For the fourth Seuls program at KASKcinema, Sabzian will show two films by Boris Lehman. In À la recherche du lieu de ma naissance (1990), Lehman travels to his birthplace Lausanne, searching for signs that would evoke his presence, the evidence of his very existence. In La dernière (s)cène ou l’évangile selon Saint-Boris (1995), the last house being demolished to make space for the European institutions is the backdrop for a Last Supper, featuring Lehman as Christ and his friends and fellow filmmakers as his disciples.
Boris Lehman (1944) lives in Brussels, where he builds his autobiographical life’s work. Staging his experiences, he constructs a life imbued with cinema. Lehman’s way of life is inextricably bound up with a way of filming. Relationships are formed through mise-en-scène and Lehman defines himself through his camera, which functions as his mirror. In one of his films, he says: “Seeing everything and filming everything. And when all will be finished, I will be myself.”
With a short introduction by and an extensive conversation after the screening with Boris Lehman.
Seuls. Singular Moments in Belgian Film History is a series of film programs hosted by Sabzian at KASKcinema. These programs are accompanied by the publication of unique texts by Belgian filmmakers and writers on Sabzian’s website. It is often said that cinephiles don’t know or are rarely appreciative of their own national cinema. Film critic Adrian Martin “observe[s] a very intriguing dimension of cinephile thought: namely, the usually feisty way it negotiates a fraught relation with the cinephile’s own national cinema. Indeed, I sometimes think I can spot a cinephile by the intensity of their hatred for their national cinema.” With this series of film evenings, Sabzian aims to chart the wayward landscape of Belgian cinema with images, sounds and words, by means of an affectionate countermovement.
