Discover the VIDEODROOM 2023 programme
The VIDEODROOM programme is complete!
- wo 11.10 - Wiegedood x A Page of Madness
- za 12.10 - Whispering Sons x Balm (After Violence)
- vr 13.10 - Claire Rousay x The Bloody Lady
- za 14.10 - Sarah Davachi x Portrait of a young man (in three movements)
- zo 15.10 - Naima Joris: O
- wo 18.10 - Eiko Ishibashi x Ryûsuke Hamaguchi: Gift
- vr 20.10 - Colin Stetson: Soundtracks
- za 21.10 - Tsar B & Dijf Sanders Play the Music of Twin Peaks (21:00)
& Closing Party: Welcome to Twin Peaks (22:00)
Sarah Davachi x Portrait of a Young Man (In Three Movements)
Sat 14.10 - 20:00 - 22:00
Meditative, visual symphony
Portrait of a Young Man (In Three Movements)is an unjustly forgotten avant-garde masterpiece, reminiscent of the work of such great experimental filmmakers as Maya Deren and Paul Clipson. This three-part visual symphony receives a soundtrack exclusively for VIDEODROOM, composed by Canadian sound artist Sarah Davachi.
About the film
The silent documentary Portrait of a Young Man (In Three Movements) (1931) by American photographer-documentary maker Henwar Rodakiewicz (1903-1976), was filmed between 1925 and 1931 in Bermuda, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and British Columbia. The three-part film portrays a young man through images of his three passions: the tide, machines and sunlight. Rodakiewicz chose to divide it into three parts, analogous to the musical structure of a symphony.
The film begins and ends with the rising tide. The lush black-and-white images of waves crashing across the screen feel so real that you can almost feel the foam splashes. Throughout the docu, we see shimmering sunlight on the water, occasionally hear machinery, and images of clouds, rocks and leafy branches alternate.
In Portrait of a Young Man, Rodakiewicz explores how to capture movement. To do so, he uses a variety of techniques, including slow motion, geometry, repetition, lighting, abstraction and rhythm. Like A Page of Madness (1926), Portrait of a Young Man goes beyond naturalism: it leads the viewer to a place of pure expression. The end result, canned on three reels of 16mm film, is a meditative study of a young Rodakiewicz: he wanted to capture detailed experiences. For just under an hour, all conventions of traditional cinema are cast aside: the whirlwind of constant movement within the film frame places the viewer at the centre. The effect is mesmerising.
About the director
Henwar Rodakiewicz was only in his twenties when he made Portrait of a Young Man, and was both director, producer and photographer of the docu. He had no preconceived plan about the end result - few similar films existed at the time either - and relied entirely on his intuition and his keen eye. Focusing on natural forms and rhythms, the film pushes the boundaries of documentary and is reminiscent of the work of avant-garde masters such as Maya Deren, Andy Warhol and Paul Clipson.
Rodakiewicz himself said of Portrait of a Young Man: "It is an integrated collection of things with which I wanted to visually express my thoughts and feelings: machines, leaves, clouds, water - but not people. I based its editing on my sense of continuity - a method I have always used since then." The result is a serene, meditative film.
After Portrait of a Young Man, Rodakiewicz made Land of Enchantment: Southwest U.S.A. (1948), which features his painter friend Georgia O'Keeffe. Besides releasing his own work, Rodakiewicz helped other makers produce their films. For instance, he produced director Joseph Krumgold's short film Adventure in the Bronx (1941), which was nominated for an Oscar.
About Sarah Davachi
Canadian composer-performer Sarah Davachi's work deals with the close intertwining of sound and time. Long drawn-out but meticulously thought-out harmonies gradually reveal variations in texture, overtones, psychoacoustic phenomena, tunings and intonation. Her compositions include both solo and chamber music, using a wide range of acoustic and electronic instruments. Davachi's work is sometimes compared to that of minimalist composers such as LaMonte Young and Eliane Radigue. She has toured with artists such as Grouper, William Basinski and Arnold Dreyblatt, and created works commissioned by London Contemporary Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Cello Octet Amsterdam, among others.
Hieroglyphic Being x Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd
Gabriela González Rondon's dreamy animation experiment Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd opens the evening. The soundtrack was created by electronica legend Hieroglyphic Being and will be released later this year on VIERNULVIER Records.
Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd comprises two parts from an abstract animated film by Gabriela González Rondon. In this surreal analogue film gem, Gabriela sketches universes of movement and colour, reminiscent of the spiritual work of like-minded souls like science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin and filmmaker John Whitney. Kindred spirit Jamal Moss aka electronics legend Hieroglyphic Being made the soundtrack.
Hieroglyphic Being x Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd
Gabriela González Rondon's dreamy animation experiment Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd opens the evening. The soundtrack was created by electronica legend Hieroglyphic Being and will be released later this year on VIERNULVIER Records.
Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd comprises two parts from an abstract animated film by Gabriela González Rondon. In this surreal analogue film gem, Gabriela sketches universes of movement and colour, reminiscent of the spiritual work of like-minded souls like science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin and filmmaker John Whitney. Kindred spirit Jamal Moss aka electronics legend Hieroglyphic Being made the soundtrack.
Parallel Spheres & Figures in Mynd shows the dual aspect of a single moment. 'Parallel Spheres' is an observation of the physical properties of a timeless location: abstract topography and distorted landscapes offer the only information about this exotic and inhospitable territory. In 'Figures in Mynd', the intrinsic mythology of the turf unfolds wordlessly. Only eyes willing to listen and ears willing to see will be able to enter these hyperreal entities through the symbolism.
Born in Venezuela, moved to Brussels in 2003: video artist Gabriela González Rondon. Her style is characterised by a multidisciplinary approach that includes stop-motion, drawing and image manipulation. Gabriela mainly makes videos for experimental musicians such as Bear Bones, Lay Low, Urpf Lanze, Le Ton Mité, Embassador Dulgoon and Timelash. She has presented her work on stage at De Vooruit (Ghent), KVS (Brussels) and Het Bos (Antwerp), among others.
For more than 20 years, Hieroglyphic Being has been going on musical journeys of discovery, mixing house, industrial, kraut, avant-jazz and noise into his unique danceable, psychedelic music. The electronica legend describes himself as "a North American experimental sound composer from the Galaxy" - no lie!
Whispering Sons x Balm (After Violence)
Za 12.10 - 20:00 - 21:05
Just last July Whispering Sons gave a smashing performance at Boomtown, in October they will transform new music into a cinematic experience at VIDEODROOM - literally, with the help of filmmaker Heleen Declercq. An exclusive project, as the result will only be shown on big screen during VIDEODROOM. Moreover, the number of seats is limited to 200, so be sure to be there!
About the band
The Belgian five-piece Whispering Sons brings a unique, dark mix of experimental post-punk. The driving instruments, combined with frontwoman Fenne Kuppens' deep voice, create an uneasy feeling - a feeling that has characterized their music since the early years. Thanks to their energetic shows, the band has established a solid live reputation.
In recent years, Whispering Sons, winner of Humo's Rock Rally 2016, have slowly but surely been pushing their own boundaries. While debut album Image (2018) still sounded theatrical and wide, successor Several Others (2021) focused more on their greatest strength: raw intensity. A third album is currently in the works.
For VIDEODROOM, Whispering Sons is taking a bit of a step back, working with Brussels-based director-cinematographer Heleen Declercq to create a performance in which image and music flow seamlessly together. Expect an intimate showcase of new music as a foretaste of what is yet to come.
About the director
The Brussels-based director-cinematographerHeleen Declercq focuses on connection. She portrays the sensitivity of those in front of her lens through music and sound - two components that occupy a special place, as evidenced by the videos she has already made for Zwangere Guy, Chibi Ichigo and DVTCH NORRIS. Her work is characterized by a documentary style.
From an early age, Declercq was fascinated by the power of images. As a child, she spent countless hours capturing her own world with her mother's camcorder. That passion led her to RITCS, where she studied documentary. Her graduation project GIRLHOOD - also her coming-out - was selected for several film festivals and won the award for Best Documentary at the International Short Film Festival Leuven in 2017.
Her visually stunning stories, which she uses to evoke powerful emotions, have earned Declercq glowing reviews and a growing fan base.
Closing Party: Welcome to Twin Peaks
Za 21.10 - 22:00
Tsar B & Dijf Sanders' tribute to Angelo Badalamenti will be followed by the big closing party of VIDEODROOM and Film Fest Gent. The film festival is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, so we will make an epic evening of it: in the Concertzaal the GHOST collective will provide a party entirely dedicated to Twin Peaks.
The owls are not what they seem, so order your ticket now! Those who were there at GHOST x The Shining and GHOST x Alien know that this is guaranteed to be a surreal trip.
