HERE + LES FILMS DE LA MAISON + NEIGHBOUR(HOOD)S + BRUXELLES-TRANSIT

14:00 LONG 1 - HERE
15:05 SHORTS 4 - LES FILMS DE LA MAISON
16:10 SHORTS 3 - NEIGHBOUR(HOOD)S
17:30 LONG 4 - BRUXELLES-TRANSIT

LONG 1 - HERE

Here (Bas Devos, 2023) 1h24min
Stefan, a Romanian construction worker living in Brussels, is about to move back home when he meets a Belgian-Chinese young woman who’s doing a doctorate on mosses, stopping him in his tracks.

SHORTS 4 - LES FILMS DE LA MAISON

Les films de la maison emerge from the eyes and hands of the movement La Voix des Sans-Papiers and the two filmmakers Mieriën Coppens and Elie Maissin. They are making a collection of films which, far from simply filming a struggle, draw the outlines of a house - a place to be built together. If one day all these films were to be reassembled, we might finally be able to see this house from the inside. La Voix des Sans-Papiers was born in 2014. Since then, they have occupied around twenty occupations in Brussels.

Carry On (Mieriën Coppens, 2017)
A group of people without valid residence documents is closely observed in this silent film. The absence of sound highlights the contrast between their quiet presence and the intense, often unseen pressures they endure.

Et leurs lettres (Elie Maissin, Mieriën Coppens, 2023)
Hundreds of summons letters arrive at the occupied building of La Voix des Sans Papiers. With care, Kandé and Taslim sort and distribute the letters to the residents, who will later appear in court. In the corridors of the courthouse, the sounds of an occupation echo.

La maison (Elie Maissin, Mieriën Coppens, 2019)
In the house of La Voix des Sans Papiers in Brussels, the members gather in the corridor for a meeting that will last all night. A direct and intimate confrontation with the living environment of undocumented people in Brussels.

SHORTS 3 - NEIGHBOUR(HOOD)S

Floréal (Thierry De Mey, 1985)
Discover the Brussels garden city of Floréal through the lens of a filmmaker who spent his childhood there. A short film that captures the relationship between architecture and residents as pre-modernist architecture comes to life, supported by rhythmic music

Je suis votre voisin (Karine de Villers, Thomas de Thier, 1990)
In a quiet Brussels street, two filmmakers film their neighbours, capturing personal stories and everyday secrets right on their doorsteps. An interesting portrait of their diverse city.

Les cheveux coupés (Emmanuel Marre, 2009)
In different living rooms in Brussels, parents cut their children’s hair. We witness intimate moments between toddlers who resist or completely surrender to the tender ritual and parents who want to succeed in their delicate task.

Les gens du quartier (Jean Harlez, 1955)
An old coco merchant is making his way through the bustling market squares of the Marolles neighborhood with a large beverage dispenser on his back, serving licorice lemonade to locals. A precious document of city life in mid-century Brussels

LONG 4 - BRUXELLES-TRANSIT

Bruxelles-transit (Samy Szlingerbaum, 1980) 1h20min
Spoken in Yiddish, Samy Szlingerbaum’s only full-length film tells his Polish Jewish parents’ story of their arrival in Belgium in 1947 – the attempts to build a home, the struggle to find illicit work and the efforts to integrate into the country of their exile, without papers or any knowledge of the language. Samy was born two years later.