Brecht Debackere
Directing
Biography
Brecht Debackere (born in 1979) is an audiovisual artist. He studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Bruges, audiovisual art at RITCS (Brussels), and image and media technology at HKU in Hilversum; he also holds a Master of Arts degree in Image Synthesis and Computer Animation. Since 1995, he has worked in fiction film, animation, motion graphics, and the exploration of applications such as video synthesis, interaction, and concept development. Under the name Autofasurer, Debackere worked on experiments in abstract design and the integration of design with video synthesis and programmed systems. He also collaborated with multimedia artist Boris Debackere, who specializes in sound, interface, and software design for live music performances. Together, they developed live cinema pieces. Through his work, he explores the tension between physical, representational, and virtual space, seeking to uncover the intrinsic characteristics of virtual space. He also worked with Visualantics, a Belgian foundation and production house he co-founded, on more figurative and documentary-oriented projects, ranging from animation to music videos. Debackere collaborated with and carried out assignments for, among others, the WORM Foundation in Rotterdam, PARK4DTV in Amsterdam, and the Dutch television network VARA. He lives and works in Hilversum and Brussels.
Known For
Guided by the evocative narration of Charlotte Rampling, Nostalgia for the Future is a descent into the labyrinthine world of Chris Marker, the “best-known author of unknown films,” who spent a lifetime concealing himself behind a veil of pseudonyms and images of cats. Moving through a constellation of personal documents and film fragments, an archivist attempts to decode the man through the material traces he left behind. By repurposing and recontextualizing Marker’s own body of work, the film treats his images as “time machines,” transforming the archive into a landscape of living memory. Nostalgia for the Future is a meditation on memory, identity, and the power our past images hold over the futures we imagine.
Nostalgia for the Future
Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Cannes, the posh casino hosts the second ‘World Festival of Film and the Arts’ in 1949, organised in part by the Royal Cinematheque of Belgium. To celebrate cinema’s 50 year existence, they put together a side program showcasing the medium in all its shapes and forms: surrealist film, absolute film, dadaist films, abstract film,… The side program would soon become a festival in its own right: ‘EXPRMNTL’, dedicated to experimental cinema, and would become a mythical gathering of the avant-garde…
EXPRMNTL
Under the scorching sun, seventeen-year-old Purdey and her fifteen-year-old brother Makenzy are left to fend for themselves. While Purdey cleans houses in a hotel complex, Makenzy scrabbles together some money by stealing from tourists. Between the recklessness of adolescence and the harshness of adulthood, they will have to support each other in this heartbreakingly sweet journey, which seems to be the last summer of their youth.