13.11.24, Mami Wata (2023)

Lesbian nuns in 1980s New York embark on a quest through historical texts to uncover the history of the dildo. Their journey runs parallel to the melodramatic conventions of film history. These two films each weave together different narratives and timelines in a quest for desire, pleasure and their expression outside the norm. How can a subversive cinematic experiment offer an answer to a Catholic upbringing? How can a ceramic dildo distance itself from phallic expectations? And what if we shape our own sexual pleasure, literally, with handmade silicone dildos?

The words of Puk Bennie complement the cinematic narratives of Su Friedrich and Paula Tomás Marques in this exploration of what pleasure and desire can mean.

Sleazeballs from all over the world can treat themselves this Halloween to a night that pumps hallucinogenic horror hits straight into your veins. Bad Trip snorts, licks and smokes its way to hell and back with a trilogy of drug-induced nightmares. First, we’ll chill out in the free-spirited 1970s with A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin; a giallo by Italian genre master Lucio Fulci. No peace, love and understanding here, but murderous intent, psychoanalysis and the twists and turns of the subconscious. Carol is annoyed by the hedonistic escapades of her free-spirited hippie neighbour Julia. When she dreams of murdering Julia, she realises the next morning that Julia has actually been stabbed.

After this taster, the party can begin with MadS, a strobe-lit, single-take descent into madness. On his way to a rave, Romaine is offered a mysterious substance by his dealer. What initially feels like psychedelic side effects gradually transforms into a more sinister battle with reality. Finally, we’ll wind down with Brain Damage. In this trashy horror-comedy, a young man enters into a symbiotic relationship with an alien parasite. It promises him sensory ecstasy in exchange for the brains of his neighbours. So find your trip sitter and join us for this night of sensory-overloading torments.

This early German sound film, starring the world-famous Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, was until recently believed to have been lost. Thanks to research carried out at the CIMS (UGent) research centre and a collaboration between the Cinematek and the Deutsches Filminstitut, this unruly melodrama about forbidden love, longing and homesickness in a port city can once again be admired in all its glory.

Although the film has now fallen into obscurity, this box-office hit graced the screens in Ghent and other Belgian and Dutch cities for months, and even years. Almost a hundred years after its production, Film-Plateau is proud to present the Belgian premiere of this restored version to Ghent’s young audience.

The screening will be introduced by film history teacher Daniël Biltereyst.

Er kriebelt wat in KASKcinema. Samen met Kinoautomat krimpen we tot zakformaat voor deze onweerstaanbaar charmante Belgisch-Nederlandse jeugdklassieker.

Als een worm in een appel heeft Erik of het klein insectenboek zich in het hart van een hele generatie genesteld. Gebaseerd op het bekende boek van Godfried Bomans, volgen we Erik die tijdens een bezoekje aan zijn grootvader naar de insectenwereld getransporteerd wordt. Daar raakt hij bekend met een – van sappige Hollandse accenten uitgeruste – biotoop die zijn leven voorgoed zal veranderen.

Gedecoreerd met prachtige kostuums, knutsel-tastische special effects en wulpse mieren is Erik of het klein insectenboek de kindvriendelijke voorloper van Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno. Een avond nillies nostalgie ontpopt zich echter tot een bijenkorf aan natuurkundige kennis dankzij onze gastspreekster van dienst, die je langs de quirks, kinks en eigenheden van een hoop beestjes begeleidt.

Deze vertoning wordt ingeleid door biologe Merel Janquart.

After a brat summer in which Charli XCX dominated Instagram feeds and took over everyone’s AirPods with her album, it turns out that her biggest challenge isn’t the success itself, but maintaining it. In In The Moment, she plays an exaggerated version of herself: a pop star caught up in the expectations of the public, her record label and her own perfectionism. What begins as an ironic look at the machine behind the megastar derails into a claustrophobic nightmare in which the artist, her alter ego and the marketing construct increasingly merge.

With this refreshing take on the concert film, Aidan Zamiri translates Charli’s strobe-lit concert aesthetic into cinematic language. His delightfully unhinged satire on celebrity culture is a game of Russian roulette featuring flashing lights, hyped-up concert footage and a healthy dose of self-mockery. At the same time, this baroque behind-the-scenes look raises the question of how artists manage to stay afloat in an ecosystem that always wants more, until the hype shifts onto something new once again.

As a ‘Field Worker’, former architect and KASK & Conservatorium lecturer Wim Cuyvers set to work on the Genk slag heap over the past year. Although this hill, formed by excavated mine tunnels, is an imposing sight, the site serves no social purpose. On the initiative of C-mine, Wim joined forces with the Genk community to seek a symbolic purpose for the site.

