November is the queer month of choice for cinéphiles, with the 22nd Pink Screens . For ten days, the festival shows over a hundred films from the four corners of the globe, cinema that explodes screens and standards, deconstructs binarities and articulates pride.
There is a tribute to Paul Vecchiali, who died this year, and two special focuses: one dedicated to the figure of Orlando, on the occasion of the release of Paul B. Preciado's film Orlando, ma biographie politique, and the other on the forms of resistance contained in many films in this edition.
A varied programme includes films from Africa such as the sensitive All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White (Nigeria) and the surprising Neptune Frost (Rwanda). There are also films from India, Taiwan, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. Of course, European cinema is not forgotten and Belgian cinema is in the spotlight with at least a dozen short films. At the end of the festival, a jury will award the prize for the best Belgian short film.
Sexuality is given a prominent place in the programme, with Pornomelancolia, our Porn, porn, porn block, the vintage D'hommes à hommes and Assexybilidade, in which persons with disabilities show that sex and fucking is also their business.
Pink Screens festival presents 37 films and more than 70 short films across 11 screenings. And an XL exhibition in the Nova bar and Cinéma Galeries vaults, where committed and proud artists exhibit. Pink Screens encourages you to make your convictions heard loud and clear. There are lectures, performances, long discussions and shared drinks at the Nova bar. And of course, there are meetings with the festival's artists and directors, a too-crazy team of volunteers and Pink Night to make the city sparkle, not to mention dance.
Focus Orlando
In every person there is some kind of transition from one sex to another, wrote Virginia Woolf.
Orlando is the imaginary biography of a character whose many traits are borrowed from Vita Sackville-West (with whom she has been close for more than a year) and who, alternately male and female, crosses centuries of English history. We present three films, three visions of this literary figure this year.
Paul B. Preciado, philosopher and writer, started of with this text and pays an extremely personal and fundamentally revolutionary tribute to it in his first film Orlando, ma biographie politique. In As We Like It, all characters are played by women, a reference to Shakespeare's time, when all roles were played by men and women were banned from the stage. Finally, we show you the most famous adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel, Sally Potter's cult film Orlando, starring the great Tilda Swinton.
Focus Resistances
Cinema is political. It is political when it intervenes through images in the standardized representations we have of society. Without exception, all Pink Screens films are imbued with resistance, but some have a special interest in it. Kokomo city reflects on how trans and black sex workers are members of these diverse communities. Le corps du délit addresses the violence of the police and prison apparatus and the question of whether art can resist it. Între revolutii and Neptune Frost confront love stories with revolutions and dictatorial regimes. Finally, two portraits and a selection of short films 'Résistances' will give voice to the plurality of contemporary voices.
Tribute to Paul Vecchiali
92-year-old Paul Vecchiali died on January 17, 2023. He made more than 50 films, the last of which (Bonjour La Langue) was shown at the 2023 Locarno Festival. As a writer, critic, film historian, producer, screenwriter and filmmaker, he made his first masterpieces in the 1970s, Corps à Coeur, Femmes Femmes, L'trangleur ... These films are lyrical and ironic, sometimes sung, sometimes cried. They don't shy away from kitsch or emotional eruptions. Because of his love for actresses, Vecchiali saw the opportunity to renew the Melos of the 1930s (Grémillon, Litvak) and film them for what they were: women of their time, fierce, free and boisterous. In the presence of his partner Malik Saad and his favorite actor of recent years, Pascal Cervo, we show two of his films: the beautiful Corps à Coeur and the very modern C'est l'Amour.
Two Jury Prizes for Belgian Cinema
Something new this year: we want to highlight Belgian cinema even more by awarding two jury prizes: a prize for the best Belgian short film and a prize for the best artistic contribution. Each prize is rewarded with 1,000 euros thanks to the Brussels Alderman for Culture. The members of the jury are: Marina Festré (producer), Sophie Soukias (journalist), Hakim Mao (director), Ely Chevillot (director), Tom de Pekin (artist).
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