Sofie Benoot

Renowned architect Renaat Braem once called Belgium the ugliest country in the world. Beauty and ugliness are relative concepts, but Belgian architecture is remarkable, to say the least. The three-part documentary series Archibelge approaches Belgian architecture and spatial planning from the perspective of the identity of Belgians themselves, specifically the way we work, live, and relax. Each of these three facets is addressed in a single episode, focusing on Brussels, the countryside, and the coast respectively. The result is a compelling and visually surprising look at Belgian architecture, with testimonies from people who have strong opinions about it, such as Eric De Kuyper, Geert Van Istendael, and Hannes Coudenys. Why does Belgium look the way it does, and what should happen now?

Stones are at once the most foundational and the most overlooked parts of our lifeworld. When a retired nature documentary narrator passes a kidney stone, she decides to tell one more story about this forgotten world of stone . A hypnotic essay film asking urgent ecological questions, Apple Cider Vinegar takes the viewer on a journey meeting Palestinian quarry workers, passionate Britisch Geologist and People living on the lava fields of Fogo.

California City, a planned city in the desert, where a young African-American man dreams of starting a new life. Documentary impressions, mobile phone videos, diary entries and Google Maps views are combined into a portrait of this otherworldly place.

Following the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois to Venice, Louisiana, Blue Meridian is a captivating journey through the dilapidated and worn out Deep South of the United States of America. A cinematographic encounter with people living among the traces of natural disasters, economic decline and a turbulent history. The Mississippi River flows both through the Deep South and the imagination of the American nation; it draws the border between the East and the West of the country, but also the division between the North and the South. As a blue meridian, it represents the complex relation between place and identity in North America. The film portrays people living in the decay of semi abandoned places, who try to rebuild, preserve and survive, in an attempt to take a stand in their land and its history. Flooding, civil rights movement riots, racism, real estate speculation have caused people to leave these towns and cities.

The American West. We have arrived in a world where human life would seem to be impossible: an arid, mythical landscape characterized by absence. Absence of water, trees, life. In the beginning there was nothing. But then traces start appearing. Desert Haze tells the many layered story of human presence in the American Desert.