Broadcasting the End - A Tale about a Magic Mountain

A few less than 200 people live in the village of Bugarach in the South of France, and except for the beautiful scenery it has little to offer visitors. There are hardly any shops, and no special attractions whatsoever – until the mayor tells the local paper about the mountain alongside the village. He says it will be the sole safe refuge on Earth during the Apocalypse, which will take place on December 21, 2012. His pronouncements unleash a barrage of media hype. For months on end, the village is awash with the international media, and filmmaker Martijn Payens is on hand from the start. He presents the story as a classic fairy tale, with a friendly voice-over that introduces the mountain, and then simply records the goings-on. What effect is all this media attention having on the inhabitants? The hype results in a kind of Droste effect: faced by the absence of hordes of visitors, the press starts reporting on itself. Journalists film the other journalists, and in turn are captured by Payens’s camera. This documentary not only captures the media hype, but it also contributes to it.