighted.

I want to look at the long-term.

I want to make sure that people can still use film

long after I'm gone.

Doc's project had taken a first call.

The film was it at last

at least beginning to look like Polaroid.

A photo now took only 30 minutes to develop.

It was a kind of a honeymoon period.

If you looked closely, however,

you might've seen some dark clouds forming on the horizon.

The photos were cool but expensive

and notoriously difficult to handle.

It was then that I got to know Oskar,

a young engineer from New York.

Oskar was fascinated by instant film

and he saw a future for Impossible in the digital world.

He was soon to become a key player on the team.

I'm Oskar Smolokowski.

I'm left camera right now.

Oskar was only 22 when he joined Doc in Europe

with the intention of learning the business from the boss.

Can you imagine?

I came into the job thinking,

okay, I'm gonna learn from a CEO

on how it's supposed to be done.

The part I remember about my first day at work

when we went on a ride on his motorcycle

to eat at his favorite sushi place.

And to be honest, I was like, what the fuck?

I can't believe this is how you run a company.

It's not been boring.

You could see this

at the World's Largest Photo Fair.

In 2014, Impossible was still regarded

as a charming analog outpost,

but theirs was the busiest stand.

This was where young people went

and it was young people

who were at the heart of the company.

I was 23 when I went to the store for the first time.

You had lines of old Polaroid cameras across all the walls.

You know, it definitely had a magic to it

and this kind of retro magic to it.

So I picked up an old Polaroid camera

and that was my first experience with it.

You know, the first shots were all on old Polaroid cameras.

And actually today they are still only old Polaroid cameras.

But when you kind of get introduced through it that way

it does have this very retro thing to it.

But the more you play with it and you use it,

it's less about the retro aspect of it

and more about the experience

of actually holding a photograph,

letting it develop in your hand,

which is of course an analog process,

but it's more about the experience of it.

I think both Doc and myself,

we really loved the product

and we wanted to bring it to people.

And for me, it was always the challenge

of how do we make this business sustainable?

How do we give this a future?

How do we kind of pay the bills,

keep the lights on and keep everybody employed year by year?

And we have this giant factory

and to make that sustainable,

we needed to bring the volume of the film up.

And to do that, we needed to bring

the quality of the film up and the prices down.

And I think that's where the biggest difference was

between myself and Doc.

He really believed that the film we had,

this imperfect one,

people would fall in love with it

the way he fell in love with it.

You know, when the company started Florian famously said,

"Anything you make in the factory, I'll sell."

Like that's not a product people want, you know?

People want instant analog film

that develops quickly and looks great

and that's what we want to give them.

♪ Without you ♪

Impossible to me was definitely heart over mind.

Like with a lot of stuff that comes at you in life,

you do it because it feels right.

And that was definitely the case here.

I felt the need to explore further,

to connect to the project in some way,

to talk to Doc and see if I could help.

I always knew that I wanted to do something with products

but at Impossible, I really figured out what that means.

And it really means, you know,

putting two years of your life

into something that's gonna launch,

endless hours tweaking the details

and the millions of things that could go wrong.

But it's just like with the analog process,

the more you put in, the more you get out.

When we took over the factory, it was like,

let's bring this film back,

Polaroid stopped making it.

With the camera,

we want to create our own kind of future for these products.

It was very much about dreaming in the early days.

And it needed to be about dreaming

to get it started and off the ground.

You needed to do stupid things like buy the factory

to start the thing.

But to actually bring it to profitability

and to bring it to as many people as possible,

you actually need to do a lot of work.

And honestly, you know, we started doing that a year ago

'cause before it was more about the dreaming.

Doc and The Impossible Project captivated a lot of hearts,

including mine.

I mean, I suffered pack after pack

of the early Impossible Project film

to get those few shots worth keeping.

But there just weren't enough enthusiasts like me

to keep the business around.

We had this amazing story,

we had this amazing mission,

but at the end of the day,

we had a lot of work ahead of ourselves

to make it a sustainable company or we'd be gone.

One of the turning points

was bringing Stephen Herchen on board around 2014.

I mean he knows instant photography

better than anyone on the planet now I guess,

and actually worked directly with Edwin Land

straight after graduating from MIT.

