Inside “Les Marolles”, a neighbourhood from Brussels, and the microcosm that are living , Aline – aka Miss Vertigo – is taking care of a small space on the ground floor of a familial house. She's welcoming there all kinds of workshops and reunions, but above all the “Vertigo Box”, where she is preparing delicious meals. Doors open for all the beings.

I've been interested in the psyche and mental health for a while. When I started this movie, I was trying to connect with the Brussels anti-psychiatric network. It's in this context I met Aline. She knows well about psychiatry, she stayed there in another life. Today, she's sharing her time in between the Vertigo Box and “L'Autre Lieu”, a space which organises cultural, social and culinary events for a community of patients and ex-patients of mental health centers.

With time, Miss Vertigo set up some rituals for being in the city. Writing, exchanging, offering a service, facilitating access to services or knowledge, sharing a coffee, animating a radio,... and cooking. Sometimes, Aline has a communication problem with food. But she discovered that taking care of the other by cooking fed her in a different way.

I was looking at this woman standing against all odds, with a quiet strength, and carrying with her all who wanted to join no matter their paths or diets. By frequenting Aline and her community, I was discovering the existence of a form of resistance to the city, its rhythms and hectic flux, which reminds me of the expression of a sensitive life : organic, soft, powerful and vulnerable.

Emptiness attraction is the story of the intimacy to which Aline invites me.

Credits

Direction - Deborah Ruffato

DOP - y - Juanita Onzaga

Sound- Gaspard Caupeil & Mathieu Viley

Edit - Brice Beaurain

Music- Médéric Mondet

Production - Mediadiffusion