In Their Semi Off Hours

During the span of a film, sitting in the dark, silent room of a movie theater, one may suddenly begin to occupy an entirely different space: the space proposed by the film itself. In this way, one may find oneself inside a projection, beginning to question what they see, beginning to wonder “Am I seeing this right?” 

This question is not, in fact, about correctness, but about resemblance and reverie. A woman wakes and begins the quiet movements of her morning ritual. Nothing spectacular occurs. Yet through the experience of the film, a sensation arises: a gap, a pause, an opening — an interstice in which one is granted the time to ask, in the very act of seeing, what it is one is seeing. The sensation is dreamlike, though not quite a dream; its quality may stem from the curious feeling of an intimate detachment. 

We might describe this gap in different ways, each one of us. What this gap enables, what it does to us, what we see in it, what we wonder once we have found ourselves within this third space of the cinema. Something appears in this reverie, something of ourselves, yet veiled in mystery. But the chance that such wondering may even be possible amidst the duration of a specific image and sound, amid the observation of a character or the unfolding of a narrative, suggests that in being told a story, one is also being given the chance to ruminate upon their own. 

Through this folding and unfolding, the films in this program propose various tensions: between on and off, between time as leisure and time directed toward a specific aim, between what is visible and what remains unseen. The characters appear in relation to the landscapes or spaces they inhabit or construct, in hours that are neither fully occupied nor entirely free. These films seem to seek an openness, both within the frame and beyond it. Here, cinema becomes a medium through which time can be inscribed: read, sensed, and reimagined.

Films:

The Sealed Soil, Marva Nabili, 1977.
Los páramos, Jaime Puertas, 2019.
Les photos d’Alix, Jean Eustache, 1982.
Theather, Anastasia Lola, 2024.

Image right: Still from The Sealed Soil.