And he's been instrumental

in evolving the product to where it needs to get to.

Actually, just that one, that one there.

Yeah, thank you.

While the company had to focus

much more on viable products,

Doc continued on his quest,

authentic and possibly impossible projects,

such as craftspeople swimming

against the tide of convenience.

We still have to really fight hard

because still on a daily basis,

things, machine, technologies disappear.

We are in Berlin

and I have some negatives from New York

to develop my analog shots myself and experiment.

We're living in the digital age.

This seems like a lot of hassle.

It's good sometimes

to just be completely lost on your own

in this little cave for the whole day or the whole night

and you can't even have your mobile phone

'cause you have a bright screen

and it will destroy the picture.

So I think that's very healthy,

I don't think it's a hassle.

I think also for your brains

and for your physical feelings,

just moving, doing things, looking at it properly

and not having this weird bright light around you

from computer screens, yeah.

It's very calming and it's very rewarding.

♪ Ruffled at my base ♪

♪ And it walked under my tree ♪

♪ When suddenly it seemed all the fingers ♪

♪ Were pointing up at me ♪

♪ And the footsteps in the side ♪

♪ Will all get washed up ♪

So all was well in the land of analog?

No.

In reality, their products weren't selling

and Impossible was fast running out of money.

Doc was under pressure.

Financially, we had to find a serious investor

to take the next steps with us.

The candidates were not standing in line.

Luckily, we found Mr. Smolokowski.

Oskar back then convinced his father

to give Impossible a chance.

He got excited about the project.

So I think I just forwarded an email.

I was like, "They're not great yet,

but this has some potential."

Slava was a classically trained clarinet player,

but also an inventive investor,

which happened to be exactly what Impossible needed

this time.

It's analog.

I think we needed a bit of a reality check.

For the product to work for more than a few people,

which was what was needed

to kind of keep the lights on in the factory,

we needed to do something about it

or the whole dream could die.

If you start to doubt your own product

or if you don't have this 100% trust

that comes from inside,

it's hard to sell it,

it's hard to convince other people.

The problem with Oskar,

he didn't really feel secure about the quality

and many other topics.

You know, I always even with the worst film,

I say, "Wow, I love it.

Look at these killer crystals, wow."

It's one thing to have a dream

and it's a very different thing

to actually execute on that dream and build a company.

I always like to do things

that can go totally wrong or be super, super incredible.

You know, Steve Jobs,

what was so brilliant about Steve Jobs?

He was the only guy who you really believed in

that he really was in love and proud

and crazy for his own products.

And in today's world, this is very unusual.

I was lucky.

I found what I love to do early in life.

I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20.

And in 10 years, Apple had grown

into a two billion dollar company with over 4,000 employees.

And then I got fired.

How can you get fired from a company you started?

Well, this is how.

The film was still a disaster.

Millions had been lost.

Something had to give.

And that something was Doc.

Sometimes life's

gonna hit you in the head with a brick.

Don't lose faith.

It was crazy.

Of course, it hurt me to to leave the company

but then loss of energy

or even thinking of giving up was never on the table.

Doc's energy was insuppressible.

He didn't stay down long.

Of course, he'd soon start a new impossible project.

Supersense is one of my dreams come true.

Spending a lot of time with the rediscovery

of analog technologies in a digital world,

I found out that the people who love Polaroid

they also love wine

or they also love good coffee,

they also love letterpress,

they also love books.

And so I said, "Let's bring all these things together

in one very special place."

And I found this crazy Venetian palace

in the heart of Vienna

and I said, "Okay, this is the place

that would be the perfect home

for bringing all these crazy technologies under one roof."

People always ask me,

"What is it?

Is it a museum, a bar, a restaurant, a shop?"

Basically, it's a laboratory for me.

We can try a lot of crazy things and technologies.

♪ That I find of you ♪

♪ Every time, every time ♪

♪ No one that lives ♪

♪ Could want you more ♪

♪ For I was born to glory ♪

♪ In your kiss ♪

♪ Forever yours ♪

♪ I was blessed with love to love you ♪

♪ Till the stars burn round above you ♪

♪ Till the moon is like a silver shadow ♪

Meanwhile, back in Berlin,

Oskar and his team are working on ways

to make the company better,

to create cool analog products for digital natives.

