KASKcinema

Hairy hooves and shiny fins, the show begins.

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

When young actress Julie rescues an injured stray dog from certain death, it seems like the beginning of a classic Hollywood story. However, she does not know that the animal is a white dog, trained by a racist to attack only black people. The white shepherd, gentle and affectionate at home, returns after a night-time escape with blood on his fur. What follows is not an animal drama, but a moral nightmare in Technicolour.

Throughout his impressive career, Samuel Fuller was not shy about tackling difficult themes and cultural sensitivities. With White Dog, this enfant terrible of New Hollywood cinema barks at the very foundations of America itself. His film is both pulp and parable, in short: a melodrama that growls. Julie's quest for redemption for her dog (and who knows, perhaps for her country) culminates in a battle between instinct and ideology, fuelled by fear and ignorance. Years after its release, White Dog still bites just as deep. A frenzied, poignantly topical fable about how racism is taught, passed on and, perhaps, unlearned.

This screening will be introduced by avid film lover Tim Maerschand. 

Animal news from Denmark caused a worldwide #uproar in 2014: Copenhagen Zoo had decided to kill their two-year-old giraffe Marius because he was surplus to their breeding programme. His death forms the starting point for Life and Other Problems, the latest film by Danish filmmaker Max Kestner. From this event unfolds a philosophical and playful quest for the big questions of life: Does consciousness really exist? And do trees know of my existence, as I know of theirs?

With his characteristically idiosyncratic style, Kestner travels around the world, from laboratories to primeval forests, seeking answers from veterinarians, physicists, zoo operators and philanthropic billionaires. Along the way, we discover how everything is connected, from cells to humans, from Earth to the universe. What could have been a sombre essay becomes, in Kestner's hands, a light-hearted, curious adventure full of humour and wonder, somewhere between John Berger and John Wilson.

This screening will be preceded by the short film Talking to Elephants (2025) by Juul Schöpping.

Cowabunga! We conclude our theme month with cinema's most beloved monsters. Flushed down the toilet as pets and drenched in radioactive sludge, baby turtles Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael come under the guardianship of Sensei Splinter – a life-size rat who has retrained himself in the sewers to become a master of Eastern martial arts. The four may bear the names of Renaissance artists, but their attitude is that of runaway youths. Skating, pizza-slurping and beatboxing, this septic superhero team scours New York to fight crime. When the mysterious Foot Clan appears on the scene, the Turtles are forced to crawl out of their shells and save the city from the sinister Shredder.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) was the definitive 80s animated series, a colourful cocktail of everything that was considered cool at the time. After much nagging from everyone's mothers, it finally became a feature film. Although many studio executives believed the film was doomed to fail, TMNT became the biggest blockbuster of the early 90s. Animatronics legend Jim Henson designed the robotically controlled turtle suits. Reboot after reboot shows how these reptilian heroes ooze their way into the present, but nothing beats the original. Turtle Power, indeed.

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.

In north-eastern India, on the border with Bhutan, scientist Mansi and her assistant Bicki, members of the local Bugung community, hang a white sheet between the trees every night. Under the bright light, hundreds of moths slowly gather, settling on the diamond pattern of the fabric. They observe, photograph and measure. Nocturnes takes us deep into the lush Himalayan forest, where the beating of butterfly wings sounds like breathing, rain echoes like a soft hum, and research becomes a form of meditation.

Directors Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan avoid explanation or commentary. Their camera watches from a distance, as if it too were conducting field research into the relationship between humans, nature and the desire to understand. Nocturnes opts for a meditative, almost obsessive focus on the research process, seen through the eyes of experienced lepidopterists. This results in an enchanting experience that ensures that the film's message is not understood first, but felt deep inside. A sensory and contemplative nature experience, in which science becomes poetry and every flutter raises questions about global ecology.

This screening will be preceded by the short film Oh, Look! (2024) by Leon Decock.

After tackling costume design and location scouting, among other things, we are eagerly continuing our series on the unsung and unloved branches of the film profession. Under the heading Screencrafts, we give lesser-known craftsmen behind the biggest productions in Belgium their fair share of fame. This time, we give free rein to our interest with a series of animal handlers who explain the secrets of their professions. Maité Thijssen (Castingtails), Wendy Van de Gulderij (Kennel Van de Gulderij) and Dietrich Verzele (Zafara) transform everyday dogs, cats, cows, horses, spiders and other multi-legged talents into true film stars. Here, they bring their professional and personal experiences in the field to a multifaceted overview of one of cinema's forgotten professions.

