In April 2021, Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency, carried out the first test flight of a military surveillance drone from Malta. Equipped with long-range technology, the Heron 1 was deployed to patrol the southern Mediterranean and monitor the continent’s borders all the way to the Libyan coast. When Frontex refused to answer his questions, filmmaker Stefan Kruse set out to explore the launch site of the drone. This is a cinematic essay on the militarisation of surveillance technologies and the power dynamics embedded in the images they produce. Can we resist by answering back with images of our own?

Director: Stefan Kruse

Stefan Kruse is a research-based filmmaker and visual artist from Denmark who works with ethical and philosophical questions related to the production of technical images. Often drawing on personal experiences, his work explores human perception, the circulation of images in the mass media, surveillance technologies, and their links to the military-industrial complex. Focusing on seemingly invisible industrial and political structures, Stefan offers an alternative space for critical reflection. In May 2024, he published his first art publication, Stefan Kruse: A Lack of Clarity, with Buchhandlung Walther König. His latest short film “A Reconnaissance” celebrated its world premiere at Visions du Réel in April 2025.