I never thought I'd have a heading for films on this blog. When I got to Belgium I visited the Ardennes, beautiful forest, nothing to do with films. When I got up this morning (afternoon in fact, as I am following the year abroad agenda to a q, minus partying), I was planning on an uneventful day. I went to the Mediatheque to get films and cds and books and then met the others from my radio show to put up posters (incidently, 2pm British time on www.48fm.com). I saw a poster for a Michael Winterbottom film and decided to go along with my friend Claire. We walked in to the projection room without noticing the film had moved room, but we persevered and a film came on. It was a series of experimental films where they'd reused old reels to make new ones. The quality was excellent, I thought, " wow this has made my week worthwhile." It doesn't stop there. Claire and I decide to go for dinner and, having met in film class and just seen a bunch of eye-opening films, we began discussing films. I told her about the Belgian brothers who won the Palme D'or at Cannes a couple of years back with their particularly grimey film "L'Enfant". She wrote the brothers' name down in her notebook. We stepped outside and she noticed some filming going on across the street. We sat on a bench and watched until a woman came up to us and told us we were in the shot, she told us that it was precisely these Belgian brothers who were shooting a film in front of us. We moved to behind the camera and watched the monitors until a man came up to us and alsked us if we wanted to be in the film we happily accepted but gave up after the twelfth shot because of the cold, and we weren't being paid. The Dardennes brothers. The Ardennes have more to do with films than you'd suppose.
