CINEMATEK, Brussel

23.04.2024

Belgian filmmaker Samy Szlingerbaum directed the short film Le 15/8 in 1973 together with Chantal Akerman. He then made two short films of his own, including this nocturnal Insomnies, which rhythmically and associatively depicts the neon lights of the Belgian capital—like a dream. A mostly formal experiment of barely nine minutes. 

21.04.2024

We can never get enough of Buster Keaton, The Great Stone Face of the 1920s. One Week is the first independent film he released himself, full of new stunts in and around houses and on ladders.

21.02.2024

In his work, Georgian Mikheil Kobakhidze often opposed Soviet ideology. At first glance, Umbrella seems feathery light: a railway worker lives happily with his lover until an umbrella comes flying and gives the realistic a surreal touch.

18.02.2024

Su Friedrich, a pioneer in American avant-garde cinema, writes, directs, and edits all her films. These are often a mix of the personal and political, ranging from home movies to video interviews and more classic narratives.    

17.02.2024

Barbara Hammer is a pioneer in lesbian cinema. In her over fifty-year career, she has made both classic and more experimental films in which gender roles and female relationships are central.

 

10.02.2024

Fool’s Mate, seen by some historians as one of the first films of the French New Wave movement, is perhaps Rivette's best-known short film—and with good reason: its tight camera work captures a mysterious romance.

18.01.2024

Set in the deindustrialised mining city of Genk, Terril depicts the masculine dynamics within a working-class family. It patiently moves between these social codes and the landscape in which they manifest themselves.

06.12.2023

Scorpio Rising is perhaps Kenneth Anger's best-known work. Set to the beats of 1960s pop music, the film follows a group of bikers and explores the occult, homosexuality, and Nazism. It also idolises rebellious public figures such as James Dean and Marlon Brando.

20.11.2023

This French short film is highly regarded in many film history books. Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel wrote his first feat together with Salvador Dalí, based on their dreams.

30.09.2023

The mystery of the filmmaking process is a crucial element in Robert Beavers' artistic signature. Winged Dialogue is characteristic of many of his films: at once lyrical and rigorous, sensual and complex. Mediterranean cities, landscapes, and cultural traditions unveil deeper personal and aesthetic themes. The sexuality of the body and the purity of the soul come together glowingly.

27.09.2023

Nocturnal Butterflies is the only film entirely made in Servaisgraphy, a technique that fuses live-action and animation. The late Raoul Servais, a key figure in the history of Belgian animation, already experimented with this style in his film Harpya.

23.06.2023

A documentary film about AIDS and one unconventional woman’s efforts to educate her small, Southern community. DiAna DiAna is a local hairdresser who transformed her beauty parlor into a center for AIDS and safe sex information.

 

19.06.2023

Following a premonition, a young woman tries to persuade her fiancé not to go out to sea in his fishing boat, but the boy ignores her and sets out. Soon, a storm occurs, and the girl frantically tries to find out his fate.

18.06.2023

A dreamlike meditation on art and politics in the final years of the Cold War.

17.06.2023

A child's voice recites Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky while various objects, such as toys and dolls, fall apart and depict some of the scenes.

08.06.2023

Two teenage girls from Brussels flee to Paris and try to survive there.

13.05.2023

A detailed account of a failed bank robbery. A single take where over ninety people perform a meticulous choreography for the camera. The film recreates an actual event that took place in Stockholm in June 2006.

18.04.2023
Med Hondo, France, 1971, 35’

African migrants in Paris talk about everyday life and racism on the labour and housing markets.

24.10.2022
Jean Vigo, France, 1929, 30’

Jean Vigo's very first film. The silent documentary shows Nice residents in their daily routines, and the prevailing social inequalities.

23.10.2022

In Dominique Loreau's very first (short) film, a woman wanders the streets of Brussels, waiting to leave for the tropics with a man she happened to meet in a pub.