A soldier captures a heroic portrait of a general. A rebel documents the violent excesses of those in power. A voyage through cinema’s century-long relationship with war begins with the earliest footage of Italy’s invasion of Libya in 1911 to modern-day phone videos documenting today’s war zones.

Pairing images of historical atrocities with modern military lectures on the use of cameras in combat, Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti’s essential documentary journeys from the depth of the archive to the divided present. More than a dream machine, cinema emerges as a state instrument of death.