Broken Films - curated by Toni Serra aka Abu Ali

This text is a reflection on three works: two by Waël Noureddine and one by Bouchra Khalili. There is an obvious relationship between the first two of these films, which form a somewhat disturbing diptych of Beirut. The much shorter third work is woven from oscillating images of a port city that the filmmaker chooses to present as anonymous, but which we as viewers venture to place at the other extreme of a Mediterranean torn apart by borders and pierced by resistances.

An underground connection runs beneath these three works: the image as a diaphanous mirror reflecting a supposed reality irremediably broken, either in its construction or in its intention. Reality is no longer there to be represented, and so it must be imagined: it must first be seen in images, in order to later emanate from them. And then, as in an act of exorcism, something shatters and the visions offered in these works become an actual fragment of reality, rather than representing it.More ...