Helsinki to screen 'longest film' at arts festival Published duration 23 March 2011

image caption The film is being screened in front of the building that it features

A film by a group of Danish artists, which is being screened at a festival in the Finnish capital Helsinki, has been billed as the longest movie ever.

The 240-hour film is said by festival organisers to show the ravages of time marking a box-like office block, Helsinki's Stora Enso building.

Centuries of decay are apparently compressed into the span of the film.

The film, whose makers are known for satirical works, is being shown on a screen in front of the building itself.

"According to our information, this is the world's longest movie," Paula Toppila, executive director of the IHME art festival, told AFP news agency.

The Stora Enso building, she said, was chosen "because it is a symbol of power and it is in a central, almost monumental place".

It was due to be screened - "only once", AFP notes - on Wednesday at 2000 local time (1800 GMT).

Past works by Superflex, as the Danish art group call themselves, include a cockroach-level tour of London's Science Museum and a campaign to paste red posters around Copenhagen reading (in English) "Foreigners please don't leave us alone with the Danes".

The group also created an installation in Heerhugowaard, the Netherlands, called Power Toilets - a copy of lavatories used by members of the UN Security Council at UN headquarters in New York.

Asked by the BBC News website if anybody watching the 10-day film in Helsinki could safely nip away to use the toilet without missing a key moment in the film, Superflex's Rasmus Nielsen replied: