Belgium

Deploying a subtle form of cinéma-vérité, Belgian artist Sven Augustijnen sets out on a road-movie journey in pursuit of the individuals who have successfully controlled the historical narrative about the Belgian government’s role in the 1961 execution of the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Traveling from lavish chateaux to cemeteries, from dusty legal archives to roadside scenes of violence, Augustijnen emerges as a sort of Belgian Errol Morris, with a gift for unpacking arcane legalese and an eye for eccentric details.

Filmmakers Attending

Animated Short. Marcel survives the bird flu, alcohol, sleeping pills and his son Max. Though blinded in one eye, he remains the King of Tervuren. Greek tragedy as acted out by Belgian roosters.

MN-Made Animated Shorts screens with Persistence of Vision.

Just days before his Bar Mitzvah on a train to visit his boring Uncle Shmuel,13 year-old Nono receives a secret message. Son of the world’s greatest police inspector, Nono must take on the assignment to solve the mysteries of his own past. Nono heads off on a caper to the French Riviera with a notorious criminal. Nono’s mission is to cross-examine everything he knows...and doesn’t. Adapted from David Grossman’s novel, The ZigZag Kid zigs and zags between coming of age quest and droll secret agent parody.

This beautifully animated fable was inspired by the true story of a giraffe gifted from the Pasha of Egypt to the King of France. From under a baobab tree, a village elder narrates this children’s tale: Maki, a Sudanese boy escapes an evil slave trader and befriends an orphaned baby giraffe. On a series of epic adventures from Sudan through Alexandria, Marseille, and the snow-capped Alps, the young boy and giraffe journey to France.

Director Niccoló Bruna Attending
Dust: The Great Asbestos Trial documents how asbestos use has been steadily increasing, despite a large majority of developed countries banning the known carcinogen.

Three 12-year-old boys living in a children’s home in Port-au-Prince escape to the streets after the 2010 earthquake. Best friends Mickenson, Pierre, and Vitaleme set up camp stick together like brothers. After a mishap on a borrowed motorbike, Mickenson and Pierre are taken to a care center for children. Vitaleme finds them, but is not as willing to reenter the system. Made on location with a nonprofessional cast and documentary feel, Three Kids is based the lives of today’s children in Haiti.

Akin to the 2011 MSP International Film Festival hit Kinshasa Symphony, docu-drama hybrid Kinshasa Kids returns the focus to Kinshasa, starkly contrasting the poverty-stricken streets to pure, unadulterated joy emanating from a group of children. Thrown out of their homes after being accused of witchcraft, a group of kids come together to escape their situation the only way they know how: by becoming music superstars.

Palestinian surgeon Dr. Amin Jaafari treats victims of suicide bombers on a regular basis, but when he learns of his direct connection to a recent attack he finally examines his emotional and spiritual reaction to his tumultuous environment. Living in Tel-Aviv, he leaves his sheltered life to confront those behind the attacks in the West Bank. Based on a novel, The Attack contextualizes the complexity of this conflict through Jaafari, as he attempts to reconcile his Palestinian heritage and his Israeli life.

Jung, a 42-year-old cartoonist, is one of the many adopted Koreans spread around the world who elect to perform a reconciliatory trip to their country of birth. Jung decided to return to South Korea in order to breathe the air of his home country, tread the land of his ancestors, and maybe find traces of his biological mother. Shot as a documentary, this trip leads Jung to recall – through animation – the child he once was and the winding path that made him grow up.

A heartwarming, brightly stylized, comic coming-of-age tale about 11-year-old cycling whiz Freddy and the arrival of modernity to an idyllic Belgian village in 1975. The Dutch-speaking son of the local butcher, Freddy has an embarrassing medical condition that makes him the target of much cruel teasing, so his overprotective mother tries to keep him at home, away from other children. When a supermarket opens on the outskirts of the village and the manager organizes a bicycle race, Freddy’s isolated life is turned upside down.