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Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

United States

2011

85 Min
Color
English
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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DIR Jon Foy

PROD Jon Foy, Colin Smith

SCR Jon Foy, Colin Smith

CAST Colin Smith, Justin Duerr, Steve Weinik

ED Jon Foy

MUSIC Jon Foy

Sundance (U.S. Documentary Competition): Directing Award, Melbourne (Documentaries)

Synopsis

Beginning in the early 1980s, hundreds of tiles carrying this cryptic message were found embedded in the asphalt of city streets as far apart as New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Santiago, and Buenos Aires. Street art? A prank? A message from space?

Filmmaker Jon Foy recounts how young artist Justin Duerr became fascinated with the strange plaques and, with two other “Toynbee tile” enthusiasts, Steve Weinik and Colin Smith, spent years trying to discover what they meant and who made them. The unlikely investigators uncovered increasingly bizarre clues: a newspaper article, a David Mamet play, a Jupiter colonization organization, and a Toynbee message that “hijacked” local news broadcasts.

That the origins of a street tile can be so captivating is testament to both Duerr’s passion and Foy’s filmmaking. Artfully constructed, Resurrect Dead thrusts us into the black hole of this fantastic mystery but also reflects on Duerr himself, and the personal connection he develops with finding an answer. —Sundance Film Festival

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Displaying 4 of 5 wall posts.
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hakaima sadamitsu

14May12

Finally had some answears, but my questions are not quite saciated. Great little film and great mistery that will probably never be 100% solved.

Josh Greenwald

25Mar12

Don't say truth is stranger than fiction. Just don't, please don't. Don't say this film is about one's man obsessive quest to find out the truth. This film is about the passion that drives people to both create and discover mystery. And we were always told that if we only stared at the ground while we walked, we would miss the world passing us by..

Matt Reddick likes this

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Max Slobodin

11Jan12

static, numbers stations, broadcast signal intrusions, a methodology thriving in the clandestine. an exercise in topolomancy. the sheer joy in the most confounding of enigmas. cryptomnesia. the strange happens, in this world, in reality, on a daily basis. a touch of the sublime leaves its residue on these tiles. how wonderful and how odd it is to be living, and how heartbreaking. resurrect dead. you!!

Picture of Gabriel Picard

Gabriel Picard

28Dec11

so much fun!

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