OVERVIEW TITLES

SAO PAULO

Robert Suermondt
Although the presence of the architecture and urbanism of the city is constantly insinuated, neither of them is treated as the real subject of the film. As the scenes that show the city are cut up by scenes of groups of friends, the way the megalopolis is approached is ‘familiarised’. It is as if the film assimilated a sort of personal wandering. Even the way of filming is paramount...

LA COLLECTION QUI N'EXISTAIT PAS

Joachim Olender
In June 2011, Herman Daled decides to sell off his collection of conceptual art. The MoMA in New York has proposed to buy it from him. A man looks back at his past, and that of an aesthetic and philosophic movement that marked the second half of the twentieth century. Exploring this movement, the film has chosen to hold up a mirror between a man and a philosophy....

BRASILIA

Robert Suermondt
It is astonishing to see to which degree the sequences of persons can look like real scenes of fiction. The inhabitants of Brasilia – most of them are officials – run around from one office to another without wearing a jacket. In their shirtsleeves they look like men of action. Showing them from a distance makes them look like small puppets placed in a scale model replica of the city...

DE STRAAT

Jef Cornelis
There is not much more left of the street than – to use a term by Le Corbusier – a machine of movement, equipped to make traffic run smoothly. The street in its original and spontaneous form, as a breeding ground for new life, is restrained. The efficiency controlling the traffic grid does not merely affect the existing living area, but also the form and pattern of new living...

COMME D'HABITUDE. UNE PIÈCE À ENGAGER

Eran Schaerf - Eva Meyer
‘As Habitual’ is a set piece, a documentary fiction, about how to adapt oneself to unknown regions without surrendering to them. This movie is situated in Mombassa and Zanzibar, where you can find a material called Khanga that hovers between language and architecture, and in fact turns into a habit...

FRIGOLITH

Michel François
Tiny Styrofoam balls, blasted by an invisible force. They seem caught in the screen. The fixed frame prevents us from seeing what they are in, where they are coming from. The tight framing closes the image in order to open it....

LE CHANT DU SATELLITE

Jacques Lederlin - Joëlle de La Casinière
This satirical work is based on the wording of regulations and vocation of a European news/TV station, presented as a paragon of the predominant power of our day and age, the power of information...

Silent Letters, 2009, Mira Sanders © the artist

SILENT LETTER 20012009

Mira Sanders
The third 'Silent Letter' was written on January 19th, 2009. The inter- and subtitles refer to the act of drawing. A short way into the video, we see images of radio-commanded model airplanes. A fourth theme is made explicit here: the (clear) line. Throughout the letter, the line is connected with the theme of the border, to be defended by ''guards''....

JACK

Roy Villevoye
A meeting of a chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus) with a camouflaged German helmet from World War I....

LOOKING DOWN

Bernard Gigounon
A ship, filmed from above, is slowly moving through the image: the bow, the deck, and the metal cover plates. As soon as the camera arrives at the load, however, consisting of sand and stones, something weird happens: the load turns into a Martian landscape, it seems as if the camera is transforming into a satellite, exploring some barren planet...