This process of exploration and repurposing was turned into an engaging docu-fiction film. The film stars Eartal and Saban, two young ‘street kids’ from Genk who regularly meet on the Terril to vent their dissatisfaction with the world. One day, they meet an elderly man who wishes to be buried on the site. This gives rise to the plan for a ‘mountain of the dead’ to serve as a memorial and national cemetery.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Wim Cuyvers.

Dust in the eyes, mud on the face and bone-crushing cobbles that cause pain with every metre. That’s the 270 km from Paris to Roubaix. The documentary A Sunday in Hell by Danish director Jørgen Leth follows the infamous gruelling race of 1976, in which our undisputed golden generation of Flandriens (Merckx, De Vlaeminck and Maertens) displayed their fighting spirit and stamina.

It all begins even before the start, when mechanics meticulously prepare the bikes and riders shave their legs. The rival teams discuss their tactics whilst dressed in stylish seventies outfits. Motorcycle-mounted cameras, aerial shots and close-ups bring the chaos of the race impressively close to the viewer. All these elements mean that, 50 years on, A Sunday in Hell is perhaps still the finest cycling documentary – and tribute to the victor – ever made.

This screening will be introduced by media scholar Ben De Smet.

A charming lieutenant is kidnapped by a gang of mountain bandits whilst on his way to a remote fort. When the gang leader’s daughter falls for this young officer, his captivity turns into an absurd romantic adventure. What in anyone else’s hands would be a simple melodrama completely derails in Lubitsch’s hands into a madcap comedy full of militaristic nonsense, wild moustaches and amorous pranks.

With his exuberant scenery, expressionist sets and anarchic humour, Ernst Lubitsch turns the army into a playground where logic is, above all, a hindrance. Victory celebrations without a victory, soldiers who’d rather dance than fight, and military manoeuvres that resemble a slapstick ballet. Die Bergkatze (‘The Puma’) is a delightfully unrestrained early Lubitsch film, in which the director clearly had no intention of sticking to a single genre or a coherent plot.

With live musical accompaniment by Bart Maris and classical music students.

When an Iranian boy accidentally breaks the window in his classroom, his teacher gives him one day to replace it. This sets in motion a seemingly simple, yet deceptively complex quest in which he must raise the money himself, find a glazier and, ultimately, make his way back to school through a stormy landscape carrying a life-sized pane of glass.

Written by Abbas Kiarostami and directed by Mohammad-Ali Talebi, the film fits perfectly within the tradition of child-oriented Iranian cinema, in which simple stories provide a space for larger themes. Talebi transforms the vast, green landscape into a character in its own right, in which nature is both beautiful and unforgiving. With its slow pace, understated style and almost fairy-tale-like atmosphere, Willow and Wind turns a childish task into an exciting parable about responsibility, powerlessness and growing up. A small, poetic film that finds excitement in the simplest of things.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mohammad-Ali Talebi.

With the wind in your hair, this classic action film takes you on The Ultimate Ride. Police recruit Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is tasked with infiltrating a criminal gang of surfers. Led by the charismatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), these daredevils rob banks dressed as former presidents. The deeper Utah delves into his mission, the more he becomes immersed in the adrenaline-fuelled philosophy of his target.

With this film, Kathryn Bigelow takes on a genre (usually) favoured by men and cleverly turns the lens around to offer a nuanced deconstruction of the action film. The world of extreme sports in which the film is set may well provide spectacle, but the real fireworks take place between Utah and Bodhi as they chase, are carried away and yearn.

This screening will be introduced by film scholar Eduard Cuelenaere.

The illustrious Al Moon spends his days on Yurok territory in California. Like many Native Americans, he watches with sorrow as the land becomes uninhabitable. Ecological disasters are contaminating the fish stocks, whilst violence and alcoholism are taking their toll on his community. The changes to the landscape run parallel to Moon’s personal reckoning with the past. Haunted by his memories as a soldier in the Vietnam War, he embarks on a road trip to come to terms with himself.

Following their dreamlike desktop documentary Elsewhere, Everywhere (2020), Vivianne Perelmuter and Isabelle Ingold return with an intimate observational portrait in which geopolitical forces play out on a small scale. Hovering between anthropological rigour and poetic freedom, they find in Moon a canvas for the demons that plague the American soul.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Vivianne Perelmuter and Isabelle Ingold.

