‘Narrative films depend on inserts (it’s a very rare film that has none), but at the same time they are utterly marginal. I wanted to make a film out of nothing but inserts, as a way of making them visible, to free them from their servitude to story. By chance I learned that the root of ‘parenthesis’ is a Greek word that means the act of inserting. And so I was given the title of the film.’ (MF)