SAMI BEN LARBI

Three Parts make a Hole

Until recently I have been in the background of my work, as director and producer. I wanted the viewers to complete the work, physically and visually. I have now shifted my approach and appear in the work, not as myself, but rather as characters from favorite movies. Francois Truffaut and Tsai Ming-Liang have been special influences; they follow the same characters over several films, thus through time, creating a mutating identity. Antoine Doinel and Hsiao-Kang, the leading characters of the two filmmakers, struggle with growing up in and fitting in their respective societies. I identify with these characters.

For my new project, Three Parts make a Hole, I am making a film using a screenplay and production stills as the end product. The story, blending real-life and fictive episodes, is that of three characters all obsessed with film. Perdou, an eighteen year old in 1990’s Paris, France, is a troubled teenager who eventually gets a screentest (for the undisclosed 400 blows). Jean-Pierre, a twenty-five year old actor in the 1960’s, is the lead in Francois Truffaut’s and Tsai Ming-Liang’s movies.

As the story progresses Jean Pierre becomes more and more confused as to which is reality and which is film. Plutarr, a forty year old film critic and writer in the 2010’s Los Angeles, is writing an autobiographical screenplay with three characters, all obsessed with film.

This project will exist in three forms, as a web project for Blackbird, a book project, and a projection piece.

—Sami Ben Larbi

Three Parts make a Hole

   Contributor’s notes
   Introductions Reading Loop

return to top