El Belga

Directed by Maria Llopis

Llopis’s narrator faces the camera and speaks to the audiences in a style closer to that of YouTube webcam confessional videos. The artist tells the story without verbal flourishes or excitement. There is nothing to arouse the audience. The speaker, young and boyish, tells us a story about how on her way to work she sees a lost Belgian tourist at the train station. She tells him that the trains have finished and invites him to spend the night with her, in the factory where she works as a night guard. She’s searching for any distraction from the pointless task of guarding property.