Tsar B & Dijf Sanders Play the Music of Twin Peaks
Za 21.10 - 21:00
For the closing party on Saturday 21 October, Tsar B and multi-instrumentalist Dijf Sanders perform a quirky tribute to composer Angelo Badalamenti (1937-2022) and his legendary soundtrack at 21:00. His "Twin Peaks Theme" was awarded a Grammy in 1990. Badalamenti and Lynch had known each other for some time: Badalamenti also wrote the scores for Lynch's classics Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990), and would later do the same for The Straight Story (1999) and Mulholland Drive (2001). In fact, Badalamenti has been a frequent recipient of prizes at the World Soundtrack Awards, such as in 2005, when he took home the Film Composer of the Year Award, and in 2008, when he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Singer-actress Julee Cruise (1956 - 2022), who has a recurring role in Twin Peaks as a singer at the Roadhouse, had also known the gentlemen for some time: Badalamenti recommended Cruise when Lynch was looking for a singer with a "haunting, ethereal voice" for Blue Velvet. Cruise did not disappoint. In Twin Peaks too, her voice adds to the melancholic and alienating atmosphere. This VIDEODROOM evening will be a tribute to Badalamenti and Cruise, who both died in 2022.
Claire Rousay x The Bloody Lady
Fri 13.10 - 19:30
We celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Viktor Kubal, the father of Czechoslovakian animated film. American electroacoustic composer Claire Rousay provides Kubal's The Bloody Lady with an all-new live soundtrack!
About the film
The trippy Czechoslovakian animated film The Bloody Lady (1980) - original title: Krvavá pani - is based on the lurid folk tale about Elisabeth Bathory (1560 - 1614), a Slovenian noblewoman accused of murdering hundreds of girls and women. The reason for her murderous intent: hoping to remain eternally young, she allegedly literally bathed in their blood. Some historians see her conviction as an unjustified witch hunt; others say she is one of history's first known serial killers. Stories of her alleged crimes quickly became legend - it is rumored that Bathory was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1897).
The film begins like a classic Disney fairy tale, with happy forest animals hopping around the Countess, but soon takes on a dark twist. During a storm, the countess gets lost in the forest. Feverish and exhausted, she reaches the hut of a woodcutter, who cares for her until she recovers. Out of love, she gives him - literally - her heart. This immediately changes her character: the heartless countess begins to treat her favorite animals cruelly and takes baths in virgin blood.
About Claire Rousay
American electroacoustic composer Claire Rousay combines cello with ambient field recordings and electronics. Her music focuses on emotions and details from everyday life - voicemails, ambient recordings, stop watches, whispers and conversations - and explodes their meaning. Rousay opened for alt-country superstar Jeff Tweedy last year. Her beautifully esoteric, occasionally challenging instrumental pieces, are often compared to Steve Reich's minimalist work or that of meditative composer William Basinski.
About the director
Viktor Kubal (1923 - 1997) is considered the father of Czechoslovak animated film: his Zbojník Jurko (1976) is the very first Slovak animated film ever made. Kubal is known for his minimalist drawing and narration style, with which he achieves maximum effect. In The Bloody Lady, his pseudo-historical horror-dramedy about Elisabeth Bathory, Kubal communicates not with dialogues - The Bloody Lady is, apart from a brief intro, a silent film - but through minimalist images and the music of Juraj Lexmann. Kubal intersperses his Disney parody with wry humor and anachronistic jokes. Although most of the killings happen offscreen, Kubal does not shy away from bringing the "rejuvenating" carnage into focus.
A Page of Madness - Wiegedood
Wed 11.10 - 20:00
VIDEODROOM 2023 opens with a bang: a unique film project by Belgian black metal band Wiegedood. The trio - Levy Seynaeve (vocals, guitar), Wim Coppers (drums) and Gilles Demolder (guitar) - is internationally known for their rabid music and have a rock-solid live reputation. On Wednesday, Oct. 11, they will play an all-new soundtrack to the Japanese silent film A Page of Madness (1926), a long-lost masterpiece set in a mental institution.
About the film
A silent horror film by director Teinosuke Kinugasa (1896-1982), A Page of Madness (1926) is one of the most stunning, baffling and radical experiments in the history of Japanese cinema, even nearly 100 years after its premiere.
The plot: an old sailor works as a janitor in a mental institution so he can be with his wife, who is one of the patients. After she attempts suicide, he tries to free her from the institution.
