Still from Continuity (2012)
Production still from the series ART21 Exclusive. © ART21, Inc. 2015. Artwork courtesy: Omer Fast, Arratia Beer, Dvir Gallery & gb Agency
“Those moments are magical in film—when we have a pure linear motion that approaches something and reveals it—but I’m interested in the stuff that gets in the way.” — Omer Fast
Today’s ART21 Exclusive features Omer Fast discussing Continuity (2012), a short film that was commissioned for dOCUMENTA (13) and questions the very nature of truth and narrative. Continuity depicts a middle-class married couple and the return of their son from Afghanistan. What begins as a straightforward homecoming story set in a conventional domestic interior is interrupted by uneasy repetition and the appearance of ghostly, surreal apparitions from the warzone.
“With more and more questions, you create a productive kind of confusion and that’s what I’m after,” says Fast. As the family’s increasingly choreographed reunion unfolds, a sense of longing and emptiness pervades. Fast adds, “It’s about figuring out what to put along the way to pull you away from this notion that there is a linear story with a goal at the end.”
CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Editor: Morgan Riles. Camera: Claus Deubel & Miguel Sanchez Martin. Sound: Agnes Jammal & Oliver Lumpe. Artwork Courtesy: Omer Fast, Arratia Beer, Dvir Gallery & gb agency.
ART21 Exclusive is supported, in part, by 21c Museum Hotel, and by individual contributors.