2023

Nishikawa’s analogue films often focus on the process of filmmaking itself. Light, Noise, Smoke and Light, Noise, Smoke shows a deceptively complex interplay between fireworks shots taken during a summer festival and the sonic imprints the same images leave on the optical soundtrack.

Saleh Kashefi is an Iranian filmmaker who has taken refuge in Switzerland. He decides to attack Ali Khamanei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, out of a desire to “play a role” in the uprising in his native country because “he has affected every second of [his] life.”

This short video essay, created at the request of the Singapore Art Museum, explores how Palestinian gamers mimic life under colonial occupation in Los Santos as a virtual proxy of the state of Palestine. 

Cul-de-Sac is not a straightforward story about skaters but reveals itself as a skateboard-inspired film. The skateboard here serves as the driving force, which urges both characters and viewers to contemplate life.

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.

Met zijn eerste korte film Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays sleepte de Spaanse Christian Avilés meteen een nominatie voor de European Film Awards in de wacht. De kleurrijke 16mm laat het eiland Mallorca eruit zien als een kinderspeeltuin, waarbij het stralende kleurenpalet ook aandoet als een bevreemdende vernislaag. Achter al die zomerse pracht en praal schuilt iets donker en uncanny.

The Brussels Porn Film Festival was created to gain greater recognition for the role of pornography in film history. The programme features alternative porn of various kinds, including this short collage work by Colombian visual artist Marco Antonio Nunez, in which the filmmaker cobbles together his erotic fantasies, using torn-out phalluses and other magazine clippings.

A group of children meets at the Sirkhane Darkroom Workshop for analogue photography. Asli Baykal delicately records their apparently carefree days while learning about the mysteries of the art form.

In A Kind of Testament, a young woman bumps into online animations that are clearly made from her private selfies. Vuillemin’s razor-sharp animated film scrutinises social media and digital personas and asks important questions about privacy and voyeurism.

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.

Hungarian Flóra Anna Buda won no less than three major film awards (in Cannes, Annecy, and Sarajevo) with her dreamy short animation film 27. It is a story about a young woman exploring her sexuality to her heart's content: lurking in the background is a socio-political message about the soured housing market in France.