Connecting people through art 

Time Lines was the first film that Runa Islam shot and projected on 35mm film. It focuses on three early twentieth century structures in Barcelona: the once iconic cable car of Montjuic whose linear journey is now used primarily as a tourist excursion, and two rides in the antiquated Tibidabo fairground – a plane that moves in a fixed circle overhead and a crane that rotates upwards to what was formerly the highest point in the city. Islam was drawn to these subjects not because of their immediate visual appeal (the cable car's small red box skimming the city's rooftops for example, or the candy coloured ironwork of the rides) but rather for the impossible airborne points of view that they access and for the perfect readymade tracking shots enabled by their automated functions.

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Time Lines deals with notions of suspension and the deconstruction of time/space coordinates in both a literal and metaphorical manner. Scenarios and ‘timeframes' are montaged in the film, using both amateur and professional actors in period costumes ranging from the 1900s to the present day set against intermittent points of the cable car's journey. Fragments of physiognomies, clothing and architectural details are syncopated together, with overlaid sounds of ambient noise, 1920s music and the amplified hum of turn-of-the-century engineering. Occasionally, the camera cuts to the cable lines in the sky, a completely abstract composition, and then switches back to long shots of the car taken from a roving viewpoint. As Miguel von Have Pérez wrote "Time Lines proposes a new paradoxical look at the city through an intricate web of references : the city that stands there to be observed and enjoyed as it is filmed is also a city that doesn't exist, since ultimately it only exists in its own cinematic reality." Pérez