In response to her recent autobiographical film, this retrospective completes the portrait of a singular voice in filmmaking, writing, producing and acting.

IFFR 2020

Marion Hänsel

Wonderfully shot film about the special relationship between two outsiders: an opium-addicted sailor and a precocious, 10-year-old Chinese girl.

Beautifully photographed film set in Hong Kong about the exceptional relationship between two outsiders. Greek-Irish radio operator Nikos is an opium-addicted seaman. When 10-year-old Chinese girl Li boards his ship, he keeps his distance at first – but then her optimism and resolve awaken him from his lethargy.

Deep Focus

Marion Hänsel, à la vie

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Joachim Olender

Portrait of Belgian art collector Herman Daled, who sold his collection of conceptual works to the MoMa in 2011.

In 2011, Belgian radiologist Herman Daled's impressive art collection was sold to the MoMa in New York. Daled purchased works by conceptual artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, On Kawara and Daniel Buren, whom he was also friends with. A documentary portrait of a unique collector full of interesting artistic questions. Because how do you buy an idea?

La collection qui n'existait pas

Powerfully depicted study of loneliness, love and power on a South African farm. Jane Birkin in one of her best roles.

Resolutely, and with minimal fuss, Hänsel paints a grim, complex picture of love and power on a South African farm in her second feature film. Father against daughter, white boss against black labourer. Indifference, yearning, humiliation. Jane Birkin de-glamourised herself for this, perhaps the best role of her career. After J.M. Coetzee.

Dust

A teenage girl searches for balance on a rope and in her life. With this short film, Hänsel took her own first steps as a film director.

A teenage girl searches for balance on a rope and in her life. With this short film, Hänsel equally made her first steps as a film director.

Equilibres

A hospital stay draws out memories that take the filmmaker on a poetic journey through her life.

"I open my eyes and I hear, I close my eyes and I see." During a hospital stay, life stands still, starting the filmmaker's poetic journey through valuable memories: her childhood, her artistic vocation, her loved ones and her son, with whom she is close.

Il était un petit navire

Hänsel accurately captures the emotions that well up beside a lover's deathbed. Striking, subtly moving debut.

Twenty-four hours in the surreal no-man's-land between love and death. In a wintry Antwerp, a woman keeps her dying lover company on a houseboat on the Schelde river. Emotions well up, trapped in remembered moments and flashbacks. Hänsel's striking debut is a moving, poetically composed meditation on farewells and carrying on.

Le lit

Susana Rossberg

Marion Hänsel was cast for this story of a man's job interview for an important position in a company, but it doesn't go the way he expected.

Mauvaises réponses

A traumatised mother and her rejected, damaged son who yearns for love are polar opposites in this moving drama.

A rejected, emotionally damaged boy yearns for his mother's love, but she cannot bear the sight of him, as he is the product of a rape. Powerful, inescapable destiny drama about contained rage and empathy, with strong images enlarging realism into more universal tragedy. Concludes the trilogy started with <strong>Le lit</strong>.

Les noces barbares

Autobiographical documentary consisting entirely of clouds, in which Belgian director Marion Hänsel unleashes her thoughts on motherhood.

Belgian director Marion Hänsel views clouds "as the biggest cinema screen in the world". Her documentary <strong>Nuages, lettres à mon fils</strong> consists entirely of clouds from sunrises to evening mists. A meditative edit depicts all sorts of weather. A voice-over reads letters about motherhood Hänsel wrote for her son.

Nuages, lettres à mon fils

Caroline D’hondt

Accurate portrait of Belgian filmmaker Marion Hänsel (1949): an independent, cosmopolitan spirit IFFR is dedicating a retrospective to.

Striking portrait of Belgian cineaste Marion Hänsel (1949), to whom IFFR is devoting a retrospective. The relationship between characters and their natural surroundings plays an important role in her work, which is often based on novels. Hänsel composes precise images and evokes effective atmospheres through sound and expressive landscapes.

Par-delà les nuages – Le cinéma de Marion Hänsel

A village teacher in the Sahara sets off with his family looking for more fertile land in the south. The journey is  unpredictable and dangerous.

A village teacher in the Sahara decides to set off with his family and his cattle looking for more fertile land in the south. The journey is unpredictable and dangerous and may involve losing more than if he had stayed at home. The emotions largely remain under the surface in lively yet calmly shot scenes.

Si le vent soulève les sables

Divorced Frans and Lisa get in the car to drive to a ski village to pick up their injured son. Surprisingly light road movie on broken love.

Frans and Lisa have already separated for 15 years, so what is it that comes to the surface when they get in the car to drive from Brussels to a ski village deep in the Alps to pick up their injured son? Indifference? Jealousy? Friendship? Surprisingly light road movie on broken love.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025