Experiencing Interruptions?

The waiting room

Four people are waiting their turn in the emergency room.

  • Christophe Schaeffer
    Director
  • Christophe Schaeffer
    Writer
  • Christophe Schaeffer
    Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    La salle d'attente
  • Project Type:
    Experimental
  • Runtime:
    7 minutes 26 seconds
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    France
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital 1920x1080
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
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

The Waiting Room unfolds in the ordinary space of a hospital emergency room. Four people sit side by side, waiting for their turn.
Nothing seems to happen. Nurses pass in the background. Time stretches. The atmosphere is both quiet and slightly oppressive.
The camera moves slowly from one presence to another, pausing on small details: a trembling hand, a repeated gesture, a distant gaze. In black and white close-ups, fragments of bodies and faces begin to reveal a hidden tension beneath the stillness.
What interested me was this suspended state where waiting becomes an experience in itself. Between anxiety and patience, the image observes how people inhabit this uncertain time.
Behind the apparent immobility, another world slowly appears — one made of fragile gestures, silent thoughts, and the simple fact of being present.