LOOKING SHE SAID I FORGET

Synopsis

Having just moved to Amsterdam, Lou prepares her new apartment that she will share with her partner, Joel. Though for now, Joel is on a trip with an intimate other. Confronted with the complexities of her non-monogamous relationship, Lou shifts her gaze to the rhythms of her new city.

Statement of the director

With LOOKING SHE SAID I FORGET I wanted to put into question the relationship structures which have become norms for us to place our intimate lives in today, thinking specifically of the possibilities for relating to others outside of monogamy. I wanted to think of the possibilities for love beyond monogamy.
On screen, we have seen open love portrayed primarily as means to explore oneself sexually. I am, however, more interested in the varied perspectives it might have to offer in everyday life and relationships: how it might encourage presence, vulnerability, and empathy on a regular basis. I am interested in the renewed qualities it gives the experience of love.
My own first steps out of monogamy had to do with a phrase I was living by: “a becoming which never becomes.” For me, the phrase had to do with existing in a changing world and changing with it: existing with it.
I had started to see that in a life where I wanted to be continually affected by my environment and in conversation with the people inside it, it would be impossible to promise myself in a certain way to another, as I could not claim to know who I or this person would be tomorrow. If we wanted to be able to fully engage with each other in the present, it would have to entail not knowing what the result of this present might be.
My last short film AFTER A ROOM explored a desexualisation and deromanticisation of the naked body, placing adult nudity outside of romantic and sexual contexts and restoring its possibilities for childlike playfulness, vulnerability and personal excavation. Where AFTER A ROOM deconstructed our preconceived notions of the naked body today, LOOKING SHE SAID I FORGET deconstructs our preconceived notions of relationship structures today.
Together, these two short films form the basis of my first feature film, AFTER THE NIGHT, THE NIGHT. In this film, I bring my points of research together in one film in a deepened synthesis. I will again play myself, as I had for AFTER A ROOM, continuing to explore the possibilities of the personal as political. What might the micro have to say about the macro, in our most intimate experiences of pain, renewal and love?