The Tesla World Light

The Tesla World Light is an 8-minute 2017 black and white avant-garde film by Montreal director Matthew Rankin imagining the latter days of inventor Nikola Tesla in 1905 in New York City. Rankin has stated that he was interested in exploring Tesla's optimistic utopian vision. The film is a fanciful amalgamation of elements from Tesla's life including his 1905 pleadings for J.P. Morgan to continue funding his World Wireless System and his love for a pigeon. Rankin has stated that "everything in the film is drawn from something [Tesla] wrote or said." The film uses excerpts of Tesla's actual letters to Morgan, which the filmmaker found in the Library of Congress; even a reference to Tesla falling in love with an "electric pigeon" was based on an interview with Tesla, according to Rankin. The film is produced by Julie Roy for the National Film Board of Canada.