Phainesthai / From φαίνεσθαι, to show oneself, to bring to light

Phainesthai is a project in between experimental film and installation, a product of DIY philosophy. The film leads the viewer into an immersive experience around the affect that emerges when a time in our life is ending. The film has been built on the absence of a ritual for grieving this ending.

During this period, I was living in a house - a temporary occupation - with other artists in the center of Brussels. Inspired by the idea that this dilapidated house was full of history, I filmed its empty rooms, walls, shadows,... after we left it, I invented my encounter with a ghost to share an experience I lived between these walls and that I could only express through film.  

Starting from an intimate story, the creative process asked me to dive inside my own psyche, my uncounscious and explore its puzzle through dreams, automatic writing, meditation and trancee. I purposely don't tell the personal story that connects me to this house. What's interesting for me are the sensations – emotions, thoughts, tensions, memories – and reminiscences that remain.

 In every moment we're dying, like a double of ourselves we have to let go. Through this project, it's my own ghost I'm watching deploy and transform : an invitation to follow sensorially this specter until its dissolution.

Credits

Direction/Cinematography/Sound - Deborah Ruffato

Music  - Svaer

Mix - Flavio Bagnasco