Danielle Arbid
“Outside”
HD video, 5 minutes
Introduced by Róisín Tapponi
Year: 2020
During the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, filmmaker Danielle Arbid becomes obsessed with a mysterious girl she sees from the window of her apartment in Paris. Shot from her cellphone, better watched vertically, Outiside is the gripping short film that tells the story of what happened next.
Róisín Tapponi: Tell me the life story about her that you choose to believe. Where does she come from, what is she running from, what are her dreams etc?
Danielle Arbid: I fantasised that she was running from her strict parents… I saw her on the first day of lockdown from my window. Everyone was really afraid that first day, that first week, we thought it was the end of the world. I saw this girl in the empty street, and without a mask. She was outside when the rest of the world was inside. She wasn’t trying to seduce men in the street, she was a tomboy. So it wasn’t that story. I imagined another story. Sometimes she used to dance, she looked free. She didn’t seem homeless and she wasn’t a junkie. It seemed as if she chose to spend her days wandering around the streets. If these were ‘normal times’ you wouldn’t notice her, she would be like everyone else. But because the streets were empty, you saw her. I envied that she was outside and I didn’t want to stop the fantasy.
RT: Did you post these images on your Instagram story? If so, how did people respond to them?
DA: Yes, I used to post a sequence every day. My followers used to wait for her! They wanted to know what she was doing every day, so she became a friend to us all.
RT: Is it a problem to film a woman in a public space without her consent or knowledge, from the point of curiosity from another woman?
DA: She was in a public space, on the streets. When the Cinematheque Francais uploaded it on the Internet, people were commenting “why didn’t you help her?” I think they missed the meaning - I didn’t want to help her, I wanted to see her. In the middle of the film I wanted to help her, but she ran away!
RT: Looking at your window, it is as if you are watching a film, rather than making one! Your film is a collage of cinematic love stories – Leo Carax’s Two Lovers on a Bridge (1999), Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). You reference Truffaut’s 1962 film Jules et Jim, as the girl walks with two boys in the sun. What about her seemed so cinematic to you?
DA: It was Spring when I was filming her, the flowers were blooming, the beautiful sun decided to come out… There was something optimistic about her in this space, she had a lot of character and personality even from a distance. There was a boy, maybe they kissed once. The whole viewing experience was very much from my perspective, I didn’t want to bother them or know what was going on between them. I could barely see their faces from the window, if I saw her now I wouldn’t recognise her.
RT: The film seems to be more about the romance of the situation rather than a romance between two people! You are documenting ‘real life’, but it is more of a narrative film than a documentary. Why did you choose to make the film in this way? What was your impulse?
DA: I don’t document reality, I re-invent reality. It’s not about this girl, I told the story that I wanted to hear. I thought about the story one week after I started watching her. I just started filming her because she was very courageous, I didn’t think about making a film. I didn’t dream that she would come back, but I would open my window every morning and see her! My work is related to what Chantal Ackerman used to do in her videos such as La Bas, it’s about how to tell a story from afar.
RT: In this film, love is so distant, the way the young woman loves seems to veer between intensity and nonchalance. All of your films have such romance, from video to narrative film to documentary. How did you think of this film in the context of your wider work?
DA: I like to experiment with forms, making a film through Instagram with my phone was a new form which is what made me excited about the film. I am excited now to start working on a TV show lined up, because it's another new form. I am also going to make a desktop film, about a person I love very much, as seen through his Facebook posts. I want to try all the forms that are possible in the image!
RT: At the end you write “pure transparent freedom”. Why do you think this young, supposedly homeless, woman is free?
DA: Jean Genet used to be very famous, but he lived in poverty and small hotels. He didn’t want to own much, I romanticise this kind of life. I am a consumer, I like to buy things. I am Lebanese, you are Iraqi, we are displaced so we build a country around us wherever we go - we try to build the perfect home, we need things to feel secure. I always admire people who don’t need anything to feel secure - this for me is freedom.
