Shelly Grizim

Distant Constellation

This haunted reverie drops us inside an Istanbul retirement home, where the battle-scarred residents revel in the camera’s attention. A creaky-voiced woman shares her personal account of the Armenian genocide, a sweetly deluded pianist performs a composition before confessing his love and a blind photographer fiddles with his flash as he points his own camera back at us. All the while, however, the ominous transformation of the land is taking place at the hands of construction machinery.