02/06/2008

Since the 1930s (thanks to the Belgian Documentary School headed by Charles Kekeukeleire and Henri Storck), Belgium has had a rich documentary tradition that is constantly renewed and regularly lauded at international festivals.

The 1960s film From the Branches Drops the Withered Blossom by Paul Meyer (who died last September) marked an entire generation and inspired directors such as the Dardenne brothers. In the 1990s, Thierry Michel and Chantal Ackerman emerged as prominent figures in international documentary filmmaking.

Bolstered by this tradition, numerous companies are working with conviction and determination in the field. Among them is Iota Productions, which was founded in 2000 and today has over 20 films to its name. These include Marie-France Collard’s recent title Rwanda. Through Us, Humanity, which screened at various festivals, and Jérôme Le Maire’s Where is Love in the Palm Grove?, which was nominated by the European Film Academy for the 2007 Arte European Documentary Award.

In collaboration with Iota Productions, Bozar is hosting "Le Documentaire belge fait son cinéma" (“Belgian documentaries on show”) from June 3-27, offering audiences the chance to discover five recent titles produced by Iota. From Cameroon to Liège, from Senegal to Brussels, these five films offer a tender but uncompromising vision of the world as it is.

François Ducat’s Nord-Sud.com (“North-South.com”) looks at internet exchanges between white men and black women. Jacques Moriau and Tatiana de Perlinghi’s film Une place au village (“A Place in the Village”) examines, over the course of a year, the transformation of the little village of Famenne, inhabited by large farming families and neo-rural bourgeois bohemians.

Amy, a young Senegalese maid, is the focus of Monologue de la muette (“Monologue of the Silent Woman”) by Khady Sylla and Charlie Van Damme. Finally, Isabelle Achaval’s Histoires de pluie (“Stories of Rain”) centres on the daily existence of migrants in Brussels and Alain Marcoen’s Coin rouge, coin bleu (“Red Corner, Blue Corner”) centres on the lives of boxers in Liège.