Discoveries from Belgium World Cinema

A closer look at the intimate experience of two young sisters in their journey from one parent to another.

Set in a black-and-white apocalyptic dreamscape, this coming-of-age story follows 24-year-old Omar as he confronts gender norms and his awakening sexuality. Pursued by an unseen threat, he awakens in desolate landscapes where encounters with children and his alter ego compel him to explore desires society deems “different.” From yearning to wear a dress to imagining himself as a cheerleader, Omar’s sensual curiosity unfolds amid shame and confusion. Haunted by envy for those freer to express themselves, he questions whether the apocalypse has destroyed the world—or only his sense of self. Through his surreal journey, Omar discovers that social expectations have wounded him deeply, and he must decide whether to embrace his true identity or keep hiding behind the dance of denial.

Short by René Magritte

Cornelis’ camera slowly strides the silhouettes of the Royal Greenhouses in Brussels, built in the mid-19th century by Alphonse Balat as a glass palace.

Heterogenous collections of filmed and graphic images together form a poetic reflection on the hectic times in which we live.

The 6th short film as part of the Magica series dealing with pre-cinema. Featuring demonstrations of magic lanterns by children.

A mini-documentary showing how food reflects culture in Schaerbeek, Brussels.

After years of learning the art of hiding from the gaze of others, as a result of the social pressure exerted on overweight people, the director learns to reclaim public space and become visible again, while confronting his own image.

Once upon a time, there was a little mouse who worked relentlessly to achieve a single goal: becoming somebody. Driven only by her ambition, she slowly became mean and arrogant, pushing away everyone else. Until one day, she accepted a job offer from the most prolific toymaker in the world: Santa Claus. The little mouse was about to find out that climbing the corporate ladder was not all that she hoped it would be…

A well-formed excrement leads its companions to go to war with it.

Enclosed by a railway, a highway and WIELS contemporary art centre, lies a no-place – initially a construction site flooded by groundwater, later halted by the 2008 financial crisis, which paralysed the project. At the intersection of geological and financial forces, the marsh named after Wiels came into existence. This biotope is a green oasis in the middle of nowhere — merging the surreal with the natural, it has become a refuge for insects, birds and people alike.

Short film made to combat bullying in schools.

After a 10 days clandestine journey, a young Iranian couple finds asylum in Belgium. Then comes the hope of starting a new life, facing social constraints and uncertainties.

Some say Jeanne is mad because she doesn’t let boys push her around, consider yourself warned, don’t touch Jeanne, she stings.

A summer film, of complicity, a film linked to the situation of "now or never" because it is born of encounters, availability, reflections or states of being in motion as time, ultimately a "snapshot" cinematographic.

A journey through Georgia in the midst of conflict with South Ossetia. The story of an impossible encounter.

Eat cauliflower with mayonnaise. Sort through papers. Take care of the chickens. Feed the metastases. Learn poems. Drink beer. Prepare his family. Although doctors gave him three years to live, Yann Patou lived with cancer for 18 years. As death approaches, Yann tries to keep smiling and constantly reminds me that we must ‘hurry up and live.

Chile, May 2018, a crowd of women are revolting against a teacher who has sexually molested a student and received no punishment. He is simply transferred to another university. A crowd of women unite in voice and body to talk about their freedom, their sexuality and their fundamental right to decide the fate of their own bodies. We followed several of them, including three friends in particular, who offer us a no-holds-barred story.

The world is transformed by rising sea levels and severe droughts. A young man from the cities travels to a region abandoned by all. His goal is to reach the coast to see the sea. Along the way, he encounters the remnants of a vanished society and meets those who still live there.

Dust was originally part of the stage performance "Bereft of a Blissful Union", from Ultima Vez/Wim Vandekeybus. It was also performed live on stage in "Mountains Made of Barking", from the same company.

The main part of this film was created by the process of superimposition: Broodthaers’s ink drawings of fish, scales, words and signs were transferred to film stock, which was used in negative to create the final work. In contrast, the title sequence, added in 1971, shows Broodthaers’s drawn storyboards filmed with a moving camera. The film was shown for the first time at the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne in 1971, and a second film Le Poisson est Tenace, was created partly from its out-takes.

Rendez-vous...includes La pipe (1968), La pluie (1969), and Un film de Charles Baudelaire (1970) in its compilation, among others...

Two children from the opposite ends of the earth meet in a story of exchange and friendship.

Her name is Prudence, but she has been anything but careful. By sharing her intimacy with her family, they ended up inviting each other under her sheets. Between a disinhibited mother, an over-militant sister, a clumsy boyfriend and a capricious vagina, the fivesome promises to be hot!

Humiliated by a nightshop owner, a supposed alpha-male seeks retribution by robbing the store—with the reluctant help of his apathetic best friend.

Unwritten Page is a 16mm-film made for a composition by Antoine Beuger.

With a keen awareness of his mentally ill condition, René Paquot denounces all powers, and especially the practices of psychiatric hospitals, which he compares to those used in slaughterhouses: submission through medication, straitjackets, and extermination by electroshock. This film should be seen as a cry of revolt.

In this film, Shahrzad relives her life in reverse - from the last moments before her death to childhood. The film begins with Shahrzad waking up from a nightmare. She finds herself in a strange stone structure in the middle of a forest. A minute later, suddenly her little child (Milad) appears in the structure. But he disappears as inexplicably as he appeared. Shahrzad, who seems to have lost her child for a second time, breaks out of the structure and starts looking for Milad in the forest. She starts living her life in reverse from this moment! In the end, she understands how she met her end.

Kapital Europe portrays two migrant workers in Brussels, as they navigate a journey marked by uncertainty and singular moments of joy. Reginald, a Romanian construction worker, struggles in the city’s informal building sector and contemplates returning to Romania. Niki, a young Greek newly arrived to the city, takes up work as a bicycle courier. Their stories reveal the unyielding forces of the capitalist system at work.

Three children share a secret that quietly shapes their lives: they sometimes still wet the bed.

A whisper said in the dark and the confession of a dream can start a journey, the one of a tender love story. And there is nothing more cosmic than tenderness, seems to say the film by Anaïs Kaboré, which associates the touch of two intimacies that discover each other with the spectacle of a panoramic shot, the thrill of a sequence shot, the overflowing energy of a stroboscopic light.

The count is out to get gravestoned.

François is NordTV's star presenter. He is always accompanied by his cameraman sidekick, Tony. They ring people's doorbells to offer them the chance to win 10,000 euros if they find a lighter in their partner's color.

On a timeless beach, a man lost in the melancholy of his reality encounters a fragment of life that shakes his existence.

Against the backdrop of societal collapse, two powerful voices engage in a high-stakes debate over the future of humanity. Should mankind be placed under total control to safeguard its survival, or should they be granted the freedom to shape their own destiny, even if it means risking self-destruction?

Belgian artist Brecht Vanhoutte closes his eyes and sees. Busy Brussels men in suits, dancing silhouettes, strange plants, visions of blurred and dreamlike aesthetics, unreal universes. Dealing with his mental health, he reveals his inner world with an experimental journey using AI and textures that evoke times gone by, pages of an undated personal diary written with cadences of digital flow where the real and the fantastic rhyme.

Belgium, 1970. While most radio stations and discotheques are playing the pop and rock hits of the day, a new venue opens in the small village of Vrasene, near Sint-Niklaas. The place is called The Popcorn and the dj’s play obscure soul records which they slow down in order to create their own sound. A few years later, music lovers and dancers come from all over Belgium, France and The Netherlands to enjoy this unique music, which they refer to as ‘the Popcorn sound’ or ‘Popcorn Oldies’. Fast forward 40 years, and Popcorn is known all over the world. This short film tells the story of Popcorn through the eyes of dj’s Gerry and Gibbe, two of the founding fathers of the genre. They speak about the early days of the scene, about record digging in basements in the UK, and they return for a last time to The Popcorn, which closed in 2003. As the building is currently in the process of being demolished, this is the last footage ever shot of one of the most legendary discotheques in Belgium.

Tighter than Natalia's cleaning crew, more viewers than the successor to F.C. De Kampioenen and even harder back than Bart De Pauw. Also in 2024, 'Xander De Rycke keeps it up' returns to Lotto Arena Antwerp. And the bar is set high. Doing better than last year seems to many an impossible mission, but Xander is not afraid of a challenge.

At the end of November 2014, the Flemish music scene lost a Ghent icon. Singer, songwriter, and author Luc De Vos passed away unexpectedly. On Thursday, December 5, 2024, some 20 artists and bands paid tribute to him at the Lotto Arena in Antwerp. The lineup included ISE, Maria Iskariot, Emma Bale, BLUAI, Elisa Waut, Eden, Kids with Buns, ILA, Lady Linn, Emmy d'Arc, and Aafke Romeijn.

Josette, 75, struggling with her loneliness, meets Sarah, a young woman from her neighborhood. The two women, of diametrically opposed personalities, become acquainted, and gradually, all of Josette’s points of reference, linked to family ties, are shattered.

A super cool nature documentary about the rugged nature of the Meetjesland.

The passage of the soul through the cycle of reincarnation.

Ballet abused these dancers. Now they’re fighting back. They want to create their own company, open their doors to other traumatised, talented, survivors, and together, ‘reclaim the stage’. It won’t be easy. They’re young and fragile. They have no money or experience. But in a run-down studio, with a gender-fluid ballet insurgent to direct them, they fight for the chance to dance once again, with defiance, hope and joy. They must confront their traumas if they are ever to take the stage again. It is a journey of pain, hope, resistance as they fight for justice & groundbreaking, liberated ballet.

A fascinating hall of mirrors through a montage of film noir scenes where the actors face a painted portrait. This perfect blend of cinema and painting was commissioned to supplement a book study. Provost exploits the rules of editing to create an imaginary museum visit. He guides us through living rooms and picture galleries of 1940s and 1950s noir crime thrillers, gothic melodramas, and ghost stories.