Charles Dekeukeleire

A visual travel diary on the expedition led by Brondeel in 1934. This expedition to Belgian Congo, by truck, became a testimony to the social conditions of Africans during the colonial era.

Dekeukeleire's film evokes the notion of impatience via fragmented images of a revving motorcyle, a woman's expressions, and roads of a mountainous landscape.

The original screenplay told the story of a young man from the countryside with a city education: a boorish, violent character filled with a desperate, purely urban unease. Dekeukeleire transformed him into a butcher who commits an act of rebellion during a political demonstration at the foot of the Yser Tower (with authentic images of the 1930 meeting) which is being suppressed brutally by the authorities. White Flame secretes a drifting air of unreality straight out of Buñuel, born out of 'carnal' close-ups and an editing style which owes a great deal to Soviet films of that period.

Short documentary on the wool industry.

Short documentary about the Belgian leather industry.

Two journalists drop by the Waterloo studios, where a director shows them a rough cut of a pacifist film. In it, a botched atomic test in Belgium creates a clay cloud that spreads world peace, causing stock markets to crash and weapons manufacturers to lose their jobs.The journalists roast the movie for being unrealistic, but the director defends it as a wake-up call to maintain peace. Afterward, they tour the studios, giving a cool look behind the scenes.

A documentary about flowers.

This story is built up with filmed documents in an experimental fashion.

Presentation of the activities of Secours d'Hiver (Winter Aid) in Belgium. Winter Aid was the national-socialist organisation that took over all social assistance works, as they were exercised by government and church, in the occupied territories during World War Two.

When a wanderer arrives in a village in the East Flanders countryside, strange events begin to unfold. The villagers, unsettled by his presence, come to believe he is an evil spirit. In truth, he is searching for his long-lost lover. Years ago, the two of them had committed a terrible crime: the killing of an illegitimate child. They had then planned to end their own lives by drowning. Yet the wanderer failed to keep his part of the pact and survived the suicide attempt. Ever since, he has been desperately seeking the woman he once loved, haunted by the past that refuses to let him go.

An avant-garde montage of a boxing match, based on a poem by Paul Werrie.

Promotional film for Victoria chocolate products that delves into the past.

Short documentary tracking the installation of oil infrastructure in Antwerp.

Traditional manual and individual work vs. modern machine and mass production in the context of social development and quality of life.

‘A patchwork sewn together by a lunatic, God knows what sort of junk thrown together.’ This is how the irritated Renaat Braem characterised the Belgian landscape as seen from the air in his pamphlet ‘The ugliest country in the world’ (1968). Over the last half century, this sort of complaint about the lack of planning has alternated with resentment at the surfeit of spatial regulation on the part of the authorities. Film-makers have provided pictures to go with these divergent opinions. From Charles Dekeukeleire’s propaganda film disguised as a documentary, through Luc De Heusch’s documentary insert packaged as fiction, to the critical opinion pieces by Jef Cornelis.

A documentary about urbanisation.

Charles Dekeukeleire, then a questioning Catholic, was spurred into making this documentary on a pilgrimage with the Catholic Young Workers’ Movement. The director’s approach is one of critical reflection; A film emotional and fervent, even acerbic.

Promotional documentary about Belgian spa cities. The spas in Ostend, Spa and Chaudfontaine are shown, together with their nearby attractions.

Industrial film about the Gevaert factory, where photographic and film products are made.

Documentary on the rich historical past of Belgium, concerning its processions and its carnivals.