Discoveries from Belgium World Cinema

An algorithmologist begins to question his beliefs when a woman shows up to his office uninterested in altering her discontent.

On January 2, 2019, Louis Tobback said goodbye to his mayorship of Leuven after 24 years. Time to look back on a long career that is anything but limited to Leuven. A career that sometimes feels like a thriller, sometimes as a drama, but is especially permeated by a big outrage for everything that goes wrong in our society. Journalists, political friends, opponents and other acquaintances look back on a political career that has been decisive for Belgiums post-war history.

Elias has hardly left his childhood behind him than he is sent to boarding school with his older cousin. But before that he spends his holidays on the isolated estate belonging to his family, a little group fully out of touch with the world. —Hannelore Goossens

Over two days at De Appel, ‘Collective Study in Times of Emergency’ brought together texts, voices, music, films, artworks, digital images, and printed materials – creating a space where individual and collective research and archives came into dialogue. This video reflects on moments when international solidarity with the Palestinian resistance intersected with solidarity against South African apartheid. These encounters revealed the archive not just as a site of preservation, but as a living network – crossing borders of geography, time, and form. What futures do these archives hold? What kinds of solidarity will we imagine and practice in a distant future, once these materials have decomposed and become part of us? As Matter Speaks moves across different traces of the 'Collective Study' programme, summoning a space between permanence and fragility, where archives circulate endlessly.

Muscle Man, the world’s cleanest superhero embarks on a thrilling battle against a giant robot determined to reduce the city to rubble. But his obsession with order will lead to his downfall.

Lilith is disturbed by her brother's request that she defend him in court against the accusation of sexual assault made against him by one of his ex-partners. At a family dinner, Lilith is anything but reassured by her brother's behaviour.

Barbara, a 30-year-old single female, is the typical example of a modern woman, a ‘working girl’, living in a fast lane, completely hooked on her smartphone. However, her routine is about to change as a mysterious balloon, seemingly sent from the sky, floats into her life.

On her weekly trips to the swimming pool, Neema, a young immigrant to Iceland, stads out so much that she melts into a puddle. As she strives to stay solid, she realises that she is not the only one struggling with loneliness and grief.

'Bobbejaan' is an intimate documentary about life itself. What does it do to a person, when he has a lot of past but not a lot of future? Bobbejaan had an incredible career. His life rushed by, selling millions of records and building a successful theme park. Close to the end, he fades out. But not before he shines one last time.

Out There is the story of Belgian ultrarunner Karel Sabbe, who holds the world records on two of the most epic trails in the world: the 4279km long Pacific Crest Trail and the 3500km long Appalachian Trail. How did setting these world records prepare Karel for a race as brutal as The Barkley Marathons? How did these adventures help Karel to find the necessary mindset to do well at this Spartan challenge?

Five kids all get in trouble because of Xander.

When the three beggars Suskewiet, Pitje Vogel and Schrobberbeeck are tired of their poverty and hunger, they decide to sing Epiphany on Christmas Eve. Their plan is a triumph and they sing themselves rich. On the way back to the pub however, they get lost in the woods and witness the birth of Little Baby Jesus. Bedazzled by this miracle they decide to give away all their gifts. When next year Christmas is around, they decide to sing again. But puzzled by last year experience, they start to quarrel over the gifts. Our three friends fall apart and each go their own way.

The tragic fate of both one family and the Armenian people is expressed through the strikingly minimalist prism of one picture, whilst the resilience of identity and belonging is conveyed as the family sings 'Happy Birthday' in a sequence of languages - Armenian, Arabic, French, Dutch and English. By representing displacement in one constantly restoring image, Mekhitar Garabedian responds to the crossgenerational impact of diaspora and genocide with a performative act: the consoling process of continuously becoming. (argos centre for audiovisual arts)

About a man and a woman. Shot on the beach in a single shot and has little to no dialogue.

17-year-old, Elize, is an artist who lives with her Dutch speaking father. Her French speaking mother, Camille, broke apart the family to pursue a relationship with a young man. Hurt and betrayed, Elize tries to avoid her mother at all costs. While her father must stay at the hospital after an accident, the teenager is forced to move in with Camille and her lover. Elize must confront her pain and anger to rebuild her relationship with her mother.

Romy and her grandmother live in a small apartment like two friends. One works in a snack and the other runs an improvised beauty salon in the living room. The day her grandmother has a stroke, Romy has to take over the beauty salon.

An old man from Namur and his grandchild take part in a live radio show. Maxime Cottin, a writer and town celebrity has just published a new book. He is asked to narrate a story about the day he turned ten years old. The memories and images conjured up by the story induce a strange tension between the two men.

A depiction of a creative process in which a painter is inspired by her surroundings.

In January 2020, Eefje released her fourth album, Bitterzoet. It was received with massive enthusiasm, and her first (try out) concerts with her new band were a big success. But unfortunately, everything came to a screeching halt. The sold-out release tour through the Netherlands and Belgium was about to take off, when the coronavirus pandemic broke out. With this concert film, Eefje wants to support her team, and she wants to offer her fans an experience which comes as close as possible to her live performance, incorporating pop music, choreography, lights and setting into an artistic whole.

A short fiction film about three queer Brazilian people who love each other and live together in Brussels, Belgium. We follow their journey over the course of a day through the streets of the city and the people they meet along the way. This film is also a portrait of their search for belonging in a foreign land.

The film is set in a world where androids have replaced humans for menial tasks, leading unskilled humans to pretend to be robots in order to get a job.

