10.03.26, 20:30, Around ‘Images du Monde Visionnaire’

World-famous Portuguese footballer Diamantino is a genius on the pitch, but off it he lacks almost any form of intelligence. What he does have in abundance is empathy. After rescuing a boatload of refugees with his yacht, their tragedy affects him so deeply that he misses the winning shot in the World Cup final. What follows is a feverish odyssey through neo-fascism, the refugee crisis, genetic manipulation and an absurd search for the source of genius. As a solution to his devastating loss, Diamantino adopts a Mozambican teenage boy who turns out to be an adult lesbian woman, undercover for the government. Meanwhile, his evil twin sisters forge financial conspiracies, a deranged scientist tries to clone him, and giant puppies thunder through the story.

Directors Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt rightly speak of an anarchy of references ranging from Guy Maddin's lo-fi surrealism to Jeff Koons' sugar-sweet indecency. Bubbling with the madness of the modern world, the film suggests a way out that (surprise!) has something to do with choosing love over apathy or exploitation.

This screening will be preceded by the short film ça ne marche pas (2013) by Simon Lynen and introduced by film expert and cinema referee Dario Rens.

KASKcinema and Made in China film festival delve into film history with this long-lost visual poem by Hong Kong's first female filmmaker. Based on a 17th-century Chinese folk tale, The Arch follows the fortunes of the young widow Madam Tung and her daughter, Wei Ling. In honour of her virtue and sense of honour, Tung is rewarded with the construction of a gate in her family's name. However, while awaiting this gift, the stability of her respectable life begins to crumble when, contrary to social conventions, she falls in love with a handsome soldier. Although the storm of her desire proves uncontrollable, Tung decides to keep her love secret for fear of the community's judgement.

Filmmaker Tang Shu Shuen is known as a bridge builder between Hong Kong cinema and the European arthouse tradition. With her focus on female subjectivity and desire, she also broke with the taboos of her time. The Arch is undeniably her masterpiece. Through sensitive editing, playful sound design and nature-allegorical touches, Shuen poetically expresses the inner life of her main character. The experimental cinematography of Satyajit Ray cameraman Subrata Mitra seals the whole in sober beauty.

This screening will be introduced by writer Ans Van Gasse.

Lebanese journalist and filmmaker Jocelyne Saab is known for her politically engaged films, which she made during a career spanning from the 1970s until her death in 2019. With more than forty titles to her name, Saab brought the untold stories of the Arab world to the screen and gave a voice to marginalised and oppressed communities. During this evening, we revisit her combative yet nuanced oeuvre with two of her most powerful achievements.

In the short film Palestinian Women (1974), Palestinian women resist the Israeli occupation of their land through education and armed resistance. With Letter From Beirut (1978), Saab returns to Lebanon, where she directs herself in a poetic narrative that questions the creeping continuation of the conflict. She then leaves for South Lebanon, which is occupied by Israel. There, for the first time since the start of the civil war, she documents the Palestinian resistance at the border.

This evening takes place in the context of the book Jocelyne Saab: Inventory 1973–1983 (2024), about the rise of left-wing political movements, armed revolutions and public struggle in the Arab world. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with authors Mohanad Yaqubi, Mathilde Rouxel and Elettra Bisogno.

Traversées (Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud, 1983, Belgium-France-Tunisia, 91’).

At 18:00 there will be a screening for students, followed by a second screening for the general public at 20:30, without a lecture. Tickets for the first screening can be found here, while tickets for the 20:30 screening will be available online in January.

All hands on deck, KASKcinema and Studium Generale are shipmates for this special screening of Traversées. On New Year's Eve 1980, Tunisian Youssef takes a ferry trip from Ostend to Dover. However, as he enters the new year in the middle of the English Channel, his visa expires. At the mercy of the administrative inflexibility of nation states, he finds himself in an impossible situation. Without a valid passport, he is refused entry by both British and Belgian border guards and is doomed to remain adrift between the two nations.

This long-lost gem of a film by Tunisian filmmaker Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud is one of the more eccentric treasures of Belgian film history. With Kafkaesque wit and psychological sensitivity, Mahmoud questions the absurdities of national borders. The result is a poetic parable that, 30 years later, also turns out to be a prophetic nightmare. While Youssef plots his escape, the threat of right-wing nationalists looms over the interior and the walls of Fortress Europe are further fortified. Borders seem to slowly multiply to almost metaphysical proportions.

Prior to this screening, film scholar Lennart Soberon will give an introduction on the representation of border landscapes. Although we easily recognise classic border iconography such as checkpoints and fences, modern borderscapes are characterised by their opaque nature. In order to identify state violence, we must also be aware of the administrative, digital and emotional barriers through which power reproduces itself.

• Lennart Soberon is a researcher in film studies (VUB) and artistic coordinator at KASKcinema. As part of the Reel Borders project, he works on the cinematic representation of national borders.
  

