this was before

Herman Asselberghs’ film piece adapts the participatory performance Questions by Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat to a cinematic format. Seven participants take part in a conversation made up only of questions. The session is not rehearsed or scripted in advance: it is the very first question that triggers this horizontal game of moving thought in what seems to be a moment outside of time.

Questions functions according to a strict set of rules to be announced before commencing a session:
- Everyone can be a performer.
- Performers speak exclusively in questions.
- One may ask an unlimited number of questions in a row.
- One may ask for thirty seconds of silence.
- One may ask for the repetition of a question.
- Questions can be rephrased or repeated by the same person, or by someone else; immediately or later on.
- Questions are asked to everyone and to no one in particular.
- Questions are not proposed in a rhetorical fashion.
- Questions are not made as statements, they are no implied answers to other questions.
- Consecutive questions do not need to address the same subject.
- Questions should be able to stand alone. They do not need a context, a past, or a future.
- Questions can be trivial.