Saturday 14 March 2009, 19.00

Central, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, 2001, 35mm, 10 min

A young woman awaits the arrival of her brother near the Star Ferry landing terminal early in the morning. She takes a walk along the Hong Kong Bay. The woman's monologue describes the birth of a unique moment, a melancholy mixture of lonesome lives, maritime architecture and early-morning peace. This is where all kinds of people begin their day, each one in a different way, and all of them alone. The film deals with the city and the manner in which it changes every individual. The monologue additionally makes it clear how people constantly define their expectations anew in the face of the intensity and size of a big city on the waterfront.

Un homme Qui Dort (The Man Who Sleeps), Georges Perec and Bernard Queysanne, 1974, 35mm, 93 min

Adapted by George Perec and Bernard Queysanne from Perec's 1967 novel of the same title, Un homme Qui Dort charts the hours and days in which a young sociology student attempts to distance himself from life in the pursuit of what it might be to live. Filling the time between waking and sleeping the question posed is not merely what it is to sleep, but rather what it is to be conscious or to have conscience. Narrated by Shelley Duvall this piece of cinematic literature encounters the contradictions of stillness activated and passivity forced in the sharply exposed black and white imagery of Paris. Shown here for the first time in London, this is a rare opportunity to encounter Perec's text in the language of cinema

Programme duration 105 minutes.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
£5 (£4 concessions), booking recommended

    

This event is related to the The Unilever Series: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster exhibition