Three filmmakers traveled together in Barcelona, each making their own film. One of them chose to document the journey spontaneously. Mechanically bound to the viewpoint of a third person, the cameraman’s experience of place and time is constantly shifting between his subjective perception as a creator and the objective perception of the camera. The result is a poetic mix of visuals and text dealing with themes of cultural disengagement and urban solitude.

Director’s Statement:

“The Inner City” deals with themes of cultural disengagement, urban solitude, and in particular – the romantic filmmaker. The latter describes a historically reoccurring figure in cinema; whether it is in Kieslowski’s “Camera Buff” or Fellini’s “8½”, the romantic filmmaker is constantly detached from both people and space as he replaces his own eyes with that of the camera lens.

In the making of the film, while traveling with two fellow filmmakers, I engaged in a process of constantly and spontaneously documenting their journey on video. This made me witness my own death, if I am allowed to put it in a poetic rhetoric – the constant need to stay behind the camera disconnects me with my surroundings and people around me; not the “me” as in the filmmaker, but the “me” as in the traveler. On the other hand, the process also liberates me to react to people, things and events in a subconscious level while constructing ongoing personal narratives; this creates a heightened tension between me and my subjects, which often lead to interesting situations that reveals the paradox of documenting life: the closer I want to get to an individual, the more the subjects react indifferently or shut themselves off.