Desire Lines (of olifantenpaden) zijn de informele wegen die ontstaan wanneer mensen de bestaande richtingen negeren om hun eigen pad in te slaan. Gebaseerd op Sara Ahmeds Queer Phenomenology (2006) verkent dit speelse kortfilmprogramma hoe landschapsarchitectuur een manifestatie van machtsongelijkheden kan zijn en hoe het queeren van de publieke ruimte kan leiden tot vrijheid.

Morgenkreis (2025, Basma al-Sharif) en Parish (2025, Eóin Heaney) begeleiden ons in de rituelen van rouw bij een veranderende omgeving. Met Verdigris (2025, Chloe Brenan), Limits and Demonstrations (2025, Olivia Normile) leren we het infrastructurele geweld van o.a. de Parijse stadsplanning zien, terwijl Collectif Faire-Parts Speech for a Melting Statue (2023) intervenieert in de koloniale restanten binnen Brussel. Zo doende wordt de stad een politieke arena die zich naar de hand laat zetten van diens bewoners.

Na de vertoning volgt een Q&A met filmmakers Chloe Brenan, Olivia Normile en Collectief Faire-Part.

Ism kunstenorganisatie aemi.

13:00The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983, VSA, 97’)
15:00Pura Sangre (Luis Ospina, 1982, Colombia, 99’)
17:00 Dracula’s Daughter (Lambert Hillyer, 1936, VSA, 68’)
20:30 Ganja & Hess (Bill Gun, 1973, VSA, 110’)

Kinoautomats Kinokwartet trekt je elk jaar uit het felle zonlicht richting de troostende duisternis van de filmzaal. Ditmaal nodigen we je formeel uit voor een filmdag om je tanden in te zetten, met onze ode aan een onsterfelijk filmicoon. Tijdens Vampire Empire vieren we de vleermuisvormige nekbijter in al diens veelzijdigheid tijdens een vierluik vertoningen die doorheen de filmgeschiedenis fladdert.

We vliegen uit met het ijzig coole The Hunger (1983). Deze debuutfilm van Tony Scott voert David Bowie en Catherine Deneuve op als stijlvol geklede nachtbrakers die aurafarmen doorheen de eeuwen. Daarna smullen we van Louis Ospina’s politieke parabel Pura Sangre (1982). In een door armoede geteisterd Colombia zoekt de schatrijke Roberto Hurtado naar een onaflatende stroom bloedtransfusies. Zijn chauffeur Perfecto stalkt de straten op zoek naar beïnvloedbare jonge mannen.

Wanneer de avond valt, eren we The Queen of the Damned met Dracula’s Daughter (1936). Joke Dheer zuigt hier gretig seksuele allegorieën uit deze Universalhorrorhit met een queer reading die de prins der duisternis uit de kist haalt. Vooraf kijken we naar de kortfilm You Are a Lesbian Vampire (2008), die een staak door de patriarchale invloeden van het genre drijft. Als laatste hullen we ons in het maanlicht met Ganja & Hess (1973). A.d.h.v. blaxploitation conventies en bijtende reflecties over de postkoloniale conditie van Amerika, bracht dit tegendraadse horrordrama een verse bloedtransfusie in de vampierenfilm. Vervolgens trekken we samen de (eeuwige) nacht in.

A Poster Fantasy (2026, Melissa Mabesoone, 7’)
Western History (1971, Stan Brakhage, 8’, 16mm)
Goshogaoka (Sharon Lockhart, 1997, VSA & Japan, 63’)

Sharon Lockhart richt in Goshogaoka haar camera op het meisjesbasketbalteam van een Japanse sportschool. In zes ononderbroken takes van tien minuten volgen we een groepstraining, geritmeerd door piepende schoenen op het parket. De hypnotiserende focus op collectieve bewegingspatronen transformeert fysieke actie tot mentale gymnastiek. De rode gordijnen en het schoolpodium in de turnzaal roepen de filmzaal op. Kijken we naar een uitvoering of een opvoering?

Voorafgaand aan Goshogaoka tonen we A Poster Fantasy van Melissa Mabesoone, gevolgd door Western History van Stan Brakhage, waarin een basketbalwedstrijd botst met beelden uit de westerse kunstgeschiedenis.

Ism Art Cinema OFFoff

Snootchie boochies! Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back! Deze keer kan je hen vinden in een ultra-special, stoney-baloney, platonically homoerotic en oh zo meta en ironische vertoning op het grote scherm. In de voetsporen van auteurs als Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini en Ingmar Bergman pakt regisseur en acteur Kevin Smith uit met een meta-licious film over het filmmaken zelf.

