Film Fest Gent On Tour

FFG Wide Angle

For each On Tour film, Film Fest Gent provides a Wide Angle every month, in which we delve into the film, its director and themes (and more) by means of texts in various forms by various authors. (Texts are exclusively available in Dutch)

Golden Eighties l 16.04

Chantal Akerman ventures into the world of musical-comedies with this bubblegum pop filled film.

As queen of slow cinema, Chantal Akerman, surprised friend and foe with Golden Eighties. With the help of budding pop star Lio, of “Banana Split”-fame, Akerman set her sights on the broader audience of commercial cinema. The Galerie Toison d’Or, a shrine of 80s consumerism, is the second home of a brigade of hairdressers and shampoo girls, salespeople and their romantic troubles. Love triangles, extramarital affaires and old lovers cross in this little corner of Brussels. While Golden Eighties was a venture into commercial cinema, it is still filled with the Akerman essentials: feminism, consumerism and the memory of the Holocaust.

This Film Fest Gent On Tour avant-premiere of the new restoration of Golden Eighties is also part of the launch of Avila, present!, in collaboration with Cinea, Fondation Chantal Akerman and Cinematek.

Wide Angle

• Essay in collaboration with Fantômas
• Video essay in collaboration with Filmscalpel
  
• Visit to Chantal Akerman Expo
• Text collection Sabzian

La Piscine l 21.05

Jacques Deray explores the difficulties of love, ambition and teenage rebellion in the South of France.

Young couple Jean-Paul and Marianne - played by ex-lovers Alain Delon and Romy Schneider - take a break at a friend's villa. Together, they enjoy the sun, the pool and each other - until Marianne's ex, Harry, shows up with his teenage daughter, Penelope. Harry sets his sights on Marianne and makes Jean-Paul's life miserable. Penelope rebels against her father and grows closer to Jean-Paul. Old and new frustrations surface and eventually lead to murder. Passion, intrigue and crime provide the perfect backdrop for a balmy spring evening.

Wide Angle (online on 20.05)

• Review & Notes on director by Patrick Duynslaegher
• Essay in collaboration with Fantômas
• Videoessays in collaboration with Filmscalpel

Soundtrack to a Coup d'État l 18.06

Johan Grimonprez blends jazz, the CIA and the United Nations to create a swinging fusion in Soundtrack to a Coup d’État.

What do jazz music and the murder of Patrice Lumumba have in common? In Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez takes you back to 16 February 1961. Two jazz musicians, Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach, storm the UN Security Council and protest the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's prime minister. Previous meetings around demilitarisation and decolonisation had already fallen through, much to the frustration of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The big troublemaker, the US, urgently needed to boost its image and sought refuge in jazz. Music legends like Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington are sent to Congo as jazz ambassadors to divert attention from various CIA operations.

Wide Angle (online on 17.06)

• Review & Notes on director by Patrick Duynslaegher
• Essay in collaboration with Fantômas
• Videoessays in collaboration with Filmscalpel

May December l 16.01

In Todd Haynes' dark and deliciously funny melodrama May December, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman play a mysterious cat-and-mouse game of seduction, naivety and performance.

You don't need to teach American filmmaker Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Carol) anything about directing actors, creating mood and staging meta-melodramas. May December, a deliciously crafted psychodrama that looks as cerebral as it is seductive, makes that delightfully clear. "It's the complexity, the moral gray areas, that are so interesting," says Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actress looking to take her career to the next level. In this darker cousin of Carol, Haynes lets Elizabeth in on the life of Gracie (Julianne Moore), twenty years after she ended up in jail for seducing then-thirteen-year-old Joe as a thirty-something. After all, the actress is going to portray Gracie in a film about the scandal. Gracie and Joe are now married, but is their marriage based on abuse or romance? With as much pleasure as control, Haynes stages a flirtatious game between dysfunctional individuals, as if Ingmar Bergman is discovering his campy side

Wide Angle

• Review & Notes on director Todd Haynes by Patrick Duynslaegher
• Essay in collaboration with Fantômas
• Video essays curated by Filmscalpel

L'Empire l 20.02

After media satire France, Bruno Dumont, one of the enfants terribles of French cinema, is back with a with an absurdist science-fiction film that can only have sprung from the mind of the director of La vie de Jésus, P'tit Quinquin and Ma Loute.

That director Bruno Dumont is not keen on colouring within the lines of genres and "good taste" has long since ceased to be something striking. But a bizarre, apocalyptic "space & earth opera" about extraterrestrial knights who make a rural coastal village in Northern France their battleground, no, that was impossible to predict. Somewhere between his previous films Ma Loute and La vie de Jésus and somewhere between heaven and earth, Dumont offers us his caustic, cruel and crazy vision of Star Wars, including lightsabers.

Wide Angle

• Review & Notes on director Bruno Dumont by Patrick Duynslaegher
• Essay in collaboration with Fantômas

Dream Scenario l 19.03

Sick of Myself director Kristoffer Borgli gives Nicolas Cage a dream role in his ingenious fantasy horror comedy.

The role of his dreams: that's one way to describe the character of Paul Matthews, portrayed by Nicolas Cage. He plays a balding, bearded biology professor who would easily win the title of Mr. Average. But one day, something strange happens: he appears in one of his daughters' dreams. Then in an ex's dream. Until he even starts featuring in the dreams of millions of people who have never even heard of the man. Dream Scenario is the refreshingly creative English-language debut of Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself). And after this film, it's entirely clear: if you're looking for comedies with a twist, Borgli is the right person to turn to.

FFG On Tour screening in collaboration with Cage of Wonders

Wide Angle (online on 18.03)

• Review & Notes on director by Patrick Duynslaegher
• Essay in collaboration with Fantômas
• Video essays in collaboration with Filmscalpel
• Illustration by Lisa De Vriese and essay by Silke Bomberna (Cage of Wonders)