Öykü Sofuoğlu

Lounging on a small bed, Chantal Akerman’s posture seems casual and relaxed at first glance, but the repetitive tilts of her head—to the left and then back to center—contrasting with the smooth glide of the camera suggest otherwise. Restlessness is in the air, yet before we can discern it, the image is already on the move, retracing its steps for a second time.

Portrait d’une paresseuse seems one of Chantal Akerman’s more playful and lighter works—a skit in which she acts out a filmmaker’s creative process of attempting (and failing) to make a film about being lazy.

Animals no longer live in nature; they now exist first and foremost on our screens. While each new internet-based encounter with them still feels as surprising and delightful as ever, the obsessive relationship with animal imagery often remains limited to fulfilling our emotional needs—rarely do we question the underlying motives. Mourad Ben Amor’s Bamssi (2024)—a diary film made alongside a pack of animal protagonists—hints that our fascination may sometimes be less about the animals themselves than about the spontaneity and impulsivity that emerge from their most routine gestures.

Foreignness always operates in varying degrees and can easily be internalised as self-exoticisation or through voluntary and involuntary alienation. Nevertheless, watching a film about your home country through a foreign gaze is always a startling experience. The images appear uncannily alien, akin to a non-native speaking in your mother tongue: no matter how impeccable their linguistic knowledge and proficiency, their intonations inevitably inhabit an absence, turning familiar words into strange, peculiar objects.