2010, '11, '12,

if you explained to people what we we're doing,

they'd say, "Oh, nice, they'll probably fail."

I mean the reality is

Impossible is one percent of the market.

And then we were hoping to grow from there.

But at the end of the day,

this idea of rebelliousness or not,

I mean we're still gonna be this company here.

Impossible was a totally rebellious concept.

You know, like it's a concept that had no logic

really behind it at all.

It was just a very impassioned person

following through on their dream.

And I think it's important for us

that we maintain some of that.

We need to put our finger

on what it was that made it so special.

And the idea that we landed on is bring magic to life.

This is how they used to do nice brochures.

So this is 1972.

But this idea of magic is kind of everywhere.

And if you really think about what all these cameras did

since the '50s, '60s, '70s,

whether it was a small moment with a family or people,

we really want to preserve that and to build that.

If we get this right,

that next product can be great.

Hi, I'm Oskar.

Hi.

I worked on this camera

and I'm CEO of The Impossible Project now.

I wanted to invite you to just give me some feedback.

Okay.

Okay, it looks like it's came from the future.

Good.

I think it's very sexy.

Very sexy, very good to hear.

How would you take a photo?

Yeah, maybe on and off.

Um.

Agh, help.

- How would you? - I have no idea.

Oh.

So you've got eight lights,

which corresponds to eight photos in each pack.

It tells you how many you have left.

Smile now.

Yes.

I like the idea.

Really interesting.

Oskar was heading to New York.

He had put everything into Impossible's first

all new camera, the i1.

The ring flash is great for portraits.

And when you turn the camera on,

it tells you how many photos you have left.

Then you can switch it to bluetooth mode.

So you have two sides.

I have no idea whether the Impossible Project

is onto something or is not onto something.

It's very difficult to know with any generation,

what technology is gonna take off

and whether or not something this retro

given that everybody's got a camera in their pocket

is really gonna have any kind of resonance.

I think I'm pretty, a responsible person.

When I start something I want to make it happen.

A lot of milestones is in front of the company.

This is one of the important,

but not first and not last.

I very much do believe in real businesses.

But the question is what is the business model?

Is the business model earning billions every year

and, you know, growing 100% every six months?

I don't think the world works like that.

So how does it work?

Doc sent me to meet his friends at Moleskine,

probably analog's greatest success story.

They had just saved something themselves.

Fratelli Bonvini,

Milan's oldest stationary shop and printers.

Analog, we are analog.

We are something very physical.

So analog is not thinking.

It's a real thing.

Handwriting, for example,

many schools, especially in the United States,

started to eliminate the teaching of handwriting

in the primary school.

And then neuroscientists started to underline

the fact that a difficult learning

of this kind of physical gesture

is something that is implying a wider part of our brain

because physical is hard, is heavy,

is something difficult to learn, to manage.

This is bringing us to access a knowledge,

experience and the special emotions

and the capacity of deep understanding.

As a child, I was always fascinated by science fiction.

I love my iPhone,

but you know, the very success of Moleskine

has been through technology

because people suddenly discovered

that they could do their writing on paper

but at the same time, showing it, sharing it

and creating communities around that

through technology and through digital.

We think that this opportunity is for the future.

Of course, we are a sort of natural place

for designer or younger creative people here,

but not only.

Yesterday night, a client saying sometimes I'm entering here

just to smell the different flowers that you have here,

the wood, the ink, the paper.

This is not a museum for sure.

Dreamers need partners

to help them make the dreams come true,

ideally with deep pockets to match.

Christmas in Vienna.

This is the analog capital of Europe,

if not the analog capital of the world.

Oh, I can't wait.

I know, I know.

Doc had invited David Burnett and his team

to discuss investment opportunities in vinyl.

So welcome.

Wow, this is it?

- That's it. - Wow.

Now, it's still under development, but yeah.

So basically the first room,

this is where Flo is gonna work on this cluster

and then on the right side,

we have the printing area we're gonna see later.

But first, I have to show you a very special thing

because you knew Seeburg 1000

and this is also from the family of Seeburg.

Does it work?

Of course it works.

You remember nothing that doesn't work.

I know.

I mean I've seen pictures of this.

I've never seen one in person.

Layla, this is so cool.

