BRIDGES. East of West Film Days.

The Centre for Fine Arts BOZAR is the biggest and eldest cultural centre in Belgium. It has its own mission as a federal institution, but its position in Brussels allows it to position itself on a European level and develop its European mission. The European continent’s cultural heritage is multiple and complex. All regions have not developed cultural trends at the same time: a phenomenon that exists in a particular zone is very often discovered later by the Europeans of another region. This co-presence of cultural phenomena feed the common heritage and works on its development.

This is precisely the case of the Soviet film culture. Its particular grammar and syntax has been discovered by the Western film lovers with a delay that made those films look very different and intriguing, not fitting the standards of the epoch. “Bridges. East of West Film Days” aims at rediscover the jewels of the soviet cinema industry in the European countries on the fringes of the ‘Fort Europa’, meaning the European Union: Armenia, Azerbaïdjan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. What kind of cinema culture did these countries develop during the XXth century, who are the main artists, how did they influence the Westerners when their work was discovered?

More than that: the regime transformation lead those countries to reshape their film language, the raised topic, the relationship to their past. This is a proeminent phenomenon that is to be discovered, promoted and showed to the European public. To reflect this, "Bridges" presents a selection of films, main focuses being the documentaries, feature films and heritage films.

“Bridges” aims also at the sharing of these new narratives being part of our common nowadays cultural heritage. This is why the presence of the film directors in Brussels during the Festival is so important for BOZAR.

The two main goals of the festival – the exploration of the past and the showcase of the present – are accompanied by a “creative industry” part: an “industry day” is organized as part of the festival in order to make producers of the 6 above-mentionned countries share their concerns, ideas, proposals between themselves and with producers from EU countries, mainly with those having the experience in coproducing films with the countries at the fringes of the EU.