The Pieces
Mirage (42')
At the edge of a city growing from the desert, a man plays alone on a golf course. Another, sleepless, sends a letter from a labour camp to his wife in Kenya. A sand storm hits a construction site, and the locals hold a strange celebration.
Dubai, usually seen either as miracle of development or failed gimmick, here becomes a set for a visual exploration of displacement, longing and desire. In three chapters the city, the surrounding desert and their inhabitants slowly uncover some of the darker aspects of contemporary society, while the ongoing economic meltdown spells the end of an era.
Directed, produced and filmed by: Srđan Keča
Editing: Simon Bullen
Sound postproduction: Tom Drew
Original music by: Jon Wygens
Zobeide (9')
One of the stories that Marco Polo tells Khublai Khan in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is that of the city of Zobeide: In pursuit of a beautiful naked woman who appeared in their dreams running through the streets of an unknown city, men of many nations set out to find this city. Instead, they found each other. They built Zobeide from their dreams, changing ever so slightly the patterns so that in reality, unlike in the dream, the object of desire would not escape. Sure enough, the woman never appeared. Gradually the dream was all but forgotten, and the streets wound about themselves constituted merely a place where the men had to go to work every day - a trap.
The pursuit of the dream, the conquering of the desert landscape, the vacant lust, the empty office block, these images are juxtaposed against the final movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the end of time.
Home (3'35")
An African man in a labour camp sends a letter to his wife. The images try to reveal an iconography of migrant "home" life, perhaps the future for the majority of people on the planet.
Escape (1'45")
A suite of machines conquer the desert. The smooth sand surface is disturbed only for a minute, the escape from the blandness of the everyday leads into a trap.