Credits
Outside, Danielle Arbid, France, 2020, 5’
Danielle Arbid
“Outside”
Introduced by Róisín Tapponi
HD video, 5 minutes
Year: 2020
During the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, filmmaker Danielle Arbid becomes obsessed with a mysterious girl she sees from the window of her apartment in Paris. Shot from her cellphone, better watched vertically, Outiside is the gripping short film that tells the story of what happened next.
Róisín Tapponi: Tell me the life story about her that you choose to believe. Where does she come from, what is she running from, what are her dreams etc?
Danielle Arbid: I fantasised that she was running from her strict parents… I saw her on the first day of lockdown from my window. Everyone was really afraid that first day, that first week, we thought it was the end of the world. I saw this girl in the empty street, and without a mask. She was outside when the rest of the world was inside. She wasn’t trying to seduce men in the street, she was a tomboy. So it wasn’t that story. I imagined another story. Sometimes she used to dance, she looked free. She didn’t seem homeless and she wasn’t a junkie. It seemed as if she chose to spend her days wandering around the streets. If these were ‘normal times’ you wouldn’t notice her, she would be like everyone else. But because the streets were empty, you saw her. I envied that she was outside and I didn’t want to stop the fantasy.
RT: Did you post these images on your Instagram story? If so, how did people respond to them?
DA: Yes, I used to post a sequence every day. My followers used to wait for her! They wanted to know what she was doing every day, so she became a friend to us all.
RT: Is it a problem to film a woman in a public space without her consent or knowledge, from the point of curiosity from another woman?
DA: She was in a public space, on the streets. When the Cinematheque Francais uploaded it on the Internet, people were commenting “why didn’t you help her?” I think they missed the meaning - I didn’t want to help her, I wanted to see her. In the middle of the film I wanted to help her, but she ran away!
RT: Looking at your window, it is as if you are watching a film, rather than making one! Your film is a collage of cinematic love stories – Leo Carax’s Two Lovers on a Bridge (1999), Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). You reference Truffaut’s 1962 film Jules et Jim, as the girl walks with two boys in the sun. What about her seemed so cinematic to you?
DA: It was Spring when I was filming her, the flowers were blooming, the beautiful sun decided to come out… There was something optimistic about her in this space, she had a lot of character and personality even from a distance. There was a boy, maybe they kissed once. The whole viewing experience was very much from my perspective, I didn’t want to bother them or know what was going on between them. I could barely see their faces from the window, if I saw her now I wouldn’t recognise her.
RT: The film seems to be more about the romance of the situation rather than a romance between two people! You are documenting ‘real life’, but it is more of a narrative film than a documentary. Why did you choose to make the film in this way? What was your impulse?
DA: I don’t document reality, I re-invent reality. It’s not about this girl, I told the story that I wanted to hear. I thought about the story one week after I started watching her. I just started filming her because she was very courageous, I didn’t think about making a film. I didn’t dream that she would come back, but I would open my window every morning and see her! My work is related to what Chantal Ackerman used to do in her videos such as La Bas, it’s about how to tell a story from afar.
RT: In this film, love is so distant, the way the young woman loves seems to veer between intensity and nonchalance. All of your films have such romance, from video to narrative film to documentary. How did you think of this film in the context of your wider work?
DA: I like to experiment with forms, making a film through Instagram with my phone was a new form which is what made me excited about the film. I am excited now to start working on a TV show lined up, because it's another new form. I am also going to make a desktop film, about a person I love very much, as seen through his Facebook posts. I want to try all the forms that are possible in the image!
RT: At the end you write “pure transparent freedom”. Why do you think this young, supposedly homeless, woman is free?
DA: Jean Genet used to be very famous, but he lived in poverty and small hotels. He didn’t want to own much, I romanticise this kind of life. I am a consumer, I like to buy things. I am Lebanese, you are Iraqi, we are displaced so we build a country around us wherever we go - we try to build the perfect home, we need things to feel secure. I always admire people who don’t need anything to feel secure - this for me is freedom.
Credits
Outside, Danielle Arbid, France, 2020, 5’