Rob Rombout

Lost in the Atlantic, the Azores have kept an identity of their own: sea and volcanic mountains, lush vegetation and fields of black lava, a light that changes from one moment to the next. Teresa Salgueiro, the singer of Madredeus, and Pedro Ayres Magalhães, the composer, travel from island to island and find the mixed origins of their music, traces of an imaginary Portugal: traditions that have vanished on the mainland live on here. A landscape, the words of an old man, a village feast call up their songs. Teresa’s voice, with a single guitar, rises on the shore of a still lake. “Madredeus is an isolated case,” says Pedro, “a little like the Azores, lost in the ocean.”

Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) served as a diplomat, collected Chinese lutes and invented Judge Dee, yet his own country barely remembers him. Rob Rombout travels from the Netherlands to Indonesia, Japan, the United States and China, through diaries, archives and the people van Gulik still haunts. Somewhere between biography and detective story, the man and his hero merge.

Fifteen towns in North America bear the name of the Dutch capital. From east to west, from New York, once Nieuw Amsterdam, to California, Rogier van Eck and Rob Rombout, two filmmakers of Dutch descent, link them by following that one name. Like an open sesame, it opens up small-town America, its reality and its imagination: sheriffs, poets, cowboys, a Vietnam DJ, a civil-rights veteran. An unfamiliar, intimate, sometimes strange America, in which the filmmakers are protagonists among others. Six hours, in four chapters: East, South, Midwest, West.

Two towers stand a few kilometres apart near the Belgian-Dutch border. At Brunssum is AFCENT, NATO's command for Central Europe since 1967, which took over Charlemagne's arms and motto; its spokesman is Ed Frieser. At Eben-Emael stands the Eben-Ezer tower, foretold by the prophet Hermas, whose builder Garcet preaches a mystical pacifism: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” A written monologue sets the two towers face to face, though neither hears the other.

Canton is said to be the most Chinese of cities: eight million people, a city running wild, where the past disappears under concrete and tarmac. Rob Rombout and the video artist Robert Cahen follow five people caught between two cultures, two systems, two ideas of art. A window, a photograph, a painting or a foreign language always stands between them and the city. The film asks what it means to be in China and, at the same time, not to be there.

In 1896 Georges Nagelmackers launched the Nord Express from Paris to St Petersburg. In 1990 the film rides the 47 hours from Paris to Moscow, in a time of upheaval: in Paris railwaymen lay the new TGV lines, in Berlin the Wall is crumbling, and at Brest, on the Soviet border, the carriages are moved onto broad-gauge bogies. Galina, the sleeping-car attendant, makes tea. In the corridor Theodore, a student, looks out over the curtain. In West Berlin the painter Ben Wagin doubts we will ever go any faster.

Lost in the Atlantic, the Azores have kept an identity of their own: sea and volcanic mountains, lush vegetation and fields of black lava, a light that changes from one moment to the next. Teresa Salgueiro, the singer of Madredeus, and Pedro Ayres Magalhães, the composer, travel from island to island and find the mixed origins of their music, traces of an imaginary Portugal: traditions that have vanished on the mainland live on here. A landscape, the words of an old man, a village feast call up their songs. Teresa’s voice, with a single guitar, rises on the shore of a still lake. “Madredeus is an isolated case,” says Pedro, “a little like the Azores, lost in the ocean.”

Lost in the Atlantic, the Azores have kept an identity of their own: sea and volcanic mountains, lush vegetation and fields of black lava, a light that changes from one moment to the next. Teresa Salgueiro, the singer of Madredeus, and Pedro Ayres Magalhães, the composer, travel from island to island and find the mixed origins of their music, traces of an imaginary Portugal: traditions that have vanished on the mainland live on here. A landscape, the words of an old man, a village feast call up their songs. Teresa’s voice, with a single guitar, rises on the shore of a still lake. “Madredeus is an isolated case,” says Pedro, “a little like the Azores, lost in the ocean.”

Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) served as a diplomat, collected Chinese lutes and invented Judge Dee, yet his own country barely remembers him. Rob Rombout travels from the Netherlands to Indonesia, Japan, the United States and China, through diaries, archives and the people van Gulik still haunts. Somewhere between biography and detective story, the man and his hero merge.

Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) served as a diplomat, collected Chinese lutes and invented Judge Dee, yet his own country barely remembers him. Rob Rombout travels from the Netherlands to Indