Reports of mirages bring a young French woman to San Sebastián. On a boat, she meets a Portuguese woman who tells her a story about two sisters, a pair of binoculars and an image that may not exist. As one account gives way to another, the city becomes the setting for an increasingly uncertain encounter between memory, desire and what can be seen.

Loosely adapted from a story by Edogawa Rampo, Bingham Bryant’s Mirage turns the act of looking into the film’s central mystery. Across long, fluid shots, figures draw close and disappear from view, while reflections and shifting perspectives complicate the stories they tell about themselves and one another. At once an intimate tale of sisterly attachment and a formally playful inquiry into image-making, Mirage leaves us unsure where observation ends and invention begins.

The screening on Friday 4 December will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Bingham Bryant.