This is incredible.

We have to build our own formal cut, you know?

Absolutely.

Gonna meet Anna.

Hi, David.

At the same time, when we do the recording,

we produce all the covers.

So we have developed a very special cover that comes-

David was one of the Internet's first millionaires,

a digital pioneer.

In the '90s,

he had invented GeoCities, an early social media platform.

But lately, David had fallen back in love with analog.

- Go, go, go. - Go, go.

I'm gonna go with the red button.

You changed the world.

- Okay? - Okay.

I go for the black button.

Okay.

One, two, three.

Very good, very good, very good.

Thank you.

The smell, you know again?

The acid.

I think the new definition of luxury

is not necessarily jewelry and watches.

It's the curated experiences.

It's the authentic one-of-a-kind experiences

that analog provide,

a custom photograph, a custom record.

You have to smell it because this is an incredible smell.

You don't have to listen.

The resolution's so crisp.

Because it's one-to-one, it's not an enlargement.

Oh it's one-to-one, right.

Do we roll 'em up after it dries?

Yeah, yeah, yeah after it drives.

- Push on. - Push on, yep.

Or this off.

- Push on. - Okay then photo.

Photo, and it's zero, one.

You can hear it working.

You can even see it working.

- Really? - Yeah.

Oh my God, it's so cool.

It's a whole jukebox

in a very stylish cabinet.

And you can program it.

So you really can, you know,

when you have a romantic dinner,

you program it

and then you have three hours continuously.

Oh look, look at the movement right there.

Isn't that beautiful?

I just want to say, thank you, everybody.

This has been a fantastic series of performances

of classic and new music

here in the Supersense Analog Palace in Vienna.

Your magnificent playing has been recorded right back there

direct to disc.

So this is not a pressing,

this is direct from the microphones

to the cutting head to the disc,

which is unprecedented.

And I just want to say thank you

for being part of the renaissance of this classic music

and the renaissance of analog history here in Vienna.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

At Impossible,

a negotiation was going on behind closed doors.

It's the dream to reunite The Impossible Project

with the Polaroid brand.

If this works out, it will be Slava and Oskar

who will make this dream happen.

Is everybody here?

Cool.

All right, so we can start.

So I think this is the first time

where I don't feel like I'm bullshitting

that I'm saying The Impossible Project is a success.

Okay, so let's go through this.

So Polaroid acquired by new ownership group

led by the Smolokowski family.

The new owners acquired 100% of the shares.

Mr. Smolokowski is also majority shareholder

of The Impossible Project,

the company that purchased

the last remaining Polaroid factory in 2008

and continues to manufacture instant film

for legacy Polaroid cameras.

The day we flew the Polaroid flag

at the factory again was huge.

We're also very pleased to welcome

the ownership group to the Polaroid family

and excited to begin writing the next chapter

in the story of the Polaroid brand.

In 2008, obviously Doc started The Impossible Project

and now in 2017, we're becoming Polaroid,

which I honestly didn't expect.

Obviously, thanks to you guys.

It really felt like a brand new company.

Finally, even the film worked.

You know Polaroid's goal and Dr. Land's goal

for a camera like this was

this is the most important part, this red button.

So if I, all I should have to do is press the button.

This is our film that we've been selling

and this is our new film.

The biggest thing I think

that a customer will see right off the bat

is that it's a faster developing film.

It's the most instant film that we've made.

In my mind, it's really the first film

that's worthy of being called instant.

Is that important?

Yeah, it is.

If you think of a magician

who's gonna pull a rabbit out of a hat,

well if it takes 20 minutes for him to get it out,

chances are it's not gonna be a very effective act.

But if it's fast,

then obviously it makes a difference.

Here you can see

that there's already a recognizable image here

and here there's nothing.

So at this point,

we're three or four minutes into the development process

and you can now see this one is fairly well-developed.

This is gonna be the new Polaroid Originals film.

A customer doesn't have to know anything

about the complexity of the film.

All they have to know is how to take it out of the carton

and put it into the camera.

The kind of three things that have happened

that are really changing the dynamics of the entire company.

One is the quality of the film has gotten better

and it's finally gotten more instant

and it's finally gotten to be instant.

Another is that we have a really nice

lower cost brand new camera.