A lively panel discussion will be followed by a screening of The Rider. Before she was showered with Oscars for Nomadland (2020), Chloé Zhao made this sensitive cowboy film about a rodeo rider who no longer dares to get in the saddle. Zhao based the story on the life of horse trainer Brady Jandreau, who plays the lead role here. With stunningly beautiful cinematography and flesh-and-blood characters, The Rider offers a tender reflection on masculinity, the American psyche and the ambiguities in human-animal relationships. It is also a nice trip to the beginning of Zhao's oeuvre before her latest film, Hamnet (2025), is released in Belgian cinemas.

Although Italian cinema has no shortage of icons, Vittorio de Seta is something of an odd man out. Trained in his anthropological programme, de Seta devoted his life to capturing disappearing folk customs on film. For years, he wandered around the remote corners of Sicily, Sardinia and Calabria to document how farmers, shepherds and fishermen, among others, were changing their lives in the light of post-war modernisation. These observations would lead him to the monumental Banditi a Orgosolo (1961), which launched his career as a filmmaker and screenwriter.

In the 1950s, however, he also made a series of documentary films that distilled his research into stunning visual material. Musician Roos Denayer (Rosa Butsi) brings some of Seta's early films to life with her characteristically sensitive blend of pop, jazz and folk. As lyrical as they are didactic, these short documentaries are poetic odes to the relationship between humans and their environment and the animal world. In The Age of The Swordfish (1955) and Orgosolo's Shepherds (1958), the work rhythm of shepherds and fishermen is examined, while The Golden Parable (1955), A Day in Barbagia (1958) and The Forgotten (1959) exhibit the human body in a spiral of work, rest and pleasure.

With live accompaniment by musician Rosa Butsi featuring Marie Cocriamont.

Cuckoo! KASKcinema spreads its wings during this winter journey through polyphonic short films. Fluttering past different styles and genres, these filmmakers fill our cinema nest with colourful feathers and bright colours. In this way, we pay tribute to animal elusiveness and show that diversity means that every bird sings as it is beaked.

We take flight with Icarus, Come (2024), in which KASK & Conservatorium alumnus Ziya Lemin takes care of a lost bird. In the feather-light Ray’s Birds (2010), Deborah Stratman visits British bird collector Ray Lowden. The Great Silence (2014) adapts a short story by sci-fi master Ted Chiang about communication between humans and parrots. La Perra (2023) uses the crane bird as a metaphor for queer coming of age. Because clay pigeons are overrated, we then give the stage to plasticine penguin Pingu in Pingu’s Parents Have No Time (1993). With Those that Desire (2018), Elena López Riera delves into the macho world of pigeon racing. We conclude with Stan Brakhage's air caresses Birds of Paradise (1999) before taking Anouk de Clercq's Birdsong (2023) as a swan song.

This evening will be led by artist and Denderdier-expert Claire Stragier.

The sun rises slowly over Hamelin while underground a cogwheel begins to turn. What appears to be a lively town quickly turns into a mirror of human greed. The wealthy citizens lock themselves away in their own greed, until the town succumbs to its stench of abundance and attracts a relentless swarm of rats. Then a stranger appears with a flute, hired to drive away the plague, but his melody attracts more than just rodents. When Hamelin breaks its promise, the music turns against its inhabitants.

The Pied Piper is Jirí Barta's visionary retelling of the German legend, inspired by Viktor Dyk's sombre 1911 novella Krysarˇ. In this expressionist animated fairy tale, wood, metal and skin merge into a dark tableau. The rats, filmed in flashes of live action, seem more alive than the humans themselves. In their incomprehensible Germanic dialect, the inhabitants sound like puppets of flesh and guilt. The Pied Piper is a cautionary woodcut about greed, betrayal and the price of human desire.

This film is preceded by the short film Historia Naturae, Suita (1967) by Jan Švankmajer.

