Listen to the new Bandwagon, a series of film-related mixes. In this episode, the speed, danger, melancholy, anger, freedom and ambition that cars evoke form a story, a song of the open road.

“1. Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women,
I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

2. You road I enter upon and look around,
I believe you are not all that is here,
I believe that much unseen is also here. (…)
The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted,
and stopping where it is not wanted,
The cheerful voice of the public road,
the gay fresh sentiment of the road.
O highway I travel, do you say to me
Do not leave me?
Do you say Venture not—if you leave me you are lost?
Do you say I am already prepared,
I am well-beaten and undenied, adhere to me?
O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you,
You express me better than I can express myself,
You shall be more to me than my poem.”

Walt Whitman, Fragment of Song of the Open Road (1856)

Jordan Dykstra who composed the score of Globes, compiled the original motion picture soundtrack. You can order the CD or the digital album from Editions Verde.

Globes

Globes (2021) is now available on Avila Film. You can watch Globes – and many other great Belgian films – here.

Caught in a dance, bees tell each other stories about the world around them. People equally claim their role in those stories, sometimes very close and intimate, sometimes distant and on an industrial scale. Nina de Vroome’s thoughts also swarm as bees do: from the smallest cell in a honeycomb to the global economy, her essayistic nature documentary Globes charts the bond between humans and bees. As accomplished storytellers, they both give shape to lives under the sun.

Globes is a film by Nina de Vroome – WITH Anja Bunderla, Brane Kozinc, Victor Kojan, Robert Varney – PRODUCER Blauwhuis Lotte Van Craeynest – IMAGE Ruben Desiere, Nina de Vroome – ANIMATION Mochi Motion – SOUND Nina de Vroome, Lennert De Taeye, Jordan Dykstra – EDITING Dieter Diependaele – SOUND EDITING Sabrina Calmels – SOUND MIXING Aline Gavroy – MUSIC Jordan Dykstra, Kevin Volans, Morthen Kiang, Gwenaël Grisi – GRAPHIC DESIGN Casier/Fieuws – DISTRIBUTION BENELUX Avila Film.

Running time: 89 minutes.

Listen to Nina’s contribution to The Bandwagon, Sabzian’s series of film-related mixes.

Film Place Collective

On the website of Film Place Collective you can find a portrait of my study. It is a written journey though the space in which I made the collage-film “Blanqui and the Stars”, which is equally on view there.

“Every door is a wall in motion. I remember how as a child I hung on the door handle and swung back and forth by pushing myself against the walls. Like all children, I could go on endlessly to exhaust a single observation that unfolded a range of viewpoints. The architecture is shaken loose by this dance with the door. If you swing in one direction, the space closes off and you find yourself in an intimate room. If you swing in the other direction, the echoing hall flows in. Closing and opening the door transforms the two spaces. An open door joins spaces, allows light into the hall and draws sound into the room. It initiates an interaction between the two spaces. When you close the door again, openness is exchanged for intimacy. In a room enclosed by a door, there is room for confidentiality. A room with a closed door is where private life takes place.”

Een idee van de zee [A Sea Change] (2016) is available for streaming on the Belgian distribution platform Avila. Watch the film here.

Avila offers both contemporary and classic documentary and fiction films which the public can endlessly (re)discover. The platform was founded by filmmakers and takes off with a selection of Belgian films. 

The catalogue of the online platform explicitly avoids an overload in which a film threatens to drown and disappear, presenting a selection based on editorial choices. Every one of the films offered by Avila transcends the ephemeral and continues to resound aesthetically, technically, politically or historically.