Zomerfilmcollege 2026

From July 5 to 11, Cinea is organising a new edition of the Zomerfilmcollege, a yearly summer film school taking place in De Cinema in Antwerp that offers seven days of lectures and film screenings, centered around two themes.

The first porgramme strand revolves around melodrama, which, rather than being a fixed genre, should be understood as a combination of elements such as pathos, heightened emotionality and nonclassical narration, that occur in shifting configurations. Guest speakers Ben Singer and Viola Shafik demonstrate how melodrama's versatility enabled it to travel the world and weather time.

In the second series, Adrian Martin and Catherine Wheatley discuss the 'poetic' in narrative film. Using Pier Paolo Pasolini's famous distinction between a cinema of poetry and a cinema of prose as a guide, the series searches for elusive elements such as mystery, mood, texture and sensuality that distinguish the former from the latter.

More information on the website of Cinea.