Robby Müller Award screening: Here

In Brussels, Stefan, a young Romanian construction worker, is preparing to drive home for the upcoming summer holiday. As a migrant from the other side of Europe, Stefan feels displaced in Belgium and is unsure whether he'll return. He reminds himself that his nondescript apartment is 'home' and in a vague attempt to connect to his environment he wanders the streets at night. Then, a chance encounter with ShuXiu, a university professor who researches the mosses that grow in the region, takes him on a sublime detour from his homeward journey.

Director Bas Devos delivers a wonderfully mindful film – a meditation on the benefit and pleasure of locating the self in the immediate present. As Stefan and ShuXiu explore lush green spaces that are encroached on by the urgency of modern urbanity, the machines in the garden are silenced and the profound beauty of the persistence of nature comes into sharp focus. This momentary reprieve from the turbulence of future-obsessed thinking allows Stefan to experience the now – and is a quiet reminder that, no matter where we find ourselves, we are always here.

– Nicholas Davies 

Here is presented as a one-off screening, celebrating the 2024 Robby Müller Award winner Grimm Vandekerckhove, the cinematographer of this latest film by Bas Devos.

Grimm Vandekerckhove will join us in Rotterdam for a Talk on Saturday 27 January.