Discoveries from Belgium World Cinema

Frank is determined to investigate the first DVD. He wants to own the DVD that has killed all those people, and he wants to visit all the places on the first DVD and find out if it's all real.

16 year old teenager Chiara lives isolated in the middle of the countryside with her mother and her violent step-dad. One night, he abuses her. She experiences both a mental and physical transformation which leads her to a life-saving encounter.

A sixty-year-old who has always obediently followed the rules, suffers an existential burnout. He has always done his part and, in his own modest way, has worked for a better society. But that society has hit rock bottom and our former good Samaritan is no longer in the mood for concessions. Moloss is his name and he’s got a mission: to cure the world of a very human disease. But his method could not differ more from those of Gandhi or Mother Theresa. He’s certainly not turning the other cheek. His approach is a lot more direct, not to say radical. His very personal spin on the tactic of the scorched earth to make way for a better future implicates not only his daughter Doianna and his ex-wife Veronica, but many others who didn’t plan any revolution. Is he out of his mind? Desperate? Dangerous? Perhaps all three, but in his defense, it’s our society that has started it!

Esther lives her carefree life as a little girl until a small metal box appears in her life and follows her everywhere...

Like in the traditional fairy tale, the wolf longs for the little red riding hood and disguises to reach what he's aiming for. But this version reveals a little red riding hood more mischievous than the legend's innocent little girl.

Rooted in the oral tale recounted by the Tetela in Sankuru, Democratic Republic of Congo, this story explains how it came to be that the Fox ate the Chicken, the Chicken ate the Termite, the Termite ate the Stick and the Stick ate the Toad, when the Toad arrives at his in-laws’ home and is served a meal with a single spoon, sparking off a terrible row!

August is a carefree boy who likes to discover the world and to play outside with his best friend Lize. One day, he encounters the seamy side of life and suddenly Lize doesn't want to see him anymore.

New York, early '60s. Gloria, a young painter, lives in the underground artistic microcosm of the Big Apple. One night, she is attacked and raped by a mysterious character with white eyes. This aggression provokes an inner cataclysm that inexorably pushes her towards self-destruction. In order to put an end to the chaos her attacker has unleashed in her, Gloria decides to search for this man in the streets of New York.

While Virtual Reality promises a whole world, in fact it offers only a view within the strictly defined boundaries of a sphere. Is this also the case for the strictly defined boundaries of the European Union? When crossing the borders of the European Union, one is not allowed to film. This also applies to Google and their Street View cars, resulting in gaps in the available Street View coverage within the area of EU border control posts. The Euro dome is increasingly made more visible and intimidating from the outside: high fences with barbed wire stand tall along the border and armed border patrols pass by on a regular basis. While from inside the dome, one can only see a virtual glimpse of its borders. A faint reflection or a delayed feedback version.

On the advice of a stranger, Sebastien wanders into a mysterious erotic vocal performance and experiences sexual attraction to the part-woman, part-instrument who’s having her strings plucked

Samson and Marie celebrate Christmas together with their friends: the Mayor, Firefighter Bill, and Baker Florentine come to visit!

What is even better than watching people, is watching people watching people.

A portrait of two Palestinian women whose individual struggles both define and transcend the politics that have torn apart their homes and their lives. Farah Hatoum, a widow living with her children and grandchildren, and Sahar Khalifeh, a novelist from the West Bank.

Sixteen-year-old Julia finds herself at a naturist campsite, where she’s confronted with her ideal of femininity and forced to grapple with her insecurities

This short re-tells the real life tale of the director as an exchange student in Rotterdam. Upon his arrival, he quickly develops a rivalry with his roommate's cat. This coupled with the trials of the city and art school will prove this exchange to be tougher than expected.

Amani was 10 years old when he was separated from his mother Riziki after a traumatic night in Kinshasa. He was 20 when he arrived in Brussels to find her and continue his studies. Amani is haunted by the past. Riziki avoids talking about it as she now lives in a relationship with Raphaël. More passionate about art than his studies, Amani abandons them and drifts. Refusing to take the first step towards his mother, he flees the house and forms new friendships to end up under the wing of a car dealer. But his resentment turns against him, against the young woman he covets and ends up hindering the business of his new friends.

