Belgium

As a powerful symbol of one’s identity and beliefs, the shoe remains a source of wonder. Vincent van Gogh, too, found inspiration in footwear. The more worn and muddy these were, the deeper their implied psychological meaning. During the 5th Havana Biennial, Francis Alÿs donned magnetic shoes and walked daily through the streets of the city, collecting the bits of metal he encountered in his path.

Dimanche was intended as a didactic film in which “the problem of leisure” would be addressed. “I was summoned to the Cinéma de l'Éducation Nationale and the director said to me, ‘We would like you to make a film about the problem of leisure.’ Internally, I burst out laughing. What is free time? Joe average who doesn’t know what to do on Sunday? (...) I did not know what free time meant. No more than vacation. One is always on vacation anyway. Unless you’re a lawyer, but then you brought it on yourself, dammit,” Edmond Bernhard said back in the days.

Panning shots describe a room as a succession of still lives: a chair, some fruit on a table, a collection of solitary, waiting objects. Sitting on the bed, there is the presence of a young woman: Chantal Akerman, filmmaker herself, eating an apple.

Branden, the graduation film by Brussels’ first city poet Lisette Ma Neza, is a collective poem about the fire and smoke of armed conflicts, which turn people into refugees. A poetic conversation with five different women about leaving the place where they were born, about never really arriving. An ode to the displaced woman.

Wolfgang Kolb, who passed away last year, studied film at INSAS in Brussels. For several years, he filmed the work of dancer and choreographer Roxane Huilmand as she collaborated with the Rosas dance company. Together with Huilmand, he created such works as Muurwerk (1987), in which he translates her choreography into cinematic language.

Kobarweng or Where Is Your Helicopter? stems from Johan Grimonprez’s visit to Papua New Guinea in 1986. Upon arrival in the village of Pepera, a local villager asked him, “Where is your helicopter?” Grimonprez later learned that a group of anthropologists had come to the village by helicopter in 1959, an event that left a lasting impression on the Indigenous people.

There’s no way to prepare for Levi Stoops’ Drijf, and that’s a good thing. The animated filmmaker himself voices Jeremy, and Anemone Valcke plays Aurora. The naked couple is lost at sea and floats across the vast ocean on a small log.

De Beule’s anecdotal documentary paints a timid but inspiring portrait of a specific place and its inhabitants. Mykines lies in the shadow of an archaeological site. The inhabitants reflect on their relationship with the ruins as visitors pass by and the stones slowly crumble beneath their feet.

A ship drifts in the middle of an endless sea. Its crew of five tries to cope with boredom by escaping into a parallel world. elephantfish lures its viewers into an enclosed environment guarded by the freedom of the everlasting horizon. The only escape from this confinement comes in thoughts and dreams.

Belgian film pioneer Henri Storck, born and raised in Ostend, made more than one documentary about his hometown. In Ostende, reine des plages, contemporaries James Ensor and Maurice Jaubert provide the music—a film about the “special happiness of being an Ostendian.”

Belgian Roland Lethem’s early work is heavily influenced by surrealists (Buñuel) and  Japanese cinema (Seijun Suzuki, Yoko Ono). Later, his films became increasingly political and also ecologically charged, although certain cruelty and pornography are never far away. Full of irrational images and diverse forms of symbolism, Lethem’s films seem to float between waking and sleeping states.

Dominique Loreau’s feature-length films are strongly anchored in a documentary reality: the actors play themselves and improvise from a predetermined framework that nevertheless welcomes coincidences and the passage of time. This methodology is already visible in her 1987 short film Zig-zags.

In an exercise of ironic self-awareness, Chantal Akerman tries to deal with her own procrastination by making a film about laziness itself. The film is part of a collective project in which seven women each are making a short film about one of the deadly sins.

Belgian filmmaker Samy Szlingerbaum directed the short film Le 15/8 in 1973 together with Chantal Akerman. He then made two short films of his own, including this nocturnal Insomnies, which rhythmically and associatively depicts the neon lights of the Belgian capital—like a dream. A mostly formal experiment of barely nine minutes. 

Chantal Akerman is omnipresent in Brussels this spring with a retrospective at Bozar and her entire oeuvre on display at CINEMATEK. The short film is an intimate portrait of a young woman who, during her day-to-day routines, reflects on her family, sex life, and body.

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, who passed away in 2015, has gained worldwide fame. Nothing is quiet about her first short film, Blow Up My Town (1968). Her character is abrupt, energetic, and explosive. Something is teetering. This short film is a visionary prelude to the filmmaker’s oeuvre and life.

Set in the deindustrialised mining city of Genk, Terril depicts the masculine dynamics within a working-class family. It patiently moves between these social codes and the landscape in which they manifest themselves.

In deze surrealistische film van Henri Storck koopt een jongeman een glazen oog dat hij via de post verstuurt. Op een bijzondere manier komen erotiek en maatschappijkritiek erin samen.

On May 27th, 2019, Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh, half of the Belgian-Congolese film collective Collectif Faire-Part, landed at Luanda airport in Angola. Despite a scheduled connecting flight, the duo will only take off again two days later to continue their journey to Frankfurt.

Brussels-based filmmakers Elie Maissin and Mieriën Coppens often collaborate with the collective La Voix des Sans Papiers. In doing so, the duo gives a voice to those without documents. Their understated film language evokes diverse ways of communicating: in different spoken languages, with the silent language of the body, with an environment.

Nocturnal Butterflies is the only film entirely made in Servaisgraphy, a technique that fuses live-action and animation. The late Raoul Servais, a key figure in the history of Belgian animation, already experimented with this style in his film Harpya.

A sensory insight into the life of an Iranian refugee. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, numerous Iranian intellectuals and artists had to flee their beloved country. Many of them settled in Paris and tried to build a new life, often without success.

Large parts of Goma were covered with lava after the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002. Today kids live in the ruins on the lava. They sell paper hankies to grown-ups in the city, and lava rocks to construction builders.

Surrounded by the sound of nocturnal animals, a girl falls into a deep sleep. Gradually we slip into her dream that takes us on a cosmic journey through the meadows of Erpe-Mere.

In Dominique Loreau's very first (short) film, a woman wanders the streets of Brussels, waiting to leave for the tropics with a man she happened to meet in a pub.

A group of people who don't know each other are stuck in a traffic jam on a foggy highway. The fog just won't clear up, creating a lot of uncertainty.

A conceptual experiment about what it means to start a film with a black image grows into a subtle personal essay about the filmmaker.