What sustains cinema, long after the lights come up? For both DAFilms and Sabzian, the answer is reflection — watching, thinking, writing, and reading in communal conversation unbound by societal borders.
In this special collaboration between DAFilms and Sabzian, a Belgium-based platform devoted to cinema and criticism, we present a selection of films and texts that invite you to join the dialogue.
Founded by Belgian filmmakers in 2014, Sabzian is an international, multilingual film magazine and platform that treats cinephilia as a living, collective practice. Through screenings, essays, interviews, and an ongoing cartography of the independent film scene, it bridges past and present, local and global, image and thought. The platform brings films into conversation with critical reflection, mapping out a landscape where watching and thinking go hand in hand.
Every film in this selection is paired with a piece of writing from Sabzian’s archive: from long-form criticism to in-depth interviews and reflections by filmmakers themselves. These texts offer not just context, but companionship — a way of walking alongside the films and thinking with them, sentence by sentence, image by image.
Cinephilia, like films themselves, is an unfinished conversation. This curated program is one attempt to keep the exchange going.
Films and texts included in the selection:
—After Winter Comes Spring by Helke Misselwitz
Winter Adé. After Winter Comes Spring – Presaging the Wende. Text by Claus Löser, 2018.
—Herzsprung by Helke Misselwitz
“Film is always the present”, A Conversation with Helke Misselwitz. Elizabeth Dexter, 2022.
—Amsterdam Global Village by Johan van der Keuken
—The Long Holiday by Johan van der Keuken
Work in Progress. A collection of texts on Johan van der Keuken.
—Babel - Letter to my Friends who Stayed in Belgium by Boris Lehman
A Second Century for Cinema. Text by Boris Lehman, 1993.
Why Boris Lehman Makes Fiction Films. Text by Boris Lehman, 1995.
—Do You Remember Revolution by Loredana Bianconi
Do You Remember Revolution - Loredana Bianconi Introduces Her Film. Text by Loredana Bianconi, 1996.
—Sad Song of Touha by Atteyat al-Abnoudi
Atteyat Al-Abnoudy: Out of the Shadows. Issue on Atteyat Al-Abnoudy, 2021.
—Dead Souls by Wang Bing
—Coal Money by Wang Bing
Wang Bing: Filming a Land in Flux. Issue on Wang Bing, 2019.
Words and Silence. Wang Bing about Dead Souls. Conversation with Emmanuel Burdeau, 2018.
—Danton’s Death by Alice Diop
State of Cinema 2023 by Alice Diop.
—Images of the World and the Inscription of War by Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki: Reality Would Have to Begin. A collection of texts on Harun Farocki.
—ROUTE 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel by Eyal Sivan & Michel Khleifi
Michel Khleifi’s Fertile Memory. A collection of texts on Michel Khleifi.
—Letter by Sergei Loznitsa
Events of Images, Words and Sounds. A collection of texts on Sergei Loznitsa.
—Reassemblage: From the Firelight to the Screen by Trinh T. Minh-ha
Tuning in to the Music of the World. A conversation of Stoffel Debuysere with Trinh T. Minh-ha, 2024.
—João Bénard da Costa - Others Will Love the Things I Loved by Manuel Mozos
In Vanda’s Room. Text by João Bénard da Costa, 2000.
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