Shortly before Christmas 1973, the crew of Skylab, NASA’s first space station, went on strike. Based on a 60,00-page transcript of conversations between Skylab's crew and the control centre on Earth, Graeme Arnfield's The Case Against Space reconstructs this forgotten episode from the history of space exploration.
Challenging preconceived notions of astronauts as heroic adventurers, Arnfield's film focuses on the universal conditions of labour experienced by all workers, including those in space. Mostly shot using a 1970s surveillance camera, the film restages the claustrophobic environment of the space station as the crew carry out an ever-expanding list of experiments, while their bodies are continually monitored from the ground.
The Case Against Space (2026)
Directed by Graeme Arnfield
73 minutes
Commissioned through FLAMIN Productions
Graeme Arnfield, The Case Against Space (2026), stills
Festival screenings
2026
Visions du Réel, Nyon, Switzerland
Open City Documentary Festival, London, UK
Awards
Nominated, Doc Alliance Feature Film Award
Special Mention, Burning Lights Competition | Visions du Réel
Press
Huda Awan, 'Rupture, Repair: New films by Marta Popivoda and Graeme Arnfield', Open City Texts, 2026
The Case Against Space (2026), trailer
Graeme Arnfield is an artist filmmaker & curator living in London, raised in Cheshire, UK. Producing sensory essay films from found often viscerally embodied networked imagery his films use methods of investigative storytelling to explore issues of circulation, spectatorship and history. His research topics have included: the politics of digital networks, the distribution of ecological matter such as peat and asbestos and the adaptive circulation of global and local histories.
His work has been presented worldwide including Berlinale Forum Expanded, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Courtisane Festival, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Sonic Acts Festival, European Media Arts Festival, Transmediale, IMPAKT Festival, Kasseler Dokfest, Plastik Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, LUX, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Berlinische Gallerie, Signal Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery and on Vdrome. He graduated with a Masters in Experimental Cinema at Kingston University.
Portrait of Graeme Arnfield. Courtesy of the artist
FLAMIN Productions aims to support the most exciting, innovative and challenging moving image projects with development, production finance and bespoke mentoring opportunities. The only scheme of its kind in the UK, it commissions new, important and substantial moving image artworks that are ambitious in premise and duration, with an emphasis on projects that have strong potential for national and international exhibition and distribution.
Selected through an annual open call application process, the scheme is open to mid-career artists based in England who have moving image at the core of their practice.