On a sunlit afternoon, a boy heads to the pond. He is hoping for some quiet time alone fishing for carp, but is joined by a puppy, ready to befriend anyone in his path. Even in the most peaceful moments, the pup can’t resist having a chat with the local frog and duck! When the puppy gets up to a bit of mischief, the boy is surprised by the outcome of his fishing adventure…

"When the shamans stop dancing and life in the rainforest loses its balance, the sky will collapse and come to crush everything." This wisdom is passed down from generation to generation by the Yanomami of Brazil. But gold miners are polluting the rivers, shamans are dying, the rainforest is disappearing and the earth is getting hotter. Davi Kopenawa, a tribal leader and spokesman for the Yanomami, has been fighting relentlessly against the colonization of his land for 40 years. He warns Westerners that when the sky collapses, they too will be crushed. Why don't they listen? Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

After their latest video goes viral, four friends head to a luxury resort in the Ardennes to celebrate. But their new fame may affect their friendship.

Colourfully composed, geometric images tell the magical story of Luce, the only child in a small village, and of the friendship with a boulder. One day, it rolls off the mountain into the middle of the village's community square. While the adults are at a loss, Luce discovers the child in a rock. Cinematic art off the beaten track, challenging and smart.

The documentary's legacy lies in its unapologetic fusion of agitprop and satire, a signature style of De Hert’s Fugitive Cinema collective. By juxtaposing Mandel’s economic theories with absurd military parades, the film exposes the contradictions of a society preparing for war while its social fabric decays. De Hert employs rapid montage, pop music, and street-level interviews to strip away the facade of state authority.Decades later, Le Filet Américain remains a vital historical document. It captures a specific era of Belgian polarization, marked by economic crises and the rise of the gendarmerie. The metaphor of the meat grinder endures as a powerful critique of how institutional systems compromise individual dignity for corporate profit.

Documentary on Marvin Gaye made during his stay in Belgium, Ostende

A bitter-sweet story of a young sales assistant and a truck driver trapped between their dreams and the economic depression.

Henri Storck: “The General Commissariat for Tourism had organized a ‘Year of Folklore’ and, on that occasion, asked me to make a series of films devoted exclusively to this form of popular culture.” 1.Carnaval van Oostende - 2.Vastenavond te Aalst - 3.Carnaval van Malmédy - 4.Straattoneel in Malmédy - 5.De Gilles van Binche - 6.Meiboomplanting en Passiespel door de marionetten van Toone in Brussel - 7.Heilige Bloedprocessie in Brugge - 8.De 'witte Moussis' van Stavelot en de kermis van Bergen - 9.Passiespel in Lessen en Ligny. Halfoogst-feesten in Outre-Meuse (Luik) - 10.De Chinels van Fisse-la-Ville. De 'Grootjes' van La Louvière. Het ontploiffen van Kruipotten in Luik.

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, classrooms fell silent. Soon, schools were destroyed by the relentless shelling. Almost a year on, classes have started again, and schools are being rebuilt with EU humanitarian support. In When I Grow Up three tenacious young Ukrainians resume their education despite the fighting. By giving them a voice, ‘Education, no matter what’ campaign documents their ambitions and courage in a country devastated by war. Ukraine is not the only country where access to quality education is disrupted, as this is the case for millions of children caught in many humanitarian crises around the world.

Filmmaker Timon Koulmasis, a 33-year-old filmmaker, wanted to understand why his childhood friend's mother became a terrorist and how she, herself an orphan who never recovered from her loss, abandoned her daughters. Ulrike Marie Meinhof is an intimate portrait of a woman whose name became taboo in her family for twenty-five years. The film consists of amateur footage, texts written by the journalist, her public and television appearances, and, above all, testimonies from her loved ones, punctuated with archival documents, to better reveal the profound disconnect between the woman and the superficial image of her portrayed by her era. She is neither the bloodthirsty caricature denounced by the media nor the “martyr” described by some activists.

Pommelien Thijs filled the AFAS Dome for five evenings. This concertfilm shows the final night, featuring hits, new work from 'Gedoe', special guests, dancers and an elaborate visual show, driven by Pommelien.

On a hot summer night, Saïd makes an intimate videoletter. The death of an adolescent who looks you straight in the eyes. One camera, one shot and one beautiful human being.

Bob Rugurika is the director of Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), the most popular independent radio station in Burundi. As an investigative journalist he is also a forerunner of the fight for freedom of expression in his country, willing to risk his life to expose the truth. With the RPA, he keeps on challenging the regime and becomes its enemy number one. Will Bob succeed in keeping the freedom of press, while independent media are being silenced and his life and family are being threatened?

About a Russian bear and the love of his life.

A lawyer dives into the heart of the organ mafia to save her son.

One sweet night, Mare falls asleep and wakes up to the rays of the sun. She gets up and heads towards the staircase that will lead her into the depths of her torments and darkest nightmares inhabited by demons, hellish horses, and assassin golems.

