VERTICES: BEIRUT.DUBLIN.SEOUL
Designed as a three-screen triptych, this experimental documentary captures parallel fragments of a single day across three distinct cities: Beirut, Dublin, and Seoul. Grounded in the foundational tradition of the Lumière brothers, the film records unvarnished scenes of everyday life, employing a rigid constraint where each shot lasts exactly 50 seconds—the duration of an early silent film reel.
In expanding into a multi-frame presentation, the film directly evokes Abel Gance’s historic triptych technique—termed “Polyvision”—developed for his 1927 silent masterpiece Napoléon. Where Gance used three simultaneous screens to forge a grand visual polyphony of historical scale, this work deploys the three-screen geometry toward quiet, observational ends. By placing Beirut, Dublin, and Seoul side-by-side, the triptych structure generates a continuous lateral dialogue across geography, aligning disparate cultures, light, and urban rhythms within a unified cinematic space.
32 min (2003-2005)