The odd sensation of seeing something that appears to be fiction, but which is in fact reality, is somehow unhinging.

You seem to fall into a loop of real-non real situations, where it is difficult to distinguish between what is fiction from what is not.

This outlandish but common condition that we (consciously or not) face almost daily in our lives through our exposure to the mass media, seems to be an important issue for many emerging movie makers.

For instance, here in Venice at the 65th International Film Festival, I’ve seen at least three movies directly dealing with this problem of the blurring of boundries between reality and fiction: Jay, by Francis Xavier Pasion,  Sell Out, by Yeo Joohan, and Vegas: Based on a True Story, by Amir Naderi. Through the incongruous, funny, unexceptionable and sometimes even tragic actions of the characters, reality strikes back to fiction by becoming the center of what is, in fact, a purely fictional oeuvre: a movie (quite confusing, isn’t it?)

And we, both as spectators and as ordinary people, living in what we think is a real life, can’t help but feel slightly shaken, un petit peu shocked and somehow much more aware of the world we live in.

A world that might lead you to sell yourself in a quirky reality show, like in Sell Out. Or to dig up your entire backyard, in the vain hopes of finding some mysterious luggage filled with money, unconscious of the fact that you are in fact beeing manipulated by unscrupulous “reality gamblers”, as in Vegas.

Reality is indeed striking back, by conquering new spaces and by revealing its crevices, but it is also using the media to shout this out loud and clear.

It so seems that Orson Welles’ lesson in Citizen Kane is still very relevant, althought new and more appealing protagonists are appearing, such as Peter Davis in Sell Out–some really hot guy, whom we love to hear speak (saying no matter what) again and again.