A man finds a strange meteorite which contains a weird green slime that causes him to melt.

A group of convicts slowly drag their balls and chains through a desolate landscape. One of them discovers a strange structure and decides to climb it.

The residents of the little village called 'Schemermeer', prepare themselves for a large village festival.

A team of ethnobotanists must catalog one of the world's most important natural history collections, while a bird watcher ends up recording a long-forgotten sound. This recording is the origin of an exploration of the endless effects of colonialism on the way we perceive nature today.

At a place where nothing stays for long, an inconspicuous desk clerk turns lost items into meaningful moments. A poetical animation about pausing and connecting in a helter-skelter world.

One night, a fox, a turtle, a spider and a cake want to cross a pond. The problem, however, is that the fox’s boat is far too small to carry them all.

A pseudo realistic look at 20 years of dominion by West-Flemish rap group 't Hof Van Commerce. Documentary-style, but hugely fake.

Preuteleute stands out for their comically lewd and sexually explicit lyrics in West Flemish. Besides their own songs, the group often reworks well-known songs by other artists. Un-Butt-Plugged is pure, authentic Preuteleute. Music is central, but the story is the hilarious highlight.

A brother is reunited with his sister in their old family home after years of separation. In the still of the night, images and sounds from their childhood come rushing back, reminding them of a father who, although often austere, did on occasion seem to enter into the spirit of things.

Hergé, widely recognized as the founder of the clear line style, reflects on his own work. What is a creator? What is an imagined world? What is a line? An ink stroke, a panel border... But what is the clear line style?

Documentary on the work of French caricaturist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, better known by his pseudonym Grandville (1803-1847). Based on a text by Dotremont, the film takes us on an imaginary journey to the planet of the "Real People", whose habits and customs we learn about. A satire on the arts and society.

"A.WAY" is a journey into lost memories of youth, purely constructed with archive material. A nostalgic reverie that transitions into a feeling of melancholy and unease. The beauty of life and the fear of death as a universal sentiment.

A film made of objects, faces and texts; of lost cats, of found pictures, cut-outs, recreations; a poetic subversion in diary form, one that breaks the calendar into a novel, driving relentlessly as a journey to the end of the world.

A gang of kids tries to avoid boredom in this meditative, observational and ultimately tragic short film. #BURNING uses beautiful photography and quiet drama to convey the ennui of contemporary youth.

Amidst an icy dreamscape, a woman takes refuge in a black metal karaoke bar. Outside, she finds a lone penguin stranded in a tree, cut off from its colony.

Entry * Raoul washes his Standard jersey * The organic dryer * What is a philosopher? * Raoul is cuckolded * If I were cuckolded * The path to wisdom * Municipalities with facilities * Living upside down * Juliette and Oswald * The free-range chicken * Dreams * No blonde stories * Pearls * Poetry and the end * The red lamp * The sporting weekend

When Leo can no longer accept his wife's hatred, he decides to strive for his so called beautiful life by telling his side of the story.

Maxime lives with the ghost of his girlfriend Hélène. Wishing to put an end to this frankly unbearable situation, Maxime finally decides to break up with her, but Hélène doesn't seem ready to accept this decision.

Marvin Gaye, king of soul music in the US, "dropped" by mere chance into Ostende and then stayed on for more than a year while waiting for a solution to his numerous family and professional problems. Ostende is a geographical accident in the life of this star who punishes himself with this unnatural exile which does not prevent him, however, from creating and materializing a new album that will provide him with an enormous comeback world-wide.

Orgasm forms part of The ABCs of Death, a horror shorts anthology that unites a diverse collection of international directors in their ability to disgust, amuse, and – perhaps most importantly – provoke its audience. Orgasm certainly is provocative as the film documents a sadomasochistic sequence that includes the erotic asphyxiation of a woman that (perhaps) ends in her death.

The Turkish-Flemish teenager Levent arrives in Turkey with his parents. This time they are not on holiday. Because father Dorgan has to take care of the family legacy, they have to move there. However, Levent and his mother do not feel at home in the village.

This should not be presumptuous, but we are deeply touched by the dramatic and catastrophic situation in Ukraine. The analogy between swarms of birds and people is so obvious. You can achieve almost nothing on your own, you are strong together. #notowar #ukraine #russia

Short Belgian documentary on volcanos.

All day, Gül vacuums, scrapes and cleans. Always at the service of others, her life drifts by without joy. By accident, Gül catches a glimpse of the solitude of her own soul, as well as her dismay.

Fedor is a young locksmith in Murmansk, a frozen city in the obscurity of the Russian Arctic. Client after client, he roams through the alleys of concrete animated by a fantasy that isolates him from the city and its population. His dreams corrode his relation to reality and open the door to a phantasmagoric universe; a second sun is rising above the Russian Arctic.

Poseidon demands Medusa’s submission. Hoping to protect her, her sisters send her to live with the priestesses of Athena’s temple. But the god of the sea emerges from the waves and rapes the young woman, defiling the temple. To punish her for this desecration, Athena turns Medusa into a monstrous creature: her hair becomes a nest of snakes and her gaze turns anyone who looks at her to stone. This terrifying power arouses the lust of heroes, who pursue her in her exile…

Lucette, in her twenties, leads a life without joy or sorrow. At the karaoke bar where she works, Diana arrives and everything goes wrong. While her former love has decided to reconnect, Lucette must fight against her fairy.

A mother, depressed since the birth of her twin daughters, sinks into alcoholism, but her eldest son decides to do everything to save his family.