This lecture and film screening will take place at KASKcinema. There is ongoing work in the street near KASKcinema, but it is possible to drive up to the entrance at Godshuizenlaan 4. The venue is accessible to wheelchair users and a limited number of spaces are available in the auditorium. The toilet for wheelchair users is located on the first floor and is accessible by lift (90 cm wide, 1 m 35 deep). There is another toilet available further down the corridor past the KASKcafe for those who use a wider wheelchair. A written version of the introduction will be provided. The introduction is in Dutch. The film itself is in several languages and subtitled in English. If you have any further questions about accessibility facilities, please contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be.

On New Year's Eve 1980, Youssef from Tunisia takes a ferry from Ostend to Dover. However, as he enters the new year in the middle of the English Channel, his visa expires. At the mercy of the administrative inflexibility of nation states, he finds himself in an impossible situation. Without a valid passport, he is refused entry by both British and Belgian border guards and is doomed to remain adrift between the two nations.

This long-lost gem of a film by Tunisian filmmaker Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud is one of the more eccentric treasures of Belgian film history. With Kafkaesque wit and psychological sensitivity, Mahmoud questions the absurdities of national borders. The result is a poetic parable that, 30 years later, also turns out to be a prophetic nightmare. While Youssef plots his escape, the threat of right-wing nationalists looms over the interior and the walls of Fortress Europe are further fortified. Borders seem to slowly multiply to almost metaphysical proportions.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud.

A newlywed couple, a deckhand, a seasoned sailor and his cats in heat. Together they cram into the stuffy cabins of a riverboat that glides lazily through the French waterways. As tensions rise and eroticism gently simmers, the outside world beckons seductively from the shore.

But the ship of fools stubbornly sails on through fog and drizzle, past deserted warehouses and banks that whisper rather than speak.

L'Atalante feels like a daydream that you can't quite place and ‘smells like dirty feet,’ according to François Truffaut. In Jean Vigo's only feature film, social criticism, sensual lyricism and playful surrealism flow effortlessly into one another. Vigo, son of a notorious anarchist, left behind a film that defies categorisation and was lovingly picked up by the Nouvelle Vague after his early death. Even today, L'Atalante's influence continues to resonate with superfan Leos Carax, among others. Immerse yourself in this damp cabin allegory and discover why Vigo is called “the embodiment of cinema”.

This screening is linked to the launch of the book Barge Life (2024), a philosophical exposition of L'Atalante, and will be introduced by author Florian Deroo.

Floating freely through the clouds, a bird has much to realize.

Cinema for the youngest cinema-goers! Parents and children aged 4 and above are welcome to this screening, where we present a varied and original series of short films.

Everyone's favourite animation festival (Anima!) is back again, this time with a programme bursting with new talent. This selection of short films provides a platform for the next generation of European filmmakers whose imagination knows no bounds. In this programme, they effortlessly combine stories about snowed-in houses, unbreakable eggs, shoes that move to music on their own, and cups of tea that get lost in a magical universe. Using various innovative techniques within the medium of animation, they explore unknown worlds that will inspire dreams for a long time to come. Discover the films of these young pioneers, whom you will undoubtedly hear more about in the future.

The Weird Wednesday family continues to expand. This time, we welcome the strange friends from Cinema Obscura: a cult film collective that sees high art in bad taste. With a range of screenings that honour the craftsmanship of low-budget filmmaking, they help us search for gold nuggets in the rubbish heap. The manic Miami Connection is our first collaboration and serves as living proof of the B-movie quip “so bad it's good”.

In the neon-drenched Miami of the 1980s, we follow the band Dragon Sound. These five musicians and taekwondo fighters firmly believe that friendship conquers all, even rival bands, drug dealers and ninjas on motorbikes. When a cocaine deal goes wrong, everything derails into a battle full of clumsily choreographed fight moves, awkward silences and intimate synth-rock anthems about brotherhood. Miami Connection may be a terrible film, but the sincerity behind its making is disarming. Nothing about the film is meant to be ironic, as director and lead actor Y.K. Kim clearly thought he had an unrivalled action epic on his hands.

Unfortunately, those dreams were shattered and the film (understandably) slipped by unnoticed upon its release. Now the world is finally ready for this fiery ode to action cinema and friendship.

Delve into the mind of Federico Fellini. With seven feature films to his name, including La Strada (1954) and La Dolce Vita (1960), and a handful of short films, the Italian filmmaker embarked on what would aptly be called 8½. Otto e mezzo follows the seemingly chaotic stream of consciousness of film director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), whose creative reservoir has run dry. His wife and mistress each pull at one of his arms, while an impatient producer, cunning critics and desperate actresses cheerfully nibble away at his already scarce time. But remember: when reality becomes too stifling, even a crack in a car window can suddenly feel like salvation.

Anselmi (read: Fellini himself) decides to simply make his lack of inspiration his subject matter and thus conjures up an irresistible “film about film” out of thin air. In this wild, typically Fellinian introspection, dream and reality are constantly intertwined, a gamble that was rewarded with two Oscars in 1964 and is considered one of the maestro's best works. Bravo, Federico!