And the third is that we're combining those two

with this world famous brand.

And that's gonna change the whole dynamics of the company.

We had witnessed a bit of a miracle.

The 1940s tech was back in 2018.

It worked and it was called Polaroid again.

Oskar and Doc had pulled the rabbit from that hat.

I was 22 when I joined the project

and obviously I had no idea it would become my whole life.

I mean there were years on the journey

where I definitely wanted to quit.

But every year there was more to be done

and it felt too important to even think about anything else.

So before I knew it, I was 30

and this project indeed became my whole life.

We are one big Polaroid Impossible family today.

I wanted to thank everybody

who made Impossible Project a reality today.

Thank you so much.

80 years ago to the day,

right here in New York,

Edwin Land had founded the Polaroid Corporation.

How rare is it that such a company,

analog and totally not Silicon Valley rises from the ashes?

The underdog was proven right.

What an achievement.

Doc would have been proud.

But no one had made sure he was there that night.

I was standing for the romantic, passionate,

dreamy, crazy part.

That was super important in the beginning.

I think it was a beautiful love affair.

And as you know,

not everything goes very easy in love affairs.

It had many twists and many discussions

but it was a big challenge with a lot of up and downs.

Of course, without shite and failure and making mistakes

there is no progress.

But this is the thing, you know, try it.

Is it the failure that I'm not,

or do I feel sad because I'm not actively involved

in Polaroid nowadays?

Yeah sometimes yes, of course,

because I thought this would be my dream

and especially I promised to my wife,

this is the last project,

you know, this time it works out.

But on the other hand, I would never be sitting here

if things had not evolved like that

and I have the feeling, okay, the whole Polaroid story,

maybe this was just the warmup

for many other projects to do.

There are many other places

to take care that they are not vanishing.

I think I scare a lot of people,

but my hope is that some people

are inspired to think out of the box

and maybe try things that at first are impossible.

It didn't take Doc long

to find a new impossible love affair,

the most analog place

he had ever laid his eyes on needed saving,

a 1902 car hotel outside Vienna

that had stood empty but fully functional since the 1970s

waiting for the right Doc Quixote to kiss it back to life.

This is Südbahnhotel up in Semmering,

a very special car hotel close to Vienna

and the last guest checked out 42 years ago.

It's part of a crazy vision

of bringing analog treasures and pleasures to the people

and help people remember

that places like that built over centuries

are important, even in a digital world.

We have to open this hotel.

It's not a question.

It's not even think about it.

As you can imagine, my wife kills me because she says,

"Can you finally concentrate on one thing?

Can you do one thing and you know, have it done?"

And I just say,

"It's always exactly the same thing.

This is exactly what it is all about."

The owners love this hotel,

but every McKinsey consultant has been telling them

it's impossible to reopen,

uneconomical, not profitable, blah, blah, blah.

Until Doc came along with his style of business plan.

Just give it a good clean, don't change a thing,

it's perfect already, can't you see?

Saving the Südbahnhotel would require passion

and a lot of money.

Doc had plenty of the former and none of the latter.

But then he got an email from the most unlikely of senders.

Doc was headed to Silicon Valley of all places

and there, rather less impressively located in a swamp,

sat one of the world's largest companies ever.

The whole world had begun wondering about Facebook,

but few people had seen it from the inside.

Doc strolled right in.

He had a question for Mark and his team.

I don't know exactly what will happen

but I have a feeling it's just important to keep going.

It's a big question.

And even the guys who founded it said,

"Okay, this is out of control."

In the beginning,

when we started a film with the Impossible factory,

this was a universe that didn't care.

And over the years, this has totally changed.

Everybody called me crazy.

And now I think more and more people

think Facebook is crazy and out of their mind.

It was Scott Bones

of something with the promising name of Analog Research Lab

who had got in touch.

"Dear Doc,

The mission you're on and the story you're looking to tell

is very close to my heart

and right in our sweet spot here at Facebook.

This is a very different kind of project

so I'm not even sure where to start.

A few of us had an interesting meeting on Wednesday

that ties into things like this

and we'd absolutely love to have you out to visit

and talk more with us.

We're actively pursuing opportunities

to reach out into the real world in a positive way

and have stories like this that we can share,

especially as I feel like we're in the middle

of a really important moment in time right now.

