Alter Time

How long can a moment spent in the air last? Alter Time begins with this experience of parkour to enter an athlete’s mental space. Directed and written by Anna-Maria Bechara Oueini, the Lebanese short runs for four minutes and thirty-four seconds and focuses on the perception of time during a jump: the few seconds in which a body leaves one foothold and prepares to find another.

The setting consists of rocks, ruins and sky. Bodies jump, rotate and pause; faces, details and moments of waiting appear alongside figures moving through space. Black and white and a 4:3 aspect ratio are part of the film’s declared form. Inverted viewpoints bring the athlete’s position during rotation into the image, while the terrain continues to define the distance between different footholds.

A voice accompanies the gestures with questions about disorientation, fear and the control of thought. It connects the experience of the suspended body to what happens in the jumper’s mind. The synopsis centres on precisely this subjective expansion: time seems to slow to a standstill, the body seems to lose its weight, and a space opens up for questions. Movement and reflection therefore share the film’s brief duration.

In the presentation accompanying the submission, the director explains that the idea grew out of a conversation with her coach. Her background includes gymnastics and parkour, alongside work as a filmmaker and cinematographer in Lebanon, France and the Gulf. For Alter Time, she describes seeking the quiet dimension of sport, focusing on the inner weight that precedes taking a risk and on the thoughts of the three men performing the jumps.

Made in Lebanon and completed in April 2026, Alter Time is presented as an English-language experimental short; Abdo Feghali appears in the cast credits. Its premise connects a concrete athletic gesture with the perception of the person performing it, following the jump from take-off to the anticipation of landing, between the body in space and the questions accompanying it.