On 3 December, Sabzian and KASKcinema are hosting the seventh Seuls film night online, with Bruxelles-transit (1980), the only full-length film by the Belgian screenwriter, actor and filmmaker Samy Szlingerbaum (1950-1986). The film tells the story of his parents’ arrival in Belgium in 1947. They were Polish Jews who had spent ten days travelling across Europe by train. Samy was born two years later. The film, spoken in Yiddish, is his mother’s story of their journey and narrates the attempts of the family to build a home, the struggle to find illicit work and their efforts to integrate into the country of their exile, without papers or any knowledge of the language. Szlingerbaum began his career as a filmmaker by co-directing the 1973 film Le 15/8 with Chantal Akerman. He shot two short films of his own, followed by Bruxelles-transit. Szlingerbaum died at the age of 36.
On 3 December, on the evening of the screening, an introduction by Nina de Vroome to the film will be posted on KASKcinema’s Facebook page. That day, Bruxelles-transit will be available free of charge from 8:30 pm onwards for the first 100 spectators. To watch the film, go to the streaming platform Avila and use the button “KASKcinema” to activate the screener (only available in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).
Bruxelles-transit has recently been restored by CINEMATEK and will remain available to rent on Avila afterwards.
Seuls. Singular Moments in Belgian Film History is a series of film programs 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.
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