DOCUMENTARY – Gjon Mili Video Art Festival

The water was here

admin — Sun, 10 May 2026 15:57:47 +0000

Logline : Portrait of an urban marsh born from a human flaw, where life invents new forms of coexistence.

Synopsis: Filmed in 16 mm at the Wiels Marsh in Brussels. A marsh that emerged after the water table was pierced during excavation work for a real estate project. Insects, birds, and humans coexist in this refuge, where life and magic resist.
Long : The Wiels Marsh emerged when excavation work for a real estate project pierced the water table, before being halted by the 2008 financial crisis. This accident allowed for the emergence of an ecosystem in the heart of the ruins of industrial capitalism. Insects, birds, and humans coexist in this refuge where life and magic resist.

Director Biography – Sophie Sherman, Némo Camus

Sophie Sherman is a French and Belgium artist and filmmaker born in 1980, currently based in Brussels, Belgium. She studied fine arts at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille and film at Aix-Marseille University, before furthering her artistic practice at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. In recent years, she has mainly explored the medium of 16 mm through a documentary, experimental, and poetic approach, with films such as The walk (2015, 19′), The water was here (2025, 15′, co-directed with Némo Camus), and Hold my hand (2025, 17′). Her films have been screened at the Torino Film Festival (IT), L’Alternativa (ES), the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (GR), Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival (UK), Wiels Art Center in Brussels (BE), Ontsteking Art space in Ghent (BE), among others.

Némo Camus, Biography : Némo Camus is a French artist born in 1994, who lives and works in Brussels. After a degree in film theory and a Master’s in sociology, he turned to sound creation and trained at INSAS. His work, strongly rooted in the practice of sound recording, investigates the back-and-forth between fieldwork and speculative approach, focusing on notions of trace, clue and tremor. He is specifically interested in the entanglement and gaps between intimate narrative and historical document in the context of contemporary memorial issues. His work takes the form of radio creations, sound installations, performances, texts and films. For performance and visual arts, he collaborates with Pélagie Gbaguidi, On-Trade-Off, Joëlle Sambi, Esther Mugambi, Robson Ledesma, Aïssatou Ciss, Sophie Sherman and Davide Tidoni. His work has recently been presented at GMEM in Marseille, iMAL in Brussels, Framer Framed in Amsterdam, the Biennale de Dakar and the Bienal Internacional de Dança do Ceará in Fortaleza, Brazil. He teaches sound creation workshops at the Université Paris 8.

Director Statement

Directed by Sophie Sherman and Némo Camus.

“the water was here” is a film shot on 16mm at the Wiels Marsh in Brussels. This site emerged when excavation work for a real estate project pierced the water table, before being halted by the 2008 financial crisis. This accident allowed for the emergence of an ecosystem in the heart of the ruins of industrial capitalism. Insects, birds, and humans coexist in this refuge where life and magic resist.
We made this film during a short residency, what interested us was making a film that explored the relationship between sound and image through collaboration. While Némo Camus comes from a sound background, I have spent recent years exploring the medium of 16mm film. For me, it was essential to shoot this film with my hand-cranked Bolex. The camera doesn’t record sound, and we found this restriction inspiring. This project continues my ongoing interest in “marginal” spaces, those places existing between urban ruins and rewilding, a theme I previously explored in my short film, The Walk (2015). We began the residency by hosting a three-day open sound recording and writing workshop for the neighbors or people interested in the marsh, followed later by a one-day 16mm film workshop specifically for children in collaboration with a local association.
Following the workshop, we chose to record with one of the participants a speculative voiceover for the film.
We were captivated by the intricate layers of the Wiels Marsh. What was intended to be a construction site for 200 offices accidentally became a thriving ecosystem when workers pierced the water table. Today, construction pillars remain as traces of an unfinished building, while another structure rests on submerged foundations, completely overtaken by vegetation. It is a hybrid place, caught between nature and construction, showing concretely what happens on the ruins of capitalism.
There is a utopian aspect to this spontaneous marsh; it has become a living laboratory. We wanted to show all the layers it contains:
The activists known as Les Fé.e.s du Marais (the Fairies of the Marsh) play a key role in preserving the space against ongoing plans to construct flats.
We found their rituals of forming alliances with other marshes, like Lago Bullicante in Rome, deeply poetic. There was not just one but an archipelago of wetlands around the world that needed to be defended. These places resonate with vital connections between territories, struggles, and communities.
We also felt it was important to give a voice to the people who call this site home, which is why we conducted several sound interviews. And kept the one with Mélissa in the film.
Finally, we were interested in the site’s educational dimension, incorporating guided tours, artistic activities to explore aquatic insects, and the work of the educator who collaborates with local schools and youth centers to help young people discover the world of bees and their vital role in nature.

