Discoveries from Belgium World Cinema

A popular online model walks a tightrope between her very sexually open online life and her personal life behind the camera as she is being followed by a documentary crew.

Four bored friends decide to put poison in one of their beers. What happens next?

A dance set to Pierre Boulez's recording of Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye

Robert has not had a good day. He comes back from school in a bad mood and gets sent to his room by his Dad. He feels something horrible rising up inside him : it is anger…

Six marriages, two annulments, two beheadings and the founding of his own Church, against the authority of Rome... in his search for a suitable spouse, the notorious Tudor King of England Henry VIII shrank from nothing. Here we focus on the amorous and political intrigues surrounding the annulment of Henry's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon in favour of his new passion for Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII, a grand historical opera by Camille Saint-Saëns, is characterised by stark contrasts: ardour and modesty, jealousy and renunciation, intimacy and solemnity. La Monnaie in Brussels have entrusted their new production to director Olivier Py and conductor Alain Altinoglu, two fervent champions of the French repertoire. With magnificent sets, high drama and compelling music, this production offers a musical journey which starts in sixteenth century England but still resonates today through a timeless question: How far can a man of power go with his conquests?

Full of desire, I accumulate sexual encounters with men. But between my desires and the reality of these nights, there is a gap. Thus, I write and film.

A filmmaker at a crossroads in his life, travels to the campsite where he fell in love for the first time.

Short Belgian documentary on volcanos in the former Belgian Congo

A small creature made of sugar cubes awakens in a forest and wanders the world.

A man flees, his face in his hands. He's hiding it, because it refuses to erase. (kg)

For months filmmaker Thierry Knauff lived with the Cameroonian tribe, the Baka. This is his document of that time.

A flux of images which transport the audience inside the mind of a guy who has fantasies about other guys. Daily situations and phantasmagorical spaces. An ambiguous trip in between the main character and the audience.

The general Flemish education system can no longer refuse to accept pupils who have disabilities, conditions, or handicaps and require extra care. The M-Decree obliges schools to adapt to the needs of children. This documentary observes in beautiful black and white how four children with different special needs experience going to a normal school. Inclusief is not a rushed TV report or reality series that panders to your emotions, but a carefully made, cinematic film that offers an intimate insight into the lives of four children, Rosie, Sami, Irakli and Nathan.

In this vertical short-form video, a strange fortune teller comes with a message for a specific collective.

40-year-old working mom of two, Vonvon, overwhelmed with emotional labor, must urgently speak up to her husband, but instead, builds a growing obsession with air traffic nuisances. With her sanity hanging by a thread, Vonvon embarks on a wacky journey to find peace.

A lonely scientist on a faraway moon discovers his AI-assistant has been lying to him the whole time.

A young woman dealing with her childhood's trauma in the form of a folktale. She always runs away from a big black wolf untill she reminds of her grandmother's advice.

In this hybrid documentary, we follow 14-year-old Joely and 17-year-old Souli. These two young people from Brussels come from different backgrounds, but together they talk candidly about their first love experiences. For two months, they shot their own footage with a camera. These result in an intimate and unfiltered film about how love and being young blend seamlessly.

Every year, at the beginning of summer, a local community living on the edge of a protected wetland in the South of Spain prepares for a four-day journey on horseback gathering the remaining horses living in the wild. Alejandro stems from this village and will join the elders on this sacred journey.

THOMAS, who is entangled in a break-up, is invited by LOUIS to join a sea fishing trip, but finds little support from his friend. In the middle of the sea, they encounter seven boat refugees with engine trouble, putting Louis in a dilemma and disturbing the dynamics between the two differently minded friends. Louis fixes the engine issue, but strongly advises against the crossing due to the weather forecast, which is ignored by both the refugees and Thomas...

A portrait of creative individuals with psychological vulnerability.

What does a typical day in the life of Pierre(s), a young musician from Brussels, look like? It all starts with a cup of black coffee and a few notes on the guitar before he has to cycle to the other end of town to shoot a video clip. But on the way, nothing goes according to plan...

A father finds refuge in memories created together with his daughter, who has been stricken with an illness. She has decided to keep her distance from him and they have not spoken for years. The film encourages her to reconsider her decision.

"If you were a boy, I would have been in love with you"... When Baby and Charlie meet, they do not know yet that their love story will change their lives. 7 years later, Lisa, now called Nicky, wonders about the real reasons that pushed him to make this film.

After surviving arbitrary detention and torture for her political activism in 1970’s Morocco, Fatna El Bouih continues to pursue relentlessly today, her dream for change.

