Davina Maria

Ostende – La Mer – Un Jour is a kind of graphic novel which comes down to showing pictures and then a voice-over of the people who are photographed tell what we see.

Could a gaze be a way to keep someone or something one more time? While searching for a possible definition of « the gaze » and while looking at everything that I hold on to, I try to keep what ceased to be.

Filmmaker Davina Maria and illustrator Dominique Goblet share a fascination for the beach in Ostend. Made up of photographs and illustrations, the film subtly interweaves their respective artistic practices. With a delicate and melancholic tone, Souvenirs d'une journée parfaite celebrates friendship, memory and the fleeting nature of shared moments.

The bedroom—the space in which one comes back to one's intimacy, sleep and also perhaps disappointments—serves as a setting to compose the filmmaker’s fragmented portrait. A woman seeks to understand love, sorrow and absence between the folds of sheets, which are intended to keep lovers’ secrets. Davina Maria tries to find her image just as one makes or unmakes one’s bed. A quest for oneself and a harrowing diary.

Haunted by the sudden death of her grandfather and the lack of images she has of him, the filmmaker goes on a quest for tenderness in Brussels, a city that is not hers. During her short journey, she meets Ildib, an old and lonely man who spends his time watching people from a cafe in her neighborhood.