Haus Tumbuna

admin — Sun, 10 May 2026 15:46:45 +0000

Haus Tumbuna is a socially engaged project and commissioned documentary film set in Ulingan Bay, Papua New Guinea that documents the establishment of a self-sustaining, culturally specific timber surfboard factory within the local community. The project, founded by Nickolas Kirriwom and Nicholas Wynnychuk, aims to decolonize cultural impact, foster cultural revival, support healing, and highlight the connection between community, culture, spirit and the natural world through the sustainable practice of building traditional ocean-going craft.

Director Biography – Matty Hannon

Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor

Matty Hannon has experience producing documentaries in challenging environments across 6 continents. He runs a multi-award winning production company from the middle of a national park on the north coast of NSW. His undergraduate degree in Ecology and several years experience in the fields of conservation and cultural resilience in remote Sumatra led him to pick up a camera, and continues to influence his film work to this day. THE ROAD TO PATAGONIA is his debut feature documentary.

DEZO HOFFMANN – PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE BEATLES

admin — Thu, 07 May 2026 01:59:12 +0000

Dezo Hoffmann, a legendary photographer of the Beatles, was born in Slovakia in 1912. He lived most of his life in the UK, while his photographs conquered the world; yet he died almost forgotten. He captured the horrors of multiple war fronts and later laid the foundations of modern pop photography. Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles – are just a few of the stars who had stood in front of his lens. We want to tell his story like nobody could’ve imagined it.

Violence Solves Everything

admin — Thu, 07 May 2026 01:45:19 +0000

A study of death scenes and endings, under the Hays code era of Hollywood (1934-1968) and beyond.

Director Biography – John Ledingham

John Ledingham is a Victoria BC filmmaker working in music videos and experimental, no-budget documentary.

Director Statement

“Violence Solves Everything” is an experimental collage of endings and deaths scenes from the Hays Code era of Hollywood (1934-68) or in conversation with conventions of this era, and especially movies ending within 1 or 2 minutes of “the bad guy” being “brought to justice” by force – usually killing, but sometimes arrest, which often in these films implies capital punishment. It explores endings as implicit ideological statements along the lines of critic Robin Wood’s psychoanalytic theories of the horror movie monster as a site of social projection & repression, mainly in the genres of the gangster movie, melodrama, crime thriller, and neo-noir. But also showing samples of horror, to explore where the repressed criminal character evolved out of classical movie monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein.

Several trends are traced through this decades long exploration of censorship, ideology, and mainstream notions of moral authority or justice.

This IS a “found footage” montage film. As a critical, non-commercial study, placing clips in a critical context, this film and its use of copyrighted material is protected under Fair Use. I do not claim ownership of any of the sampled films, but do claim the right to and responsibility for distributing this film for educational and artistic purposes.

The version currently linked as a screener is my unlisted YouTube screener, with several films portrayed in still images, in accordance with YouTube’s automatic copyright detection system. A full, non-truncated version will be available for festival screenings.

A full list of films sampled:

Ministry of Fear 1944
Little Caesar 1930
Frankenstein 1931
Dracula 1941
Scarface 1932
King Kong 1933
High Sierra 1941
Saboteur 1942
The Stranger 1946
Kiss of Death 1947
Odd Man Out 1947
They Live By Night 1947
The Naked City 1948
He Walked By Night 1948
The Street With No Name 1948
White Heat 1949
DOA 1950
Gun Crazy 1950
The Sniper 1952
The Hitch Hiker 1953
The Big Combo 1955
Tarantula 1955
Rififi 1955
The Tall T 1957
Attack of The Giant Leeches 1959
The Killing 1956
Touch of Evil 1958
Breathless 1960
Underworld USA 1961
Vivre Sa Vie 1962
Le Samourai 1967
Bonnie and Cude 1967
Night of The Living Dead 1968
Easy Rider 1969
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid 1969
Le Cercle Rouge 1970
Chinatown 1974
Final Exam 1981
Blood Debts 1985
Samurai Cop 1991
Scarface 1983
Robocop 1987
Thelma & Louise 1991
Heat 1995
Training Day 2001
Shooter 2007
The Sopranos 1999-2007
Drug War 2012
Django Unchained 2012
Breaking Bad 2008-2013
Barbarian 2022
The Mastermind 2025

