The Brussels Business

Sicko

May 2007 •English

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

A Europa é um Jardim

February 2024 •Portuguese

Visions of Europe

May 2004 •English

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Europas Paradiese

November 1973 •German

Eugen Schuhmacher focuses on endangered and rare animal species such as the European bison and the Northern bald ibis as well as the general fauna of the diverse and species-rich continent of Europe. The need to protect nature and animals is made impressively clear through the power of images.

Route 4

November 2021 •German

Kwassa Kwassa

January 2015 •English

The construction of a boat on the island of Anjouan, used to transport migrants over 70km to the island of Mayotte – the outermost region of the European Union.

The March of Todd-AO

December 1958 •English

From 1958 Brussels World’s Fair to the election of Pope John XXIII

Chez Jolie Coiffure

February 2019 •French

Rosine Mbakam is invited to step in Sabine’s small hairdresser’s because it is dangerous in the street. She accepts and pushes in with her camera. Sabine’s stories and the customers’ joys, worries, problems and fears bring depth and life into the premises. At times, it feels like the entire African quarter of Brussels had squeezed in. Laughter abounds, anecdotes and life stories elicit emotions, and a male visitor brings a touch of flirt into the salon.

The Children's Building Site

September 1970 •French

The theme of this film is the children's view on the destruction of a working-class area. The loss, for them of the dilapidated alleyways and waste ground where they met up and played. Their anger, their futile revolt against the demolition workers only serve to confirm their powerlessness and status as social outcasts.

Insomnies

January 1979 •French

Insomnies is an impressionistic look at the city at night, avoiding the clichés of commercial or tourist films and suggesting instead a lifestyle rhymed by windshield wipers and the music of The Honeymoon Killers. The film is flashing back-and-forth and ultimately leaves, like an arabesque of light and colour made of lines, curves and angles.

In These Parkas We Can Only Be Warm

February 2023 •English

Two parka-adorned silhouettes engage in a barely-audible conversation about Snapchat, grades, money, and other unintelligible topics, until one notices something on the other's glasses. It is not ice.

Loto-Québec : La morale de l'argent

February 2015 •French

The Magnitsky Act. Behind the Scenes

June 2016 •English

What started as a drama about a Russian police plot to steal a billion dollars from a US financier and to murder his faithful tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, has become a real life investigation of contradicting versions of the crime.

Banlie.ue

October 2023 •French

After Work

August 2023 •English

Kuwait’s constitution says that every person has the right to a job, so in some places 20 people are employed for one person’s job. In South Korea, they work so much that a policy has been introduced to turn off computers at the end of the day so that employees can’t work any more. In the US, they give up over 500 million holiday hours each year, while Amazon’s drivers are trying to form a union. Meanwhile, robots are poised to take over most jobs and put the rest of us out of work. Work is so crucial to our identity and what we spend our waking hours on that it is barely noticed anymore. A lot has happened since a group of Puritan priests invented the concept of work ethic in the 1600s, and in the 21st century the very concept of work is in many ways disintegrating. A perfect situation for a filmmaker like Swedish mastermind Erik Gandini, who travels the world to explore what the concept of work means today – if it means anything at all.

America: Freedom to Fascism

January 2006 •English

This is a documentary about an honest search for the truth about the Federal Reserve Bank and the legality of the Internal Revenue System. Through extensive interviews with recognised experts and authority, the director shows an astonishing revelation of how the Federal Government and the Bankers have fooled the American public by taking thier wages and putting it in the pockets of the super-rich.

Malades sans ordonnances

November 2021 •French

Isle of Flowers

September 1989 •Portuguese

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

Inside Job

October 2010 •English

A film that exposes the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin

October 2014 •English

A documentary about the development and spread of the virtual currency called Bitcoin.