Rico in the Night (2007)

In the night(mare) of Ramallah, in the fear of ending up in the hospital, through the icy dream of an inhuman hypermarket, Rico tumbles down to the final place where he is shot (by the camera). This short video-art collaboration between Yaqubi and French dancer-choreographer Jean Gaudin is evidence of a new standard and style of video art production being undertaken in the West Bank. Yaqubi places Gaudin's enigmatic character Rico in the heart of a Ramallah night, setting the dancer's staccato movements against a backdrop of the nocturnal city's hospitals, empty market, alleyways. Neither narrative nor entirely abstract, this is a mood piece in which Rico takes the audience on a surreal whirlwind tour of a city as close to sleep as it ever gets.