De Cinema, Antwerp

Filmmaker Elahe Esmaili helps pack up their parents’ house. As the boxes pile up, intergenerational discussions also flare up: Elahe does not wear a hijab, embodying the courage of her generation. Esmaili longs for a deep, existential shift, driven by the Women, Life, Freedom protest movement that pervaded Iran.

As a powerful symbol of one’s identity and beliefs, the shoe remains a source of wonder. Vincent van Gogh, too, found inspiration in footwear. The more worn and muddy these were, the deeper their implied psychological meaning. During the 5th Havana Biennial, Francis Alÿs donned magnetic shoes and walked daily through the streets of the city, collecting the bits of metal he encountered in his path.

Over een periode van twintig jaar vertolkte de ondertussen legendarische Jean-Pierre Léaud tot vijfmaal toe het alter ego van de iconische Franse nouvelle vague regisseur François Truffaut. Als Antoine Doinel is hij voor het eerst te zien in diens doorbraakfilm, Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959). Op zijn achttiende gaf Léaud, opnieuw gestalte aan Antoine Doinel in het 29 minuten durende Antoine et Colette.

Panning shots describe a room as a succession of still lives: a chair, some fruit on a table, a collection of solitary, waiting objects. Sitting on the bed, there is the presence of a young woman: Chantal Akerman, filmmaker herself, eating an apple.

Almost a decade after her in 2022 crowned “best film of all time”, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Chantal Akerman made the twelve-minute I’m Hungry, I’m Cold. In it, two young  chain-smoking Brussels girls run away from home, to Paris.

This experimental music video by Marlon Riggs politicises the homoeroticism of African-American men. With sensual and provocative images, Anthem reaffirms the “self-evident right” to life and liberty in an era of pervasive anti-gay and anti-Black backlash and hysterical cultural oppression.

Mati Diop, niece of filmmaker Djibil Diop Mambéty, mixes facts with fantasy, as in the latter’s best-known film, Touki Bouki. A Thousand Suns thus becomes an homage to this classic film but, above all, a sensitive portrait of a man who, in his own words, “lost himself”.

The Black Panther movement was the most influential “Black power” organisation of the late 1960s, globally supported by opponents of U.S. imperialism. French filmmaker Agnès Varda canned this short documentary when she and her husband Jacques Demy were in California for his first Hollywood production.

A slideshow records the infatuation of two trans men over a one-year period. The creators collect photographs of real events: their first kiss, meeting each other's parents, a staged wedding, a medical procedure, and the accompanying recovery. The images are, at times, reminiscent of Nan Goldin’s work: raw, fragile, and exceptionally intimate.

The Seasons shows humanity trapped in a cruel but stunningly beautiful existence. Vast cloudscapes speedily glide across the Armenian highlands: to the melodious rhythm of camerawork, editing, and a lyrical score, Artavazd Peleshian elevates this into a full-blown symphony of life.

In deze bijzondere korte documentaire wordt in een kleine bakkerij alles in gereedheid gebracht voor het maken van brood. We volgen dit alledaagse proces stap voor stap, inclusief het wachten. Net zoals in tal van Alexandre Koberidzes kortfilms toont hij in Linger on Some Pale Blue Dot bijna woordeloos hoe je met verwondering naar de wereld kan kijken.

With her films, pioneering journalist Jocelyne Saab gives exiled warriors and displaced people a voice. Her work is poetic but also has a strong awareness of her subjective role as a documentary filmmaker.

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, who passed away in 2015, has gained worldwide fame. Nothing is quiet about her first short film, Blow Up My Town (1968). Her character is abrupt, energetic, and explosive. Something is teetering. This short film is a visionary prelude to the filmmaker’s oeuvre and life.

Time travel, still images, a past, present and future and the aftermath of World War III. The tale of a man, a slave, sent back and forth, in and out of time, to find a solution to the world’s fate.

A portrait of a leper colony in the north of Iran, where 'ugliness' is juxtaposed with religion and gratitude.

Eén maal per jaar mogen de voormalige inwoners van Ma’loul terug keren naar hun door Israël bezette dorp. Tijdens de traditionele picknick documenteert de Palestijns-Belgische filmmaker Michel Khleifi hoe de geschiedenis van deze plek in de herinneringen van de oude generaties en in de verbeelding van hun kinderen verder leeft.