Simone van den Broek

Love Is Not an Orange

“Imagine this camera is your mother”, a father tells his daughter. In the 1990s, scores of families from the Republic of Moldova began a ritualised mail exchange between the mothers, who had emigrated for economic reasons, and their relatives back home. The former sent money and goods; the latter sent videotapes. These amateur recordings are the material of this film. They testify to the painful gaps the absent persons left in the lives of those who stayed behind.

La Espera

A story slowly reveals itself: a spattering of campfires and makeshift tents is actually a caravan heading to the US border in search of safety and a new life. Silent images and fragments of touching conversations calmly direct the viewer’s attention to individual destinies. What seems so abstract and far away, suddenly becomes close and alive.

Chicagoblok - Verhalen uit de lift

With its twenty-plus floors, the Chicagoblok high rise in Antwerp has a bad reputation in the city. But the residents think quite differently about it. The retired Louis has lived here for three years with his Thai wife. He is not proud of his place, but he mingles quite nicely with the other people. After his wife had left him, Rudi ended up in this council housing project. 'I'm surrounded by negroes. They live at night and make a racket.' Single Sandra is ashamed of her neighbourhood and longingly awaits the arrival of her new, Moroccan husband, whom she found on the Internet. African Yves is proud of his block of flats. He feels safe and does not understand the criticism.