On March 10th at 20:30 CET, Seuls: Short Work 1’ will premiere on Avila, a short film programme compiled by the online film platform Sabzian. To celebrate this special occasion Sabzian and Avila are offering the first 250 coupons for free. When the limit of coupons has been reached, the film programme will still remain available on the platform at the usual charge. 

Seuls: Short Work 1’ contains films by Chantal Akerman, Charles Dekeukeleire, Henri Storck, Edmond Bernhard, Claudio Pazienza and Éric Pauwels. This selection is an adaptation of the first Seuls programme, organised by Sabzian in 2017 and screened at the KASKcinema in Ghent. With Seuls: Singular moments from Belgian film history, Sabzian brings film programmes to the screen linked to the release of a unique selection of text material on it's website sabzian.be. 

The online premiere is free and available for viewing in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The films with dialogue are always available with Dutch, French and/or English subtitles. The programme will be accompanied by articles in several languages and will be introduced online by filmmaker and Sabzian editor Nina de Vroome.

Programme

La chambre (Chantal Akerman, 1972) - 11'
Images d’Ostende (Henri Storck, 1929) - 15'
Dimanche (Edmond Bernhard, 1963) - 22'
White Flame (Charles Dekeukeleire, 1930) - 11'
Lettre à Jean Rouch (Éric Pauwels, 1992) - 9'
Saute ma ville (Chantal Akerman, 1968) - 13'
Oggi è primavera (Claudio Pazienza, 1988) - 4'

About Seuls: Short Work 1’

Filmmaker, cinema and Zen teacher Konrad Maquestieau once typified Belgian cinema anti-conformist: "This country harbours a tradition in which individuals, completely unrelated to each other, manage to make films in the most idiosyncratic way. Films that do not conform to any norm, regulation, school, fashion or theory. Their images are unique. The 'tradition' is characterised by independence, diversity, subjectivity, daring, inventiveness, audacity, and humorous subversion. Here, the inexhaustible imagination is central." The name Seuls ties in with this; it brings into focus a film culture consisting of a kinship between soloists who explore all possible mechanisms of imagination.

The short film programme reflects the diversity of Belgian cinema: Images d’Ostende (1929) by Henri Storck, a poetic portrait of Ostend; Oggi è Primavera (1988), a dramatic act in miniature by Claudio Pazienza; White Flame (1930) by Charles Dekeukeleire, about a man taking part in a demonstration at the IJzer Tower; Dimanche, a contemplation on the concept of "free time" by Edmond Bernhard from 1963; but also La chambre (1972), a self-portrait of Chantal Akerman in her bedroom, her first short film Saute ma ville (1968) and a cinematic letter by Éric Pauwels to Jean Rouch, one of the key figures of cinéma vérité in France.

Director Edmond Bernhard once told an interviewer that Belgian filmmakers experience their medium as a "remarkable instrument of ambiguity". This ambiguity and stratification mentioned by Bernhard about applies to all the films in the programme and shows similarities with surrealism, which is the theme of the next short film programme Seuls: Short Work 2’, which will be screened on Avila in April.