Z van zelfredzaamheid / S for self reliance

admin — Thu, 07 May 2026 01:42:08 +0000

We follow a class with adult refugees in the Netherlands. The final meeting with the municipality is almost approaching. This way they can complete the so-called Z-route, and they are officially integrated. The Z-route consists of 800 hours of language lessons and 800 participation hours. These participants usually had very little education as children.

Some students play the role of municipal officials. They ask the questions, the others answer. In this way, themes are discussed that have been dealt with in the language lessons and also affect their personal lives, such as school, living and work. We see how the new language directs the flow of thoughts, and how different levels emerge within the group. Are they ready for the Dutch society?

Crew:
Camera: Marcel de Buck
Sound recording: Julien Grossmann
Soundtrack: Nelson Crumble
Edit: Jan Adriaans
Advice: Stijn Bouman

Kecka

admin — Thu, 07 May 2026 01:27:15 +0000

This short documentary follows the daily life and creative process of its subject, observing how they work, move, and exist within their personal space. Set in a quiet, intimate environment, the film focuses on the relationship between the artist and their craft, capturing moments of concentration, repetition, and care.

As the process unfolds, the artist reflects on Kecka—a mythological figure that informs their thinking and subtly influences their work. This presence adds another layer to the film, connecting the physical act of making with memory, storytelling, and cultural imagination.

Through simple, real-time scenes, we see the artist shaping and refining their work, while the surrounding atmosphere becomes part of the narrative. With minimal dialogue, meaning emerges through gestures, textures, and rhythm.

At its core, the film is about dedication, mythology, and the quiet transformation of ideas into form—where everyday actions become a bridge between tradition and personal expression.

State of Preparedness

admin — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:38:17 +0000

Through a fictional psychotherapeutic session with the late Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, State of Preparedness explores the psychological and physical legacy of Albania’s militarized past. Drawing on oral history, interviews, and field research, the film reflects on the country’s vast network of military bunkers as both architectural remnants and metaphors for collective fear, repression, and unresolved trauma. The narrative blends archival memory with present-day imagery, inviting the viewer to confront the thin line between visible structures and invisible wounds.

Developed during a residency in Tirana and initially presented at the Tirana Architecture Triennale, the film meditates on the interplay between the conscious and the unconscious, the seen and the unseen — inspired by Freud’s iceberg theory and grounded in lived experience.

Director Biography – Rebeka Bratož Gornik

Rebeka Bratož Gornik is a Slovenian freelance filmmaker and media artist specializing in documentary and experimental films that explore the relationship between architecture, space, and society. With a background in media studies and a Master’s degree in Communication and Media from the University of Ljubljana, Rebeka merges visual storytelling with spatial research to reveal layered social narratives. She has been recognized as a LINA Fellow and has presented her work internationally at film and architecture festivals.

Director Statement

When I started this project, I wanted to find the connection between the visible layers—the bunkers scattered across Albania’s landscape—and the deeper, often unspoken trauma that they represent. This search reminded me of Freud’s iceberg metaphor: what we see is only a small part of a much larger, hidden reality beneath the surface.

To avoid simply showing the bunkers as physical objects, I chose to create the film as a kind of psychotherapeutic session—inviting the viewer to dive into this complex, layered topic that remains largely unacknowledged. Albania has more than 170,000 bunkers, a staggering number born from Enver Hoxha’s fear of war and invasion. But beyond history, the film raises questions about the political and military threats we face today—threats that still feel close and very present.

For me, this film is a way to explore how fear shapes not only landscapes but also collective memory and identity. It’s an invitation to look deeper, to reflect on what lies beneath the surface, and to confront those hidden fears that continue to influence us.

In That Winter, We Read and Danced in Front of The Border Wall

admin — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:48:23 +0000

A poetic documentary featuring the two artists on the border. That winter, they danced, read and sang, orchestrating playful provocations that comments on the expansion of totalitarian ideology from the regime in a magical realist world.