2012-2016
Olivia Rochette (Belgium, 1987) and Gerard-Jan Claes (Belgium, 1987) live and work in Brussels. They studied film together at the KASK / School of Arts Ghent. Their graduation work Because We Are Visual (2010), a mid-length documentary, allows the viewer to discover the world of public video journals. Because We Are Visual was shown at national and international film festivals such as International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Videoex (Zürich, Switzerland), and was exhibited in museums such as S.M.A.K. (Ghent, Belgium) and MAC’s (Grand-Hornu, Belgium).
In 2012 they finished Rain, a documentary about the transmission of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s contemporary choreography Rain to the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris. The documentary focuses on how De Keersmaeker and the Rosas dancers convey the dance idiom of the choreographer to the classically trained ballet dancers. Rain premiered nationally at the International Film Festival Ghent and was released in Belgian cinemas onwards. At the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam the documentary had it’s international premiere. The film was shown at other international festivals such as Cinéma du Réel at Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Internationalen Dokumentarfilmfestivals München and Los Angeles Film Festival.
In 2013 they co-founded Sabzian. The website is a collection of online reflections on cinema and an agenda listing cinephile events in Belgium and surroundings.
In 2016 they closed their residency at Beursschouwburg with a screening of Grands travaux at the Beursschouwburg as part of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. The film Grands travaux is set in the Institute Anneessens-Funck, a Dutch-speaking vocational school in the centre of Brussels where young students have come to learn a trade. The film both documents and stages that which gives shape to their lives: the practical assignments and classes at school, football, the oscillation of their love lives, as well as the ongoing search for housing and employment. Grands travaux had its international premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Their newest film, Mitten (2019), follows the final weeks of rehearsal of Mitten wir im Leben sind, a performance by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, her company Rosas and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, based on the six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.