At the southernmost tip of Africa lies the Cape of Good Hope, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet but never mix. A few miles away, in a township built to isolate the mixed-race population during apartheid, Kulsum lives alone with her two children while her husband Phadiel serves a 25-year sentence.

Documentary about what makes a house a home.

The remarkable Holocaust story of the Jews of Belgium is told through the life of a remarkable man, professor Shaul Harel, who survived at 4 years old through the kindness of Jews and Christians alike.

At night, at the EDM Playhouse club in Chengdu, the euphoria of some feeds on the fatigue of others. The crowd, caught between the desire for an unfettered expression of life and the outward display of wealth, finds its contrast in the exhaustion of those who serve the revelry and in the precarity of their work.

Through desktop documentary and forensics, this work explores how images of Medusa of Hatra, ISIS propaganda, and digital archives influence reality and memory while examining violence and witness.

"I painted the worlds entering the eyes." In her day, painter and portraitist Sofonisba Anguissola was much celebrated. In this sumptuous animation, she is rescued from the realm of obscurity and given new life in an epistolary missive to her pupil, Flemish master Anthony Van Dyck.

Jade lived in the present, in the here and now, that's true. But since she passed away, she has stopped doing so. -Johan Sebastiaan Stuer- You may recognize Jade as the sidekick of De Ideale Wereld, as the deserving loser of Humo's Comedy Cup 2021, or as the opening act for Bart Cannaerts, Xander De Rycke, or Michael Van Peel, but now it's time for you to really get to know each other better. After her end-of-year conference in 2022, Jade Mintjens will delight you with her first personal full-length theater show. In 'Bedankt om te komen' (Thank you for coming), Jade promises to give you a great evening, and a promise is a promise! Of course, this daughter of Kempen will also bring her guitar.

After marrying a girl from his native village, Sokuro, a young Burkinabe immigrant living in Italy, tries to build a future with her despite the distance that separates their two worlds.

A video film in which seven people who resisted Nazism talk, relate and recall their struggle in the Liège region.

A man visits a doctor in an abandoned house to explain a recurring dream, but the conversation slowly leads him to question his own existence.

Olga has the vampire blues. She is placed in a care home where she can deal with those who have "one foot in the grave"

Utopian symbolic playgrounds from memories are interconnected through sharp, flickering lights.

Communist ideals have long lost their value in Yiwu, a city with 600 Christmas factories, in which Christmas as we know it is produced for the entire world. With rising wages, the workers in Christmas factories can now afford newest iPhones, but they still live in crowded dormitories. All migrants in their own country, nostalgic for some place far away, some miss their families left in hometowns, other miss their friends and lovers from the factories when they go home for holidays. Young generation is already tired of long factory hours, chemical fumes and glitter particles, and they do not care for their parents' wishes to get educated. Stuck in between Chinese tradition and the newly discovered Chinese dream, they want their own businesses, to be rich, to be independent, to be in love.

Filmed in a Brussels hotel room, Beavers alternates between his work desk and lying nude on the bed, while rapid cuts and superimpositions conjure a rush of street scenes and fleeting encounters. The film abandons narrative for a psychic montage of memory, desire, and urban impression.

In August 2012, Chantal Akerman went scouting in the American South with the idea of shooting a documentary there, inspired by the story of Jake England. A project she ended up abandoning.

Spring 2017, in between the two rounds of the French presidential election. Pierre, a 25-year-old scholarship holder studying in a big Parisian school, lives with 75-year-old Francine, who is disabled and wheelchair-bound. Politically and socially opposed, they are perplexed and disoriented as they witness the unfolding electoral spectacle. While waiting for the results, they engage with each other, as Pierre tries to take care of Francine’s body and she attempts to heal his voiceless resentment.

In Head to Head, Herwig Ilegems (1962) has a literal tête-à-tête with various animals. He carefully places his forehead on the beak, nose or forehead of an animal. Will it allow this? Ilegems has no idea. He does not want to force the animal, so he first tries to establish a relationship of trust. In the endearing short film, you see how he allows himself to be comforted by an ostrich, rubs noses with an alpaca and tries to avoid the horns of a bull.

16-year-old Flament is stuck in a toilet cabin at a music festival and gets mortally wounded during a heavy storm. Not yet ready to die, he desperately fights time and space.

A homoerotic exploration of the Odyssey mixing black and white, color, and old film clips.

Kain reflects in a contemplative way on our human condition. It's an audiovisual meditation on the cruelty and suffering of our tragic humanity. A short film about guilt and the birth of conscience. - Berlinale Short Competition 2009