17.06.24, 18:00, Un pays plus beau qu’avant (2019)

On 18 June, Hannes Verhoustraete, artistic researcher at KASK & Conservatorium, will defend his doctorate to obtain the title Doctor of Arts. The day before, the two films that are part of the PhD project will be screened at KASKcinema — at 18:00 Un pays plus beau qu'avant (2019, 67') and at 20:00 Broken View (2023, 75'). Both screenings are free and don't require a reservation.

Un pays plus beau qu’avant (2019) is a documentary film about a Congolese businessman in Brussels. The wanderings of Jean-Simon reveal a microcosm of informal commerce within the Congolese community. The everyday economic urgency of this ‘humble salesman’ is tied to the political and humanitarian urgency that animates the diaspora faced with the situation in Congo today and colonial history. The film orbits around these two imperatives, in a negotiation between here and elsewhere, the past and the present.