Availability worldwide
Language English, Tagalog
Subtitles English

part of
double bill #1

elephantfish

Meltse Van Coillie, Belgium, 2018, 27’

VAF Wildcard Filmlab

2018

A ship drifts in the middle of an endless sea. Aboard is a crew of five: three Dutchmen and two Filipino sailors. They all cope with boredom—some by trying to overpower it; others by escaping into a parallel world guided by dreams. elephantfish lures its viewers into an enclosed environment guarded by the freedom of the everlasting horizon. The only escape from this confinement comes in thoughts and dreams.

elephantfish (Meltse Van Coillie, 2018)

Dreaming Adrift

Meltse Van Coillie’s elephantfish

Mariana Hristova

01.10.2022

essay

Darkness can be mysterious and scary but also mind-provoking and triggering for one’s fantasy. elephantfish, a film as unusual as its title, starts by describing an equally peculiar dream narrated by a quiet voice in the background of the black frame: an elephant in the sea greedily drinks the water as if trying to swallow it all. As the dreamer approaches the monster, it gets smaller and smaller, no bigger than a fish. Instead of turning into a Leviathan1 as the quasi-mythological premise of the tale suggests, it eventually dies, and the film itself unfolds in a hardly expected way.

Credits

Script

Meltse Van Coillie

Camera

Harm Dens

Sound

Michel Coquette

Film school

KASK School of Arts

Producer

Meltse Van Coillie

experimental documentary mystery poetry

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Juanita Onzaga, Belgium, Colombia, 2017, 20’

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The Hymns of Muscovy

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The Hymns of Muscovy is a trip to the eponymous planet, which is an upside-down space twin of the city of Moscow. Gliding along its surface, we look down at the sky and see historic architectural styles fly by—the exuberant Socialist Classicism, aka the Stalinist Empire, the laconic and brutalist Soviet Modernism, and the hodgepodge of their contemporary knock-offs and revivals.

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Atopia

Olivier De Vos, Belgium, 2021, 18’

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The Age of Anxiety

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An audiovisual meditation on the fin de siècle in Thailand.

The Stopover

Collectif Faire-part, Belgium, DR Congo, 2022, 14’

Filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh embark on a journey from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Germany to screen their latest film. However, during a layover in Angola, their trip takes a harrowing turn when airport authorities question the authenticity of their documents.

Akaboum

Manon Vila, France, 2019, 30’

A portrait of contemporary suburban youth seeking to invent new contours of collective identity, against the backdrop of France in the throes of recession.

Yarokamena

Andrés Jurado, Colombia, Portugal, 2022, 21’

In 20th-century Colombia, resistance fighter Yarokamena, a member of the indigenous Uitoto tribe, called for rebellion against violent exploitation of the rubber mining industry in the Amazone and invoked the spiritual powers of war.

part of double bill #1