In Foyer, art takes to the streets, as Ismaïl Bahri walks through Tunis with his camera, capturing the city and its inhabitants. The subversive element of this artistic travelogue lies precisely in the white piece of paper that obscures the lens, creating in effect an unexpected representation of reality, which changes in shade and tone according to the whimsy of the wind. Bahri’s barrier-curtain invites new discourse on ways of seeing, in effect offering new take on Plato’s cave, where the screen becomes the agora of ideas and opinions and everything from art to economy and politics come under debate. Simplicity is beauty, and in Foyer’s case, poetry as well, for what is more powerful than seeing our world compressed onscreen in its purest form, as light waves blend together onto cinema’s canvas to form an abstract-yet-so-familiar representation of reality? (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2017)
