Crew
For the television film Highway N°1, Jef Cornelis once again worked with architecture critic Geert Bekaert, who provided the screenplay. The film, which paints a portrait of the highway between Antwerp and Mechelen – and specifically the stretch between Kontich and Walem – deals with spatial planning on either side of an important Belgian arterial road, the first state highway in Belgium.
A short war film
A 500 year history of Juderiya on the Island of Rhodes, Greece. Gorgeous photography and incredible story of how part of the community was transplanted into the Belgian Congo during Italian occupation.
The film De straat (The Street) opens with scenes of a protest in a street. Right after, we see aerial views of a busy highway. The narrator's words say it all: 'The street has become nothing more than a highway – a movement machine, as Le Corbusier called it. The heart of the city, the street, has turned into nothing but a space for traffic.' The car has ruined both the street and community life, and the footage hits this message home. Shots of Belgian cities overrun by cars and trucks are mixed with peaceful clips of Italian towns, where kids spend their whole day playing outside. In short, the film is a powerful critique of motorized traffic in our cities
The Herts Camera Sutra or The Palefaces (1973) is a militant and visually fragmented critique of Belgian bourgeois society, blending documentary collage with semi-autobiographical fiction. De Hert attacks the distractions of nationalism, religion, and popular culture while exposing capitalism, social injustice, and postcolonial exploitation. The film’s second half shifts to a disillusioned group of rebellious youths, revealing the uncertainty and emotional paralysis behind revolutionary ideals. Both politically fierce and deeply self-questioning, the film captures the tension between radical ambition and powerlessness.
Cornelis’ camera slowly strides the silhouettes of the Royal Greenhouses in Brussels, built in the mid-19th century by Alphonse Balat as a glass palace.
