Paper to Picture: books on the screen at Film Fest Gent 2026

Through excerpts from her body of work read aloud by the author herself, Siri Hustvedt – Dance Around the Self offers a poignant and moving portrait of this literary great and her life with her husband, Paul Auster. Filmmaker Sabine Lidl captures the writer’s rich cultural background in stunning imagery. It is a documentary that feels like a warm, cultural embrace.

Sometimes, the road to a writer's soul is a long one. Even after Mariano Llinás’s five-hour Biografia de Jorge Luis Borges, you still cannot tell whether the literary giant was a mad genius or a genius madman. Yet, a wild expedition through Borges’s universe awaits you; this blend of detective story and road movie moves at a brisk pace.

For director Patrick Wang, three hours suffice to sketch a radical portrait of "the rock star of French poetry" in A. Rimbaud. A single actor, Black Draper, plays Arthur Rimbaud within the stark confines of a "black box," while musical instruments stand in for the other characters. The result is cinematic yet theatrical, playful yet ascetic, and constantly pushing boundaries.

The Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who was murdered at the age of 38, stands tall alongside literary giants like Borges and Rimbaud. La bola negra (literally The Black Ball), named after an unfinished work by Lorca, explores the silenced history of queer individuals in Spanish society. It is a powerful tribute to Lorca’s legacy.

Although Fatherland is not based on any specific work by the great German writer and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, his personality looms large over Paweł Pawlikowski’s remarkable film. The director drew inspiration from the journey Mann undertook in 1949 across his battered and divided homeland. According to many, this Cannes-award-winning film is a feast for the eyes and the mind.

To date, the most famous screen adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's satirical novel Le journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid) is the one by Luis Buñuel. Director Radu Jude, previously a guest at Film Fest Gent, replaces the period drama setting of his version with a modern French backdrop, transforming it into a story about immigration.

Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway receives a loose adaptation by Rachel Rose in The Last Day, while director Kent Jones relocates Arthur Schnitzler's 19th-century novella Late Fame to contemporary New York.

The competition entry La Gradiva by Marina Atlan is also inspired by a book of the same name, dating back to 1902. The reimagining of what was originally a school trip to Pompeii could not be more timely.

We end closer to home with Tegenwoordig heet iedereen Sorry (Everyone's Sorry Nowadays), Frederike Migom's heartwarming coming-of-age film based on the book of the same name by Bart Moeyaert. According to Migom, "the book and the film are very different and yet very much alike."

The written word also translates beautifully into animation. In Wildwood, Prue and Curtis explore the forbidden forest near Portland after Prue's younger brother disappears, discovering a hidden realm filled with talking animals, magic, and danger. Finally, for slightly younger viewers, there is Mumbo, a small hippo who grows too big and sets out on a quest to become himself again, based on the beloved children's book by Jakob Martin Strid. 

Off to the bookstore!