All men are trash, date a chimpanzee! In Paris, Margaret and Peter live the kind of neat, glossy life that can only be derailed by something completely outlandish. And that's exactly what happens: Margaret turns out to be in a relationship with a chimpanzee, Max. The couple are said to be madly in love, and Margaret manages to convince Peter to allow her to bring the sensitive but dangerous animal home.

It is almost impossible to tell when director Nagisa Ôshima is being serious, when he is being ironic, when he is trying to make a metaphorical point about evolution, or when he is commenting on the state of contemporary aristocratic European society. In Max, Mon Amour, he serves up madness with a deadly seriousness that allows the absurd to slip into the everyday, and that is precisely where it becomes irresistibly funny.

The sober, unforced manner in which the often excessive events are presented is reminiscent of Luis Buñuel, a friend of the crew. Charlotte Rampling also succeeds in evoking Margaret's burning love for Max with a deadly serious expression. The result is a tightly served chamber piece, in which the impossible is received with porcelain politeness.

This screening will be introduced by filmmaker Nina de Vroome.

When Shula, back in Zambia after a long absence, finds her uncle's lifeless body, she unwittingly sets in motion a machinery of mourning and secrecy. What follows is a feverish drama, in which every action becomes charged with everything that must remain unsaid. While the body is being washed, an unspoken truth swells beneath it all, one that can no longer be kept quiet. Whispers entrench themselves in back rooms while rumours sweep through the walls like a draught.

Director Rungano Nyoni serves up her satire with a dryness that almost echoes rhythmically in a maze of shame, tradition and denial. The titular guinea fowl is a bird that sounds a loud alarm when danger approaches. While the family hides behind convention, the guinea fowl reacts instinctively and without shame.

The result is a sharp, melancholic and unexpectedly humorous portrait of a community that prefers to look away, until the bird breaks its silence.

Lick your fur and get ready for some cuddles, Kinoautomat treats you to a documentary that will make you purr.

Kedi is a furry urban symphony that sings the praises of Istanbul and its many street cats. Sunbathing on the Bosphorus or begging for scraps at local tea houses, these noble creatures live in symbiosis with the fabric of the big city. Is it the people who take care of cats, or perhaps the other way around? Director Ceyda Torun follows both two- and four-legged creatures in their routines and interactions with each other in a refined observational style. Her attention to animal details ensures that the whole transcends a YouTube cat montage and captures certain nuances surrounding the human relationship with (domestic) animals.

Our guest speaker lets the cat out of the bag with an explanation about pets and their human owners. Drawing on her own experience as a filmmaker and her personal relationship with her cat Henry, she attempts to describe the complex relationship between “owner” and animal. Where does human control end and animal autonomy begin in the symbiosis of living together?

This screening will be introduced by filmmaker Marthe Peters.

We kick off our theme month with a cinephile stampede of epic proportions. Red River is one of Old Hollywood auteur Howard Hawks' undisputed masterpieces. John Wayne and Montgomery Clift shine here as a father-son duo of cattle ranchers trying to drive their herd from Texas to Missouri. Travelling through desolate fields and strangely shaped mountain ranges, the men are dependent on each other. Danger lurks at every turn, while the wounds of the American Civil War are visible in the landscape. Hawks based the story on the true expeditions of the Chisholm Trail, but historical specificity takes a back seat here in exchange for a complex character study that dissects the male mythos behind the “Wild West”.

Although Hawks grazed on different genres and registers throughout his rich career, his work is defined by thematic consistency. Here, too, value systems about professionalism and (gender) identity clash in devilishly fast dialogues. The growing alienation between the two men is further underlined by the film's mise-en-scène, which brings hundreds of animals onto the scene in spectacular cow choreographies. The ballet of the beasts in the vast nothingness of the Great American Plains renders our heroes insignificant despite their grand ambitions. Like ants on the face of history.

This screening will be introduced by KASKcinema programmer Lennart Soberon.

Inspired by the Persian tradition of Yaldā, KASKcinema celebrates the shortening of the nights and the lengthening of the days for the fifth year in a row with Kuleshov, Urgent.fm's film programme. For the first time, we are honouring the transition from darkness to light with an animated film: the award-winning but unreleased Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming. However, we are doing so in the traditional manner, with tea, pastries and Persian poetry.

