15.12.24, 17:00, Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

Before heading into the Christmas holidays, we like to extend a (curly) tail to the season with this warm winter screening of Babe: Pig in the City. In the mid-1990s, director George Miller swapped the post-apocalyptic landscapes of his Mad Max trilogy for the green pastures of Wales with Babe (1995) — the cinematic equivalent of a jumper knitted by proud grandmothers. Telling the story of a cuddly piglet with sheepdog ambitions, Babe quickly snapped its way into the children's film canon. The sequel, Pig in the City, however, is a different animal. Cute on the outside, yet peppered with the critical geopolitical consciousness of a soured Marxist, Pig in the City is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

When Babe's owner is in an accident and the hollowed-out welfare state fails to cover medical expenses, the bank confiscates the farm. The only way Babe can save the day is to trade his own commodified star persona on the free market. Unfortunately, the militarised borders of Fortress Europe put a stop to that and he ends up on the run in a metropolitan hellscape. This cross between a PG-13 version of Taxi Driver (1976) and Paw Patrol with ACAB allure is a film gem you won't want to leave to the pigs.

This film will be introduced by KASKcinema programmer Lennart Soberon.

Beforehand — at 14:00 — we will take a neighbourhood walk on and around the Bijloke site. With our snouts forward and guided by wild picker Lieve Ferdinande, we will search for edible plants and learn about the city's wilderness its concrete face. With this harvest as a basis, we will then move into the kitchen.