Talk soon, Scott."

"Yes Scott,

your words, even if just received digitally

are full of delicious analog energy

and I urgently need to meet you again and dive deeper.

I 150% agree that Facebook urgently

need a deep cultural consciousness",

I probably looked this up in the dictionary,

"Reconnecting you to the real world

and all your fantastic senses.

Can't wait to discuss this face to face.

Excited talk."

Think different.

That was once the motto here

in the land of Google, Facebook and Apple,

the cradle of our digital world.

Doc came to remind them of it.

These companies,

they start building a parallel universe.

All these employees there,

basically, there's no reason

for them to live or think outside that universe.

So how can they solve the problems in the real world

when they don't even know about it?

Yeah, just a website.

10,000 people are working on one website, it's crazy.

Somehow it felt like being in a movie.

It's not at all connected to reality.

Yes, in a genuine

life is stranger than fiction turn,

Doc discovered that

at the very center of Facebook headquarters

where you would least expect it,

there really was an analog heart beating.

- Hello, welcome. - Hello.

I'm Dana Martin.

I'm the programming manager here at Facebook.

Doc hey.

I'm Scott Bones, I'm the graphic design lead

here at Facebook in the Analog Research Lab.

Wow, thank you so much for having me here

on this I think very special place.

Yeah, very happy to have you.

How can this be, honestly?

It's quite a treat to have a creative space like this

at a digital company.

I think it really is important for us

when we're trying to build bridges within our community

and it definitely expands to our mission

and our goal of connecting the whole world.

We definitely fit into Facebook culture

and we've been called the heart and soul of Facebook.

And Facebook's mission is to connect the whole world

and bring the whole world closer together.

I think analog and research

really speaks to how we want people to slow down.

Humans are the only animal

that can not only think of what is but what isn't.

So we can see the impossible and bring it to fruition.

I really love the name Analog Research Lab.

And what would be your answer when I ask you,

what is the smell of Facebook?

I think it would be different for different people.

I mean in here we come in and we smell

the dust that settles on things in the room

or a can of ink or a can of paint.

Are we talking about

the people working here as a community or?

I find myself spending less time online

than I think I did before I started working here,

which is a little ironic.

But I think that just speaks to how much we really value

and how we want to impact the world.

So, Facebook had a soul after all and a smell?

Doc wasn't so sure,

but always one for going the other way,

he put it to a test.

He attempted some kind of analog judo grip.

Doc's plan was to persuade Facebook

to cohost his long cherished Analog Superheroes Dinner

at the Südbahnhotel.

So this is our invitation?

Invitation for the big evening

that will change the future of analog.

But we have to talk about the guest list, right?

12 people.

12 to 15 I think was sort of the magic,

seemed like the magic number.

Yeah, this is a dinner menu,

not boring food, but food for thought.

Yeah, exactly, very good.

So we thought it's not just about

sitting together and being nice,

but we have some really crucial answers.

How does digital smell?

Does digital make any sense?

After a long period

of analog companies trying hard to become digital,

I think it's now time for the digital companies

to start thinking of how to connect with people

in analog ways.

So here we go.

You can already kind of see some of the image on there.

It looks very harmonic.

Yes and there is a harmony to it.

We're mixing up something that started digital

and it's transforming back to analog.

This is something you can't do digitally.

I take a picture.

This is fine for you?

Yeah.

Don't move, don't move.

It's black and white film, Scott, unfortunately.

Okay.

So these two colors stand for analog and digital.

I think the analog should be the bright color.

This is not about good or bad or evil

This is about how can we create a world

where there's a balance again.

This is the future baby.

Look at it.

Why I end up co-hosting this amazing evening with Facebook,

you know a lot of bad things are happening.

But again, I think this is the perfect moment

to start acting against it.

This is not just about Facebook.

This is about if you want to change the world

you should sit together with the biggest companies on Earth

to change something.

Because with my friends and old guys,

we can sit together having many beers,

but we will never change the world.

Okay, everyone ready?

Roll sound.

Roll camera.

He did it.

After 42 years,

Doc had opened the doors to the Südbahnhotel once again.

