Camen Design Forum

Can you help me find The Cure for Insomnia?

append delete Martijn

Hi all, long time no seen. I’ve just returned from my holidays and am prepping for university. But between all this business I enjoy surfing the web, reading this board and chatting with friends. Out of the first and the latter grew a funny dare. I dared a friend to watch the complete The Cure for Insomnia if I were to get my hands on it, by any means necessary.

For those of you who do not know: The Cure for Insomnia with its running time of 5220 minutes was once the longest film on our world. It has a very sparse page on Wikipedia: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_cure_for_insomnia. Out of the five longest films (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_longest_films_by_running_time) I find on this one and Cinématon to sound interesting and worth wasting time on.

Now the big question is, how do you get your hands on this piece of art? I checked the main stream markets (eBay, Amazon, Play.com) and the underground channels (The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, BTDigg) to no avail. Wikipedia doesn’t supply much to go by other than the artist John Henry Timmis IV… who was always obscure in life (http://www.metafilter.com/80070/Waiting-for-the-CTA) and is now, sadly, deceased.

IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284020/) offers little more, only mentioning The School of the Art Institute of Chicago as publishing company for the film. I will draft an email to them tomorrow but have little faith in it. What department would that email have to go to? I don’t know, in which case they tell you to just send it off to the “Webmaster”. Last time I tried to contact a big institution through their webmaster I never got referred to the right people.

Any ideas?

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append delete #101. Mark333

Alright.

#102. rmanis79

This post was deleted by its owner

append delete #103. walktothepit

we have a few scans of the original manuscript

append delete #104. Baley

I found a potential lead. I got into contact with Tom Colley from SAIC, he sent me a link to a video that showed a couple of seconds of the film. Here’s the link: https://mediaburn.org/video/this-week-in-joes-basement-episode-56-antons-science-project/
(Skip to the 11:45 time stamp to see the footage)
The video has a list of cast and crew members, I doubt that they have the full film, but they could have at least an hour or more of footage. Here’s the list of the cast and crew.
camera and sound by Chris Schiller, Dan Margulies, and Adrian Kingwell

cast: Anton Kast, Bob Poe, Jengis Alpar, Dan Margulies, and Michelle Heuer music: Tim Heuer, Paul Kotheimer, Oliver Steck, and David Zerlin

#105. Mark333

This post was deleted by its owner

append delete #106. Mark333

By the way, walktothepit, have you published the manuscripts anywhere?

append delete #107. walktothepit

no, we have not published the manuscripts yet. they will be digitized and published in due time

append delete #108. Mark333

Ok.

append delete #109. Aj

That's not footage from the actual film. They had a tv camera at a party for anyone who wanted to be on tv and Groban happened to come on and start reciting his poem. The host explains at 8:31.

append delete #110. d9f7upzpi

is the film available?

append delete #111. walktothepit

not yet

#112. mirotilo

This post was deleted by its owner

append delete #113. mirotilo

any news on the film?

#114. DestinyX

This post was deleted by its owner

append delete #115. DestinyX

Hi walktothepit! I'm sorry if we keep bombarding you with questions and such. But can you please give us an update on how everything's going with the archiving of The Cure for Insomnia so far? I'm very curious about this film and I'd love to watch the entirety of it if I can (but look away at the explicit parts though, of course, as they would be quite graphic). Can you tell us how far you've come in terms of archiving this film and the manuscripts? Like, has the film been 60% or 70% archived so far etc.? And do you have an idea of when it will be released yet? Thanks.

And Happy New Year everyone, by the way!

append delete #116. KluskiSlaskie

Any new information about the archiving? I am really interested in reading the manuscript or watching the film.

append delete #117. Invertor

When you finally found this film?

append delete #118. LilBigJP

@walktothepit anything yet?

append delete #119. DestinyX

@walktothepit Are you okay? What happened? Why have you become silent? It's been 6 months now since you last spoke.

append delete #120. J S

so I think I'm pretty late on this but did anyone find it I've become EXTREMELY curious about the matter at hand here and I'm trying to find it I'm looking at going to the university and try to figure it out there.

append delete #121. HipiasPsykokwak

I’m afraid it’s been a fake since the beginning, we hope to really find the film one day.

Or in reality they unintentionally destroyed a part see all the supports containing the film and he is silent out of shame.

append delete #122. walktothepit

Hey y'all.

It is actually not fake! I did not destroy any parts of the film. I have been MIA because I haven't heard anything regarding this search in a long time.
I haven't heard from Deb or her daughter in many, many months and cannot keep bothering her about her dead brother.
Unfortunately, there really isn't much to be done.
I can post screenshots proving all of this below.

Images:

https://postimg.cc/0zDP5g7c
https://postimg.cc/7bZH3WyZ

:: @walktothepit added on 25 Jul ’24 · 15:07

EDIT:

The links are BROKEN. Sorry, let me upload them on a different website!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UuzbIL9cvs2MWMpGjCW7d6aUSHJlkuYI/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ljZMFSmxsn9F2b06Ms6PauUNWNGGhTuQ/view?usp=sharing

append delete #123. walktothepit

As you can see in the email above from Deb, she has the manuscripts in Hanover. She said in Sep 2023 that she got 600 or so pages digitized, but I have yet to see any of those digitized copies. I obviously 100% believe her because she has literally no reason to lie about this, but she lives a busy life and doesn't have the time to serve as an archivist for her dead brother. As I live in a different state than Deb, I am not able to just fly to her house and help her and she is not willing to ship the manuscripts for obvious reasons (sentimental and material ones).
As for the actual film, she has told me in the past she believes she has a copy, but digitizing it would be prohibitively expensive.

I am a uni student as well as working in the arts industry, which is why I haven't been as active on here as I should be.

My apologies,
Charlie

append delete #124. walktothepit

I've sent her another email today, but at the end of the day, there is only so much I can do!

append delete #125. walktothepit

LASTLY:

I've started a TELEGRAM GROUP dedicated to locating the film.

I can also answer any questions regarding my communications on there.

Link:
https://t.me/+Pwwg-kxuJKRlNDI5

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