Directing
Eric Pauwels
Born November 2, 1953 · Antwerp, Belgium (age 72)
Filmmaker, writer and film lecturer Eric Pauwels started his career with what he calls ‘cinéma mémoire’, or ethnographic documentary. He obtained his PHD in cinematography in Paris with a documentary on the ‘possessed’ in Indonesia. Afterwards, eager to step out of his role of being a spectator, Pauwels begins to make dance videos and works of fiction. The latter are so-called ‘half films’: half d…
Known For
The Dreamed Films · 2010The Dreamed Films
★ 7.32010
MovieDocumentary
Belgian filmmaker Eric Pauwels' meditation on dream, travel and film.
The Second Night · 2016The Second Night
★ 6.02016
MovieDocumentary
On the death of his mother, a filmmaker makes a film to see how much her disappearance has changed his vision of the world. It is an opportunity for him to look back over his relationship with her: a relationship that made him a free individual, as a man and as a filmmaker. The second night is the final part of a trilogy that began with Letter from a filmmaker to his daughter, which was followed by Dreaming films. The making of this " Cabin Trilogy" is the fruit of fifteen years of work and reflection.
Letter from a Filmmaker to His Daughter · 2000Letter from a Filmmaker to His Daughter
★ 6.32000
MovieDocumentary
A playful, free, and personal film in the form of a letter, a film interwoven with a thousand stories knit together with different textures, a book of images where a filmmaker shows the images and the stories he wants to share.
The Iconographic Journey: The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian · 1989The Iconographic Journey: The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
★ 5.51989
MovieDocumentary
A personal travel notebook. A travel through Europe in search of thirty paintings of the iconic Christian martyr. The film is conceived as a voyage of initiation, an imaginary reportage... imaginary because without an original image of the Saint, all representations were possible.
Violin Fase · 1986Violin Fase
★ 6.01986
Movie
In Violin Fase, Eric Pauwels twirls the camera around the body of dancer and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. Through this process, Pauwels creates a new relationship between camera and dancer, but also between body and dance, dance and cinema. Consisting of a geometrical and minimalist choreographic structure filmed in four uninterrupted takes, the artist’s camera captures a woman dedicated to exploring the boundaries of physical exhaustion.
Un film · 1986Un film
1986
Movie
Motorway, roads, villages of Northern France, Flanders. A man with a Super 8 camera films his route, the villagers and himself. Portraits, self-portrait. As the images unfold a young villager, Josse, is intrigued by the camera’s presence. For the cameraman the lens is an eye with which one films reality, for the villager the camera represents CINEMA, the magic of fiction. Josse accosts the cameraman and leads him across the fields where his girlfriend joins them. The outing becomes their production, with themselves in front of the camera. Games. Gradually diverted by Josse’s enthousiasme the film slides into moments of fiction, until its inevitable breakdown.
The River Banks · 1991The River Banks
★ 5.01991
MovieDocumentary
A film on the gestures of work, those of a sculptor, a designer, a composer and dancers. A sketch of their relationship to the world subjected to the double gaze of fiction and documentary.
Cabin trilogy : a conversation · 2017Cabin trilogy : a conversation
2017
Movie
A conversation with filmmaker Eric Pauwels about his Cabin trilogy, which includes Letter from a Filmmaker to His Daughter (2000), The Dreamed Films (2010), and The Second Night (2016).






