Experiencing Interruptions?

Oculus

A close-up of an eye slowly merges with the image of a bridge over moving water.
Through superimposition and subtle variations, the bridge gradually appears within the eye itself, as if the gaze were absorbing the landscape.
Between reflections, vibrations, and echoes of light, the image becomes a shifting threshold between seeing and being seen.

  • Christophe Schaeffer
    Director
  • Christophe Schaeffer
    Writer
  • Christophe Schaeffer
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Experimental
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 26 seconds
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    Belgium
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital 1920x1080
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Experimental Film Festival Barcelona
    Barcelona, Spain
    Spain
    June 15, 2025
    WINNER - Best Perceptual
Director Biography - Christophe Schaeffer

Christophe Schaeffer is a French multidisciplinary artist — writer, poet, philosopher (PhD), visual artist, and lighting designer. His work spans theatre, contemporary dance, visual arts, music, and cinema, exploring perception, time, and the fragile boundaries between image and presence.
Since 2022, he has developed a body of experimental films extending his research into moving images. His cinematic practice revolves around duration, slowness, and the vibration of reality, often using extreme slow motion, long focal lengths, and mobile phone cinematography.
His films have been presented in international festivals and artistic contexts, and pursue a form of poetic cinema of attention, where images remain inhabited by gesture, silence, and lived experience.

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Director Statement

Oculus explores a transformation of perception through extremely slow images, long focal lengths, and superimpositions that continuously reshape the visual field.
Rather than building a narrative, the film unfolds through micro-variations in light, movement, and texture. The image remains in constant transformation, inviting the eye to rediscover the instability of what it sees.
Silence plays a central role in the film. With no added sound or music, the soundtrack becomes the viewer’s own environment — the surrounding space, its noises and its presence.
In this way, the film opens a shared perceptual field between the image and the place where it is watched.
By embracing slowness and even the possibility of boredom, Oculus places duration at the center of the experience, allowing the image to be encountered not as spectacle, but as presence.