Facebook, Moleskine, Supersense, Polaroid,

everyone he wanted to work together was coming together,

at least for one larger than life night

of enjoying all five senses.

How can you not see people sitting here

having a nice glass of wine,

walk around this hotel

and look and have your own dreams

of all the things that happened here?

It's like cinema.

It's like you are in the movie.

♪ Sunny day ♪

♪ In all its glory ♪

♪ Hot as the 4th of July ♪

♪ The wind came in ♪

♪ And it graced my face ♪

♪ And it led me to your eyes ♪

♪ Something told me ♪

♪ I'd be seeing you again ♪

♪ But for some reason I still cried ♪

♪ Now years have gone by ♪

♪ I've stood by your side ♪

♪ But there's something on my mind ♪

You know, I started

because I was in love with this hotel.

What more do you need than you feel happy here

even if there's no heating and there's no wine,

there's no service?

Nobody is here, but already you feel happy

and you can spend hours here.

You don't need to study hotel science for 15 years

to find out that this is a magic place.

♪ I, I don't know ♪

♪ I don't know how ♪

♪ I don't know how to love you ♪

♪ No I ♪

♪ I don't know, baby ♪

♪ I don't know how ♪

♪ Said I don't know how to love you ♪

♪ Now in the morning ♪

♪ I reach for your embrace ♪

♪ 'Cause I know that you need it ♪

It was an evening about celebrating

everything Doc stands for,

about falling in love again with analog

and the idea that our lives could be less cold

if we chose in our projects more impossible.

♪ There've been many, many times ♪

♪ When my words get tangled up on the floor ♪

♪ Oh yeah ♪

People are sitting controlled by their computer,

that's our future.

There are people in photography

that are doing beautiful work, photography work-

That effort part of it is really important.

Thank you everybody for coming.

It's I think a very important evening

but hopefully there should be some fun.

I have been asked several times

what exactly is the plan for tonight?

We need more Doc's in this world.

It's important to support the people

doing good work with fundamentally good values.

My question is is there a role of digital

making this world a better place?

Digital technology in general

is at the infancy.

In terms of getting shit done, it's better.

We think our customers are idiots.

What are you saying?

I mean we could talk about digital and analog,

but the balance of all things good and evil

boils down to give people something real, they grab it.

What makes us fucking human?

What makes us human is that we still have emotions.

And if we forgot what the emotions mean,

let's at least trigger each other to have

- those emotions. - I don't think

we have to pit them against each other.

We don't have to choose.

We can have both.

But the problem is we would not be able to look at both

if not some people stand up and do shit

that nobody else is doing.

I don't even know for myself

will I ever succeed

and not wake up every week

not knowing exactly how to pay the bills?

Analog, digital, I cannot hear it anymore.

It's like thinking about sustainability,

love and hate and like and dislike.

It's so overdigested, you know?

My wife tends to the theory

that I'm one of the world's biggest losers

at the end of the day

and I tend to think of

that I'm one of the most successful visionaries.

Maybe in one more difficult year

or two difficult years or 10, we will find out.

Who cares?

You care

You are shooting on 35 millimeter, you know?

Who cares?

I'm talking about-

Everybody cares.

Everybody cares.

Especially the young generation cares.

When they start to roast their own coffees, they care.

They just don't know that places like this exist so-

Sorry Doc, it's not a business.

A business?

What is a business?

Business?

What is a business?

What counts, in what world business counts?

No, I don't believe in that.

♪ No, no regrets ♪

♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪

♪ All the things that went wrong ♪

♪ For at last, I have learned to be strong ♪

♪ No, no regrets ♪

♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪

♪ For the grief doesn't last ♪

♪ It is gone ♪

♪ I forgot too fast ♪

♪ And the memories I have ♪

♪ I no longer desire ♪

♪ Both the good and the bad ♪

♪ I flung out in the fire ♪

♪ And I feel in my heart ♪

♪ That a seed has been sown ♪

♪ It is something quite new ♪

♪ It's like nothing I've known ♪

♪ No, no regrets ♪

♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪

♪ All the things that went wrong ♪

♪ For at last, I have learned to be strong ♪

♪ No, no regrets ♪

♪ No, I will have no regrets ♪

♪ For the seed that is new ♪

♪ It's the love ♪

♪ That is growing for you ♪