Sama Adhami

"City as Self-Portrait" explores personal geography against the backdrop of the urban landscape, addressing how spaces can be both private and public. This project investigates this duality through a cinematic lens. An analysis of Chantal Akerman's experimental film "News from Home" is central to this exploration. Drawing on Laura Mulvey's insights from “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) and Michel de Certeau's “Spatial Practices” (1980), the project engages in a theoretical dialogue. Following five months of research and experimentation with filming, editing, and writing, the resulting self-reflexive short film tracks the filmmaker's journey through various neighborhoods in Vienna. Reflecting on notions of space and gaze in cinema, the work and its documentation or staging overlap, embodying the "in-the-making" process that defines the artwork.