Call it poetic coincidence, because just like the film Universal Language (2024) on the previous Yaldā Night, Window Horses creates an unlikely enriching connection between Iran and... Canada? The main character, Rosie Ming, is an orphan of Chinese-Persian descent who lives with her grandparents in Vancouver. Unexpectedly, as a young poet, she is invited to an international poetry festival in Shiraz, Iran, the poetry capital of the land of poets. During her journey, Rosie learns about the fate of her parents, finding her own (poetic) voice through the beauty of grief, and how to understand each other without speaking the same language. A wonderful culture shock that sparkles with love for family, history, music, and poetry. Independent animator and visual artist Ann Marie Fleming is herself of mixed heritage and sees Window Horses as a modest attempt to add a little more understanding to an increasingly complex, conflicted world.

The screening will be followed by a performance by Ehsan Yadollahi.

Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it copyright infringement? All that and so much more. Supermen Dönüyor (The Return of Superman) is the Turkish 70s remake of DC Comics' most iconic crime fighter. With laser-beam eyes set on commercial success, this bootleg B-movie attempted to recreate the success of Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve's Superman adaptation (1978), minus the budget, sets and star power. This formula was not uncommon for the time. With films such as 3 Dev Adam (1973) and Şeytan (1974), American film classics such as The Exorcist (1973), Star Wars (1977) and The Karate Kid (1984) were rapidly remade for the copyright limbo of the Turkish market.

However, to call Supermen Dönüyor a futile pursuit of Hollywood is to pull on the wrong cape. Decades before Sweding was a concept, this era of Turksploitation was already exploring the joys of crude reinterpretations of the cultural canon. In light of the pompous special effects of the reboot-obsessed superhero landscape, this aluminium-clad Man of Steel has only gained strength. A piece of kryptonite for everyone who lets budget constraints hold them back from dreaming.

Patrick Bateman seems to have the perfect life: a prestigious Wall Street job, tailor-made Valentino suits, a stunningly beautiful fiancée and more money than anyone could ever need. But behind this glossy façade lies a darkness that even his intense twelve-step skincare routine cannot hide. The real Bateman is a serial killer whose fuse could blow at any moment.

Mary Harron's American Psycho, based on the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis, needs no introduction. The film launched Christian Bale as a Hollywood star and, some 25 years later, remains eerily relevant. What began as a scathing satire on the materialistic Wall Street culture of the 1980s reads today as an equally sharp commentary on the toxicity of internet hustle culture. So warm up those hips with some Huey Lewis & The News and come and compare business cards at this disturbing but irresistibly entertaining finale to Film-Plateau's autumn programme.

This screening will be introduced by film researcher Atalya De Cock.

As a refuge from the inhospitable winter days, we are opening our doors for a magical matinee screening of Les Enfants du Paradis. This monumental film by Marcel Carné tells the story of a group of lost souls in 19th-century Paris with a smile and a tear. In the theatres of Boulevard du Crime, actors Baptiste Deburau and Frédérick Lemaître live for their art. One embodies the Pantomime tradition, while the other excels in melodrama. Their rivalry on stage becomes heated when both gentlemen fall for the charms of the enigmatic Garance (played by the timeless Arletty). However, the thief and poet Pierre and the sinister aristocrat Édouard also compete for Garance's heart and thus become entangled in a love story doomed to tragedy.

Drawing on the lives of several historical figures, Les Enfants du Paradis captures a period in which values surrounding art, love and power were radically redefined. With poetic verve, Carné makes his characters playthings of their desires and the changing times. Life as a cosmic theatre play that mercilessly unfolds itself on the margins of history.

Despite the enchanting sex scenes in films, the moment when schoolgirl Mary Jane loses her virginity is uncomfortable and anything but glamorous. Halfway through the lovemaking, she cuts it short and leaves for a party at the local cinema where she works. There, Mary Jane discusses her failed date with her colleagues: bisexual punk musician Ericka, alcoholic Matt, and her understanding, gay boss Dave.

Sarah Jacobson, self-crowned Queen of Underground Film, exudes DIY in her first (and only!) feature film. Inspired by her own evenings behind the cash register in a cinema as a student, Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore is a punk coming-of-age film that strips the genre of all glamour. No perfect teenage romances, but conversations with friends that balance lust, love, failure and grief. The femme-punk soundtrack blasts through the scenes, the friendships feel real, as does the sex. An ode to the awkward yet liberating process of discovering who you are and what you want.

