Corridor
Proposal 16/1/2009

Corridor is a 6 minute film following the life of a young couple, that transitions from the ultimate feeling of love, to the ultimate feeling of hatred. The film is a journey through their surreal and fictional world and through reality. The war of emotions unraveling in their conscience contrasts their complete immobility in their real everyday life.
The film is set in Cyprus, in the city of Nicosia, where the two main characters Valentinos and Melpo live. The locations of the filming will be my house and a basement. The filming will begin at 5/1/2009 and will be completed at 7/1/2009. Also, the initial stage of the production includes several workshops, concerning communication, self confidence and improvisation, which will take place before the filming.
The main concept was derived from a poem, written in 1903 by one of the most prominent and lyrical poets of Greece, Constantine P. Cavafy. The title of the poem is “Windows”. The poem is about the despair of the individual, when he/she faces something new and unfamiliar, the fear of rejection and of the unknown, combined with the notion that windows represent the light, and also the unattainable freedom for the poet.
Based on this concept, the film presents us with a young, professionally successful couple. However, behind the seemingly perfect exterior, an ever-lasting war is waging, with no apparent conclusion. The characters are socially adept, pleasant, and pretending to be a happy couple. That dramatically changes when they are alone together, where they transform into immobile, alienated strangers. The overwhelming emotions are grievance, rage and mourning, for all that is forever lost.
The film sequences are divided into two different parts: the realistic and the fictional part, the latter having a more accurate depiction of their life and true characters.
The film begins inside a lavishly decorated house, where the two characters are sitting on a sofa. At first, a long shot will provide us with the identification of the surroundings, followed by a closer shot, focusing on the couple. Right after, close-up shots of both of the characters, are used to identify their figures into space. Almost immediately, the camera reproduces the initial long shot, and the first scene is completed with a fade to white. White in the film is the color that represents not only the parallel reality that the characters experience, but also the agonizing and never satisfied need for light, and freedom. There will be no music or any sounds in the background, so as to portray the lack of communication and the unwillingness for any kind of interaction.
The second scene is titled “The Space”. We witness the characters inside a four wall room, walls painted white, in the absence of windows and natural light. The initial shots acquaint us with the interior of the room, and then portray the need of the characters to escape this “white prison cell”. Almost like the infamous “white cells”, a well known and internationally prohibited form of torture, we follow the characters on their slow path to insanity, as they try to find the window, the light. The scene is backgrounded with natural sounds, and orchestral music.
The third scene comprises of the original first scenery. The deafening lack of sound, in contrast with the previous agonizing scene, reveals the level of withdrawal, that the characters experience concerning each other in their real lives. This scene from now on will be intermittent throughout the remaining film, at different angles, like a yank back to reality.
The fourth scene is entitled “The Past”. The characters are in an exterior location, in front on a open air fire, and we watch them as they burn their letters to each other, their photographs, literally burning their shared past. Using the technique of “voice over”, we will hear excerpts from the letters they wrote to each other. There will be close-ups on the letters, and circular shots. Here, a close-up of an ultrasound photograph that is burnt, will reveal the loss of a child from their lives, that being the key point of the destruction of their relationship.
The fifth scene is called “The bodies”. The scene is shot in a black background, and the two characters will face each other, in their fictional reality. The overflowing anger, rage, hatred and partially love, will be the cause of another yet of their paranoid fights. Several close- up shots of the struggle are used to convey the intensity and paranoia of the encounter of the couple. The camera simply follows their battle, without intervening in the progress of the scene. Natural sounds of the fight enhance the tragic demise of their love.
The sixth scene is titled “The Soul”. This scene is the ultimate confrontation, the peak of the film, the first and only dialogue between the couple. The script of this dialogue was developed during the improvisation workshops, delivering not only the heightened level of communication between the actors, but also the catharsis between the characters, as they finally dare to speak to each other. The camera is focused on the characters throughout the scene, and profile shots are used to center on each of them and highlight their dialogue. This scene represents the deconstruction of the two main characters. Their terrible secret is finally revealed, the nemesis of their relationship is now in the open, and through a rationale of the irrational the couple fades into oblivion.
The final scene comprises of the intermittent original shot of the first scene, and as it fades to black, we read the source of inspiration for the film, the poem “Windows” by Constantine P. Cavafy.
“The windows
In these darkened rooms, where I spend
oppresive days, I pace to and fro
to find the windows. -- When a window
opens, it will be a consolation. --
But the windows cannot be found, or I cannot
find them. And maybe it is best that I do not find them.
Maybe the light will be a new tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will reveal.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1903)”

I find this story unique, and at the same time universal. Relationships between people in the modern, fast-track, globalised world, have become increasingly strenuous, and demanding. It is not uncommon to watch people staying together out of mere social necessity, even if their love and feelings for each other are long lost. Fear of the unknown and fear of the new has been always one of our greatest inhibitions. This story, in my opinion will appeal to everyone and anyone who has ever loved and seen his/her love betrayed, illusions of eternity cruelly shattered. After all, our entire lives are spent in search of light, and freedom.