A father faces his darkest hours after the dead of his son.

A cat, a hen and her chicks live peacefully together beside a farm. Like all close friends, they sometimes indulge in a good-natured squabble. But one night, the wolf comes out of the forest and kidnaps the hen. The cat and the chicks bravely decide to go and rescue her. This is the beginning of an epic tale and a wild adventure...

What’s worth remembering? Who decides what is worthy of remembrance? Through images shot at the beginning of the 20th century by women filmmakers, the director questions her references, what she has been taught and passed on. Between past and present, memories and omissions, the audience (re)discovers women who have made cinema what it is today. A sensorial and poetic journey that takes the spectator back to its own knowledge and personal and social constructions.

Caroline's mother has cancer, she herself has just become pregnant. In the short time that remains she tries to understand the past in tender images.

A portrait of the gardens of Ghent, Belgium through a mix of digital footage, 16mm phytograms and direct animation.

Following in the footsteps of pioneers like Émile Cohl, the brilliant inventor and self-taught artist Louis Van Maelder created a body of work of unparalleled richness and inventiveness by drawing directly onto the film strip.

Legacy is one of the most valuable and celebrated horses in show jumping. In pursuit of victories, she is flown between competition venues across the globe.

Alex wants Camille to be her friend, by any means possible.

A gardener orchestrates the flowering of his garden. In his momentum, he triggers a unfortunate incident. Its kind flowers try to warn him.

Three interior perspectives on magic hour in isolation that emerge like muted post horns, pieces of dusk that radiate both glorious impermanence and chaotic entropy.

All over the world, the pig is the bearer of images and stories. The animal provokes passion and rejection. What we do and have done with "the pig" reveals "man". Does the greedy pig act as a metaphor for our voracity ?

During her pregnancy, a woman experiences terrifying symptoms that necessitate an urgent intervention, plunging her into a live-threatening situation.

During summer, Louise pays a visit to her parents’ house in the French countryside. As she returns to the places she hung out in as a teenager, a warm feeling of nostalgia washes over her with the memories of the time spent with Nora. A melancholy journey into her past that tells the story of a first lesbian love.

Lucy is a lively 11-year-old girl who loves skating, water ballet and hanging out with her best friends. But everything changes when she starts suffering from a rare sleep disorder called narcolepsy. To prevent accidents from happening, her parents become very protective, limiting her freedom. As her condition complicates even the simplest of everyday actions she begins to grow apart from her friends.

Radio Schizo is the story of a bunch of young people suffering from schizophrenia. They are preparing a radio show to discuss their illness. As their project develops, they communicate with lucidity and sincerity the difficulty of living with this illness that encumbers, disrupts and muddles the mind and social relations. This is a film that shatters prejudices.

Déborah, in her thirties, is stuck in a hospital bed following a car accident. As she tries to warn her spouse, she feels a presence in the darkness of the room…

Mona is an imaginitive teenager who, just like her brother, lives with ASD. She's on the eve of a giant step in her life: she will be making the transition to regular education. She has to say goodbye to her classmates and make new friends. A new, exciting world opens up to her, but that can be nerve-racking, too.

An Israeli family's equilibrium gradually disintegrates as a mysterious sound is heard every evening at the door of their apartment.

Even when a paraglider mysteriously falls from the sky, the people of Zinal don’t seem to be bothered. The small town in the Swiss Alps looks straight up toward the melting glaciers of the Couronne Impériale. But what to do? They can’t stop the world from decaying, but when the threat is so immediate, and the personal powerlessness so great, is there another answer than respond with nihilistic, cynical indifference?

A dozen or so young percussionists bring music to Barumbu, a poor neighbourhood of Kinshasa. They are the Beta Mbonda, former members of the Kuluna violent gangs. Music has given a new meaning to their lives while cementing their friendship. Moving between odd jobs and musical improvisations, with seemingly easy playfulness they invent rythms and sing about the hardships of daily life. Like a Greek chorus underscored by traditional instruments or everyday objects, their songs ring out into the air of Kinshasa, echoing a world adrift.

It’s been twenty years since the G8 Summit held in Genoa in 2001 was marred by violence. There are two generations who went through that experience, in one way or another, and twenty years later they cannot consider the case closed. The dream behind the protests at Genoa 2001 is still alive: the issues then addressed are today’s issues, only more urgent. And the violence of Genoa 2001 is not over, since although that violence has been recounted many times, from different sides, and celebrated or condemned, it has never been understood or resolved.

Les Enfants de la Terre, documentary short

A man and his small, irascible puppet friend receive a parking ticket while shopping and must take the bus home.