This film is preceded by Sarah Jacobson's short film I Was a Teenage Serial Killer (1993).

Priit Pärn is an icon in Baltic animated cinema. In the 1980s, he put Estonia on the map with a series of formally wild and thematically rich short films such as Kolmnurk (1982) and Eine Murul (1987). Later, his wife Olga Pärn joined him in filmmaking with Life without Gabriella Ferri (2008). The whimsical graphic style of this absurdist duo is highly recognisable, but at the same time they continue to innovate and are now also experimenting with motion capture. With their latest creation, the pair of crazy cartoonists (they/them) prove that, despite their advanced age, they can keep their finger on the pulse of a rapidly evolving society. To celebrate the duo, we are bringing together a series of old and new work.

Luna Rossa (2024) is yet another demonstration of the Pärns' inimitable talent as storytellers, animators, humorists and commentators. In a world ruled by cameras, a man and a woman reduce the surveillance society to a game. As a prelude to their latest creation, we explore their oeuvre with ...And Plays Tricks (1979), a short menagerie from the Soviet period, and 1895 (1995), his hilarious homage to the centenary of the medium of film.

The film will be followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Priit & Olga Pärn.

Pedro Almodóvar. Seven years after his film debut with Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980), his atypical and controversial film style enjoyed its first international success with the premiere of La Ley del Deseo/Law of Desire. In this film, released by his own production company El Deseo, Almodóvar succeeded in winning over previously sceptical critics and audiences with his explicit themes of obsessive love, confusing adultery, violent machismo and unadulterated queerness.

La Ley del Deseo tells the turbulent story of Pablo Quintero (Eusebio Poncela), a successful filmmaker whose love life spirals out of control when he enters into a complex love triangle with the younger Juan (Miguel Molina) and the jealous Antonio (Antonio Banderas). Although themes such as masculinity and homosexuality put Almodóvar's oeuvre on the map, in the character of Tina (Carmen Maura), Pablo's sister, we find the familiar and beloved image of “La Chica Almodóvar”: colourful, passionate and full of secrets. For those who long for Almodóvar at the end of “la Movida madrileña”, the period of artistic freedom after the fall of Franco: a time long gone, before he had discovered the English language.

This film will be introduced by communication scientist Salma Mediavilla Aboulaoula.

At the end of the Franco regime, a series of collectives emerged in Spain that questioned the traditional filmmaking process. In search of a way to make films independently, these politically engaged collectives used cinema as a means for social change. This tradition of solidarity and collective creation lives on today in new generations of filmmakers. The short film programme Filming the gaps takes you on a journey through a selection of radical and idiosyncratic works on sexual diversity throughout the decades. Film as a means of making a silenced struggle visible and recognising other models, roles and bodies.

The evening starts with three works by the artist duo Cabello/Carceller (Helena Cabello and Ana Carceller). Since the 1990s, the duo has found a way to subtly but sharply undermine existing ideas. Their films are characterised by simplicity of form, a direct approach and the clever use of humour and irony. As part of the programme, we will show Buns (1996, 4'), A Kiss (1996, 4') and Instructions for Use (2004, 6'), some of their first video works. These are complemented by two recent works by new Spanish collectives: the duo Quiela Nuc and Andrea Beade from the collective nucbeade with A Wild Dedication (2019, 10'), and the trio Isa Luengo, Sofía Esteve and Marina Freixe Roca with The Gaps (2024, 19'). Using archive material, collage and personal testimonies, both groups explore the institutional repression experienced by previous generations.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Sofía Esteve and Isa Luengo.

Laad je pistolen en vul je pen, Kinoautomat belegert je met de strijdlustige cinema van Glauber Rocha.

Het is tijd voor presidentsverkiezingen in het fictieve Latijns-Amerikaanse land van Eldorado. Journalist Paulo Martins staat aanvankelijk aan de kant van de rechtsreactionaire partij, maar besluit van kleur te wisselen door zijn geloof in de liberale waarden van de tegenstander. Paulo’s bestijging van de partijladder gaat echter gepaard met desillusie wanneer hij wordt ingelijfd in de mechanismen van de macht. Terra em Transe is een voortzetting van Glauber Rocha’s project om door middel van mythische symbolen en een barokke beeldtaal het Braziliaanse politieke landschap te dissecteren. Door de nationale gebeurtenissen van begin jaren 60 te verpakken in een web van allegorieën, vormt Terra een filmische mokerslag die de democratische desintegratie van Brazilië brutaal in de ogen kijkt.

