What would it be like, to enter into the life of a complete stranger? People I Could Have Been And Maybe Am evolved from two chance encounters in the streets of London. Its protagonists are Sandrine, an attractive young woman from Brazil on a mission to find a husband, Steve, a seasoned beggar, whose life is a continuous struggle with drug addiction and Precious, a poet who became Steve's girlfriend. The stories of these three characters emerge from the coarse anonymity of the city, and were shot entirely on a mobile phone camera. The filmmaker mostly remains off-screen while he struggles to determine his own role between observer and participant.
Boris Gerrets is an internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker who lives and works between London and Amsterdam. He is also an accomplished visual artist and film-editor. Boris Gerrets’ films are close-ups of local environments, which he describes as ‘biotopic explorations’. Gerrets sees the camera as a tool that creates a social dynamic between him and his protagonists. The editing process is for Gerrets a way of stripping down and reconfiguring what has been garnered in reality, into a phenomenological space that speaks about the human condition. Gerrets’ cinematic approach contains a strong performative component and relies heavily on his multidisciplinary background in fine arts, dance and theatre. He is the recipient of a number of grants and has toured and shown his work internationally in museum and gallery exhibitions and video and film festivals.
