Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige. A Perfect Day

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige use their work to explore the production of knowledge, the rewriting of history and the construction of imaginaries, but also the forms of contemporary narrative, with reference to the experience of their own country but also others. With its mixture of the individual and the geographic, their investigative approach, involving questioning in the field, results in a singular aesthetic. These questions powerfully inform their cinematic work.

That is why, in agreement with Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Jeu de Paume has decided to present a selection of films in the auditorium that will give visitors the chance to discover or rediscover their work as filmmakers in the company of guests such as Etel Adnan and Antoine Thirion.

A Perfect Day (2005, 88′, Lebanese, French subtitles)
24 hours in the life of Malek in today’s Beirut.
This young man who lives with his mother, Claudia, suffers from sleep apnoea and tends to fall asleep as soon as he sits still. In the film, Malek has managed to persuade Claudia to go and see a lawyer in order to officially declare the death of her husband, who disappeared 16 years earlier. The young man now decides to try to live to the same rhythm as other people – with the city and, above all, with Zeina, the woman he loves but who does not want to see him any more. He sets off into Beirut, trawling its streets and bars, looking for Zeina and hoping that she will give him a second chance.
What if this day was “the perfect day” for throwing off his ghosts and finding those he has lost?

Tuesday 14 June, 7 pm, screening of the film “A Perfect Day” (2005, 88′, Lebanese, French subtitles) in the presence of the artists.
Admission: 3 euros or free with that day’s exhibition ticket.