Onze gastspreker van dienst kadert de film zowel binnen het historische klimaat als de persoonlijke politiek van de regisseur. Als een van de grondleggers van de Cinema Novo-beweging zag Rocha cinema als een revolutionair medium om sociale en politieke bewustwording op te wekken. Hiervoor moest de beeldtaal herdacht worden als een “esthetiek van de honger” die de belangen van de werkende klasse kon articuleren.

Deze vertoning wordt voorafgegaan door Rocha’s kortfilm Maranhão 66 (1966) en ingeleid door filmminnend activist Koen Vanderschelden.

You, the Living by Swedish director Roy Andersson is an absurdist film in the form of a mosaic with separate pastel-coloured vignettes. In these dryly comical tableaux, we are introduced to the ordinary residents of the sleepy town of Lethe. They break through the fourth wall and show us their fears and desires: a woman dreams of a honeymoon with a rock guitarist, a man wakes up from a nightmare about bombers, and a pompous businessman is robbed by a pickpocket without noticing.

This film is the second part of Andersson's ‘Living’ trilogy, together with Songs from the Second Floor (2000) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014). Almost all scenes were filmed in Andersson's own studio in Stockholm, where he meticulously built sets to realise his unique, painterly style. The result is a poetic and melancholic portrait of human existence. A dose of Swedish humour and heaviness go hand in hand to the sounds of a tuba and military marching music.

This screening will be introduced by teacher Scandinavian Studies Joksie Biesemans.

Shining high in the sky, shooting stars pass us by.

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.

The border between Spain and Morocco is a heavily militarised no-man's-land. Patrols, watchtowers and an 8 km long fence at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta attempt to stop migration with an iron fist. Here, at the tip of the African continent, a group of displaced men venture to cross over to Europe. The cat-and-mouse game they play with the border police pushes them deep into the mountains and forests. With a small handheld camera, director David Bingong captures it all: the precariousness and despair, but also the mutual solidarity and resistance. Between cooking, singing and surviving, the weary travellers exchange their dreams of Europe.

Although the machinations of Fortress Europe have already been documented and depicted in many forms, cinema also has its own limitations. In media representations, displaced persons are always the object of observation, but are rarely given the opportunity to make their own voices heard. Les Voyageurs, however, offers a view from below. Bingong himself documented his flight from Cameroon to Europe and, once in Spain, edited hundreds of hours of footage into a perceptive travelogue that eschews gloomy clichés and exhausted images.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director David Bingong.

Wigs out, time to get head! A botched operation, a broken heart and a rock band with more attitude than audience. This glam rock odyssey begins in a squat in East Berlin and ends on an improvised stage in an American seafood chain.

Our title character Hedwig (half diva, half punk singer) tells her life story in sharp monologues and mercilessly catchy songs, somewhere between Bowie, Brecht and Botox. What follows is a tour full of glitter, inner turmoil and bittersweet melancholy. Her ex, a successful rock star, plays her songs to sold-out venues; Hedwig sings them in fast food bars, but steals just as many hearts. Beneath her peroxide wig and theatrical bravado lies a character who is both mythical and poignantly human.

Based on the cult musical by John Cameron Mitchell (who also directs and stars in the lead role), Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a queer classic about gender, loss and the desire to be seen on one's own terms. With animations, wigs, pouting lips and poetry, Hedwig delivers a tragicomic sledgehammer blow in 4/4 time.

This screening will be introduced by musical fanatic Billie Thiessen. During several musical numbers, the film will be brought to life in flamboyant fashion with live drag performances by Haas, Monsieur Moyenne and Young Leo.

During this short film programme, we explore how art and anthropology can intersect. Can film be a means of questioning the complexity of people and communities? Who speaks and how is the image created? Can film and documentary do justice to the stories of communities to which the filmmakers themselves do not belong?

