
Synopsis
I wrote this text while I spent one summer afternoon in Bologna, sitting in front of an empty monumental cinema screen installed for the Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in the city’s Piazza Maggiore. The subject of the text is the empty cinema screen itself. It is a first approximation of a writing practice performed in real time, in front of a specific phenomena and place. For its final form as a sound piece to be played in the setting of a darkened screening room, the original text was read aloud by Andrea Van Eyck in Madrid on October 4, 2024.
You might also like

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Hardball

The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Hungry Hearts

Left on the doorstep of a monastery as an infant, Marcelino was raised by the monks. He was well-cared for but lonely and missed having a mother. One day he found a special friend in the forbidden attic, hanging on a cross. A friend that would repay Marcelino's kindness by granting him one heart-felt wish.
The Miracle of Marcelino

On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
Mindwalk

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
Home Run

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Gigi & Nate

A boy escaped from home, listening, crouched in the depths of his hiding place, the cries of the men who seek him. When the game passes, what remains before him is an infinite and arid plain that he must cross if he wants to get away definitively from what has made him flee. His steps will intersect with those of a pastor and, from that moment, nothing will be the same for either of them.
Out in the Open

An Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv discovers a dark secret about his wife in the aftermath of a suicide bombing.
The Attack

Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.
Prayers for the Stolen

A motley crew of young boys in Colombia lives only for one passion: soccer. But when their precious new ball rolls into a minefield, their dreams are suddenly on hold. Even as the village becomes the center of a tug-of-war between right-wing paramilitary groups and leftist guerrillas, the idea of a rescue attempt is too tempting to resist.
The Colors of the Mountain

Bored 15-year-old school chums Rai Manu and Javi dream of sexual adventures and exotic resorts while the well-off population of Madrid flock to the beaches on a summer holiday. The youths hang around the concrete wasteland killing time by reading the sex classifieds and pushing their luck. They masturbate, thieve, fight with their families and get involved in a drug bust. Finally Rai, the most daring and restless of the trio - gets shot while trying to steal stereo gear from a car. Each adolescent faces a dreary home life but when they get together they enjoy each other's company to the full. The film is an engaging mixture of comedy drama and the pathos of life in a Madrid neighborhood.
Barrio

Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.
Babylon

A teenager pretends to be dying from cancer as a way to cope with the realities of his daily existence and his father's terminal illness.
Norman

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
All Day and a Night

A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
Gracie

After having a nearly fatal drug overdose, 19-year-old Argentine Martin is sent to Madrid, where his film director father lives with his new, younger lover, Alicia, and his bisexual actor friend, Dante.
Martin (Hache)

Recently escaped from reformatory, Reinaldo struggles to get by in the streets of Havana in the late 90s, one of the worst decades for Cuban society. Hopes, disillusionment, rum, good humor and above all hunger, accompany him in his wanderings, until he meets Magda and Yunisleidy, survivors like himself. In one or the other's arms, he will try to escape the material and moral misery surrounding him, living love, passion, tenderness and uninhibited sex to the limit.
The King of Havana

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
Vanya on 42nd Street

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.