Eva Kant

A rainy evening in the harbor of Antwerp. A man named Laarmans is on his way home even though he doesn't want to. Three lost Eastern sailors are looking for a woman named Maria Van Dam and ask Laermans to show them the way. He decides to help them find this mysterious woman.

A bitter, miserable man runs a chaotic secondhand store, mistreating both his assistant and his customers. One day, a young brother and sister enter his shop, hoping to sell a cherished golden watch. Their arrival disrupts the owner's stingy routines, plunging the children into a surreal, unpredictable world managed by eccentric adults. Frans Buyens’ mid-length feature is a whimsical, satirical fable exploring the clash between childhood innocence and adult greed.

Test film for a 70mm film stock produced in East Germany.

The deeply socially engaged documentary filmmaker Frans Buyens had long dreamed of making the transition to fiction filmmaking. The experimental Ieder van Ons was a first attempt in that direction. In essence, it was an inquiry film shot in a cinéma vérité style about appearance and reality in social commitment. With Ieder van Ons, Buyens wanted to jolt the viewer’s conscience and make them aware of the duty to face the truth and to act accordingly. To achieve this, he combined a fictional plot with documentary scenes. On the one hand, the film contains acted sequences about the awakening conscience of a ruthless political figure; on the other hand, Buyens himself appears before the camera to introduce several actors, their characters, and the situations in which they are about to become involved.

'Waar de vogelstjes hoesten' is a rare, satirical fable presented as a fantasy musical. The film tells the surreal love story of a flower girl and a scarecrow who leave their rural home for the big city. Upon arrival, they quickly become corrupted by industrial capitalism and victims of their own growing greed. Featuring unique choreography by Lydia Chagoll, this experimental production serves as a powerful artistic critique. It explicitly warns against the degradation of the environment and the spiritual pollution of modern human society.