Time Reversed Time

In the summer of 2019, a family takes their last trip with their father, husband, or father-in-law. My father-in-law passed away one day in January 2021 when it was snowing. I looked up photos and videos of him with my wife, and fixed my gaze at the record of that trip from two years ago. His body was with us then, but often his mind was beyond our reach. What was he looking at, how was his time going?

The time of this work moves forward as a whole, but continues to reverse in frame units. The cinematic time of eight, eleven, and fourteen frames, which is going backward, is in line with the way he experiences time with dementia. Like the scenery from a train rushing in front of him, his time moves forward, but his memory continues to backtrack.

Time Reversed Time is one of seven shorts presented by the 18th edition of the Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul – EXiS, as part of a special selection on e-flux Video & Film, streaming for two weeks from October 28 to Novermber 11 and accompanied by a conversation between EXiS 2021 programmer Inhan Cho and e-flux’s Lukas Brasiskis. See the full program here.

The program is part of the series Festival Forum on e-flux Video & Film, presenting collaborations with established and emerging moving-image festivals from around the world.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.