Rouzbeh Rashidi · Homo Sapiens Project
Homo Sapiens Project (200), 2000-2020
As part of the Homo Sapiens Project
Synopsis
Homo Sapiens Project (200) is a single, immense duration slowly precipitated from years of looking — a work that gathered itself across a long span and settled, at last, into one continuous act of attention. To enter it is to submit to time as its true subject: an accretion of seeing so vast that event, character, and even the seer dissolve into the sheer passage of images. Neither diary nor drama, it holds the ordinary textures of a life — rooms, faces, weather, the failing and returning of light — until they turn strange, estranged, almost geological. What accumulates is not a story but a pressure: the weight of duration bearing down upon perception until watching becomes a kind of vigil, and the film, with nowhere left to arrive, learns simply to endure.
Director’s Statement
For a decade, spanning from 2000 to 2010, I devoted my personal life to crafting short experimental films, a practice I have always embraced and will continue to do. Over these years, these films morphed and evolved, mirroring spirits’ restlessness in their relentless quest for a final resting place they never found. Each segment of the Homo Sapiens Project (200) sprung from a unique condition – it was a manifestation of a subtle therapeutic practice that I was personally living through.
Reflecting upon this journey, I realize how these collective works encapsulate significant life events, stylistic transformations, and thematic pivots in my filmography. However, despite their reflective nature, they could never find a final form that felt perfectly right. In fact, tranquillity is a state rarely experienced in my creative endeavours.
After spending two decades meandering through the labyrinth of my subconscious, these films have finally found a sanctuary, settling into a realm of their own – a deeply personal, floating planet shaped by my attempts. This journey, however, raises a question: to what extent can one stretch a piece of work through incessant re-editing, re-contextualizing, and experimentation? While the exploration of extreme limits and conditions is fascinating, is it justified to subject these short films to such rigorous circumstances indefinitely? The answer may be affirmative or negative; it’s subjective.
As a filmmaker, my role is perpetually centred around seeking rather than providing definitive answers. While an ultimate, fatal final act might induce a catharsis, it will never wholly reconcile the escalating discord between life and cinema. After all, the films I will never make are me, and the ones I’ve already made are my mistakes.