The film relies primarily on Kinugasa's creative talent: the director explores and pushes the boundaries of what was cinematically possible in the 1920s. Through distortions and extremely stylized imagery, he immerses his audience in a world of madness. The dramatic shock effects and complex double images make the film a visual feast: a guard opens a barred door and the bars remain; a nervous tracking shot through the hallway is superimposed on top of a tracking shot in the opposite direction; memories are seen through the hazy windows of hallucinations. The interpretations also contribute to the alienating atmosphere: all the actors were part of an avant-garde theater company.
About the band
Belgian black metal pride Wiegedood presented their latest record There's Always Blood At The End Of The Road in a sold-out Ballroom at De Vooruit last year. Four years after the De Doden Hebben Het Goed trilogy, dedicated to the much too soon deceased Kabul Golf Club frontman Florent Pevée, the new record focuses on the most disgusting sides of man and society. Because, in their own opinion, "The essence of black metal is to capture the chaos of the world and the complexity of life."
Staying away from the typical black metal themes, they zoom in on the internal struggle we all face to transcend all manner of horror. This takes them into a completely different realm both musically and lyrically. The band calls the record a "dark turn" toward the unexpected and unwelcome. What that sounds like? Like a psychotic ride full of spooky synths, hot club jazz and unsettling samples.
Naima Joris - 'O'
Sun 15.10 - 20:00
An audiovisual spectacle about the magical underwater world
During VIDEODROOM, singer-songwriter Naima Joris will play an improvisational set to images of microscopic plankton by Dutch filmmaker-photographer Jan van IJken.
Van IJken filmed plankton through a number of microscopes, revealing the beauty of these tiny organisms. Phytoplankton are both the main processor of greenhouse gases and the largest primary oxygen producer on Earth. However, these floating microorganisms, on which we thus depend, are threatened by ocean acidification and global warming.
Guided by Van IJken's wondrous images and Naima's fascination with both breathing and water, Naima will play a magical improvisational set. The futuristic guitar lines of Vitja Pauwels and the tuneful sounds of Niels Van Heertum's euphonium will accompany her.
The performance has been aptly named "O," referring to the circle of life - because without plankton, no life is possible - and to "eau," the French word for water. Be amazed by nature and music!
Gift - Eiko Ishibashi x Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Wo 18.10 - 20:00
Multi-instrumentalist & composer Eiko Ishibashi and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi have teamed up once again following their successful collaboration on the critically acclaimed feature film Drive My Car. This new film, titled Gift and written and directed by Hamaguchi, will world premiere at Film Fest Gent with a live score performed by Ishibashi. The duo's new collaboration was developed in conjunction with Hamaguchi’s new feature film Evil Does Not Exist, which takes a different approach to the same footage and scenario.
Eiko Ishibashi is a musical phenomenon who has been fusing styles and genres for over a decade now, from chamber pop and musique concrète to jazz improv, prog and noise. She has collaborated with international artists such as Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Charlemagne Palestine, Merzbow, Giovanni Di Domenico, Phew, and many others. In 2016, she made her debut as a film composer with the score for Albino’s Tree, before going on to write the music for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning film Drive My Car in 2021. Ishibashi’s captivating score earned rave reviews and won her the Discovery of the Year Award at the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent.
Colin Stetson Soundtracks
Fr 20.10 - 20:00
VIDEODROOM is happy to welcome Canadian-American saxophonist, multi-reedist and composer Colin Stetson for an exclusive live performance. Known for his virtuosic and innovative use of circular breathing and assertive, powerful performances, Stetson has been on the forefront of cutting edge music for the last decade.
Film fans and gamers will know Stetson’s striking scores for the horror films 'Hereditary' (2018), 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (2022) and 'The Menu' (2022), and the extremely popular video game 'Red Dead Redemption 2' (2018), among others.
At VIDEODROOM, Stetson will play an exclusive live suite of music based on these scores, complemented by his soundtracks for other films and TV series.
Next to his much lauded solo work, Stetson has made contributions to albums by major artists, including Tom Waits, Bon Iver, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, amongst others. After his (solo) breakthrough album 'New History Warfare Vol. 1' (2007), he was enlisted by bands such as Arcade Fire, Timber Timbre and TV on the Radio. In between, the indefatigable Stetson completed his 'New History Warfare' trilogy and the man's 'All This I Do for Glory' was awarded multiple times as 'Album of the Year' in 2017.
Although he mainly gravitates towards the saxophone - mainly bass and alto, but also soprano, tenor and baritone - he also mastered clarinet, flute, French horn and cornet.