Samen met zijn right hand man Jason Mewes kruipt Smith terug in de rol van het iconische duo Jay en Silent Bob uit Clerks (1994), ditmaal in een Bijbelse strijd om hun portretrecht uit de klauwen van Hollywood te graaien. Dus rol die joint, laat je filmtheorie even aan de deur staan en bereid je voor op een roadtrip richting Hollywood waar geen vierde muur, filmcliché of celebrity cameo veilig is. Snoogans!

Deze vertoning wordt ingeleid door filmmaker Zayd Hamzane.

Wanneer Dylan op een ranch in het Amerikaanse zuidwesten belandt, kruist zijn pad dat van de intrigerende Sky. Deze toevallige ontmoeting trekt hem langzaam mee in het leven op de boerderij en de bijzondere wereld die zich daar afspeelt. Dylan tuimelt van zijn simpele zomerjob steeds dieper in een wereld waarin cowboyhoeden, rodeo’s en queer liefde moeiteloos naast elkaar bestaan.

Met National Anthem maakte fotograaf en regisseur Luke Gilford een tedere ode aan de queer rodeogemeenschap, geïnspireerd op zijn gelijknamige fotoboek. De ranch wordt een plek waar buitenbeentjes hun eigen familie hebben gevormd en iedereen welkom is. Gilford vangt die wereld in warme kleuren, weidse landschappen en intieme close-ups, terwijl echte rodeorijders de film een documentaire-achtige energie geven.

Voorafgaand aan vertoning (18:30) houden we een workshop queer linedance in de foyer.

Bibberen en beven, op de Noordpool valt er van alles te beleven.

Cinema voor de allerkleinste bioscoopbezoeker! Ouders en kinderen vanaf 4 jaar zijn welkom op deze vertoning waarin we een gevarieerde en originele reeks filmpjes presenteren.

Garrett Bradley once said: “The tendency to forget is humanity’s Achilles’ heel. But trying to remember is the driving force and the seed of constant revolution.”

Some films cannot be summarised easily. They demand attention, time and a different way of looking at things. ‘Time’ is one such film. Without passing explicit judgement, ‘Time’ raises fundamental questions about how we view justice.

The past plays a central role in Bradley’s films, and the concept of time lies at their heart. Her use of the camera reflects an abstraction of reality. In ‘Time’, the wives of men in detention – and the detained men themselves – are constantly drawn back to that one moment in the past for which they have been condemned, whilst at the same time being swept towards the future.

What unfolds in ‘Time’ is not a classic tale of guilt and punishment, but an intimate and multi-layered exploration of what it means to live with the consequences of a single moment. The film moves between the past and the present, revealing how time itself plays a central role in the prison system. During this evening, Garrett Bradley’s film ‘Time’ serves as the starting point for a broader reflection on prisons and perceptions, not only in the United States, but also closer to home in Belgium and Europe. What does it mean to lock someone up in prison? And what are the alternatives?

Veronique Aicha will give an introduction to Garrett Bradley’s documentary ‘Time’, followed by a screening of ‘Time’.

• Veronique Aicha works at the intersection of art, justice and philosophy. In her work, she explores and develops new perspectives on criminal law. She has worked on criminal law projects across Europe, visited prisons and detention centres throughout the continent, and taught philosophy to people in detention for many years. She is also active as a writer, presenter and programme maker, and develops cultural and social programmes centred on justice, imagination and systemic change.

• Garrett Bradley uses narrative, documentary and experimental film forms to address themes such as race, class, family relationships, social justice, the culture of the American South and the film history of the United States. Bradley has won numerous awards, including the 2019 Prix de Rome and the 2017 Sundance Jury Prize for the short film ‘Alone’, which was released by The New York Times OpDocs and was nominated for an Oscar in the short non-fiction film category, having been shortlisted by the Academy.
  
  Bradley’s work has been featured in various venues, including her role as second unit director on Ava DuVernay’s ‘When They See Us’ and the 2019 Whitney Biennial. In December 2019, Bradley’s first solo exhibition opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), curated by Rebecca Matalon. In January 2020, Bradley became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival for her debut feature-length documentary, ‘Time’.

This talk and film screening will take place at KASKcinema. The auditorium is wheelchair accessible and a limited number of spaces are provided within the auditorium. The wheelchair-accessible toilet is located on the first floor and is accessible via a lift (90 cm wide, 1.35 m deep). There is another toilet available further down the corridor, past the KASKcafe, for those using a wider wheelchair. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities can contact the organisers: helena.verheye@hogent.be.