This film programme invites us to reflect on these questions through three documentaries: Tisztás (2024) by Zalán Szakács, Ours is a Country of Words (2017) by Mathijs Poppe and Cherry Blossoms (2012) by An van Dienderen. In these three films, the directors are not merely creators, but become part of the story, thereby questioning their own role. They give space to the voices of the communities involved and experiment with fiction, co-creation and artistic experiments in order to transcend their own perspective.

This screening is linked to the launch of Professor Kris Rutten's new book: Cultural Critique Through the Detour of Art. After the programme, author Kris Rutten and the filmmakers will engage in a discussion.

Er was eens… een filmdag die jouw mooiste dromen laat uitkomen. Naar aloude gewoonte trekt Kinoautomat haar stoute schoentjes (lees: glazen muiltjes) aan voor een vierluik van toverachtige proporties. Ditmaal laten we onze lange haren uit KASKcinema hangen voor een resem sprookjesfilms uit verschillende tijdperken en culturele contexten.

13:00 The Little Mermaid
(Karel Kachyna 1976, Tsjecho-Slowakije, 84’, Tsjechisch gesproken, Engels ondertiteld)
We starten diep in de zee met deze Tsjecho-Slowaakse adaptatie van De Kleine Zeemeermin. Geen Rastafari krab of catchy musicalnummers in Karel Kachyna’s versie, maar wel een caleidoscopische weelde aan prachtige decors, kostuums en kapsels. Zwevend tussen psychedelische koortsdroom en Glam Rock muziekclip word je ondergedompeld in onvergetelijke visuals.

15:00 Un Rêve Plus Long Que la Nuit
(Niki de Saint Phalle 1976, Frankrijk, 82’, Frans gesproken, Engels ondertiteld)
Niki de Saint Phalle’s status als artistieke duizendpoot met onbegrensbare verbeelding wordt nogmaals bevestigd in haar tweede langspeelfilm. Un Rêve Plus Long is deels erotische schelmenroman, deels feministisch coming-of-age verhaal en 100% prettig gestoord. De zoektocht van de jonge Camélia naar pure liefde leidt haar langs queestes die de fundamenten van het sprookje op hun kop zetten.

17:00 Legend
(Ridley Scott, 1985, VSA, 94’, 35mm, Engels gesproken, niet ondertiteld)
Dat Tom Cruise het geheim van de eeuwige jeugd bezit, wisten we al, maar dat hij in zijn jonge jaren in deze draak van een film speelde, is veelal vergeten. Ridley Scott koos ervoor om Blade Runner (1982) op te volgen met deze heldensaga waar Cruise het in een kont vol maliënkolder opneemt tegen de eenhoorn-moordende Heer de Duisternis. Hoewel bij diens release verguisd, is Legend ondertussen geridderd tot campy cultklassieker.

20:30 The Red Shoes
(Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell 1948, VK, 133’, Engels gesproken, niet ondertiteld)
Voor we in onze pompoenkoets huiswaarts keren, sluiten we af met deze oerklassieker van droomduo Powell & Pressburger. In zintuigstrelend technicolor hervertellen ze het gelijknamige verhaal van Hans Christian Andersen over een meisje gedoemd om te blijven dansen. De spookachtige mooie cinematografie grenst aan toverkunst, terwijl de danssequenties je laten happen naar lucht.

En ze leefden nog lang en gelukkig.

In 1966, Roberto Rossellini directed La Prise de Pouvoir par Louis XIV for French television. The film marked a radical change of direction in his career: a break with the neorealism that had made him famous, moving towards a form of cinemasaggio, or film essay, in which he opted for a didactic film language and distanced himself from more conventional narrative structures. For Rossellini, television offered a unique opportunity. ‘Modern society and modern art have completely destroyed man,’ he once said to André Bazin, ‘television helps us to rediscover man.’ From then on, Rossellini focused on the lives of key figures in history, each a symbol of profound changes in human thought and consciousness.

La Prise de Pouvoir depicts the quiet consolidation of absolute power after the death of Cardinal Mazarin and shows how Louis XIV emerged as the Sun King. The film eschews psychologising and instead opts for tableau-like compositions and long takes, in which the slow crystallisation of power becomes visible in gestures, rituals and spatial arrangements. It is a cinema of patience and distance, embodying the clarity and formal sobriety of Rossellini's late style.