A street with pedestrians. Music. A voice reads the credits and clarifies, “This is a very violent film.” The action begins: a man crosses the street and enters his flat. He opens the door, puts out the fire under the kettle whistling in the kitchen, and enters the living room…
Tag: BELGIUM
This film is a moving tribute to French filmmaker Jean Rouch. Pauwels, a former collaborator of Rouch, accompanies him on a trip to Japan. In this cinematic letter, which he himself calls “a journey into the memory”, Pauwels philosophises about the essence of cinema and, consequently, of life.
Patrick Perrault, a photo-journalist covering the war in Beirut in the late 1980s, is himself caught up in the hostilities when one day he is picked up and bundled into a car at gun-point. Blind-folded, he is taken to an unknown location where he discovers that he is being taken hostage by Lebanese guerrillas. Robbed of his passport, stripped and forced to change into a pair of damp pyjamas, he is locked up in a cell from which there is no escape. And he is told that if he takes of his blindfold to see his captors he will be shot dead immediately. So begins his long and brutal nightmare…
A sculptor is fighting his final battle against death on his houseboat on the frozen Schelde river. Two women are at his side: his first wife, who he is divorced from, and his second wife. The latter is most concerned about his death as she realizes that in the end the only result will be irrevocable loneliness. She wants to postpone the fatal moment and therefore tries to find comfort in her reminiscences from the times when she was happy with him. A story about fidelity till after death.
Magda is the unwed daughter of a white South African farmer. Spending much of her time looking after her father, Magda leads an uneventful and isolated life, largely avoiding other people. However, that changes when Magda discovers that her father has been having an affair with one of the farm’s African workers. Unable to handle the revelation that her dad has a mistress, Magda takes surprisingly drastic and violent action.
Seven Women, Seven Sins represents a quintessential moment in film history. The women filmmakers invited to direct for the seven sins were amongst the world’s most renown: Helke Sander (Gluttony), Bette Gordon (Greed), Maxi Cohen (Anger), Chantal Akerman (Sloth), Valie Export (Lust), Laurence Gavron (Envy), and Ulrike Ottinger (Pride). Each filmmaker had the liberty of choosing a sin to interpret as they wished. The final film reflected this diversity, including traditional narrative fiction, experimental video, a musical, a radical documentary, and was delivered in multiple formats from 16, super 16, video and 35mm.
Malpertuis is the name of an old, rambling mansion which is in reality a labyrinth where characters from Greek mythology are imprisoned by the bedridden Cassavius. He manages to keep them (as well as his nephew and niece) prisoners even after his death, through a binding testament. As Jan, the nephew, unravels the mystery, he discovers that he cannot escape the house because Malpertuis is far more significant than he was led to believe.
Mathias is a Belgian linguist, living with French theatre producer Anne. After a quarrel about moral questions, they take a train to attend a congress. While Mathias sleeps, Anne disappears. The train stops in the middle of the country and Mathias gets off the train with an older man, Hernhutter, and a young one, Val. The train moves off without them being able to catch it up. They will find a village, but cannot get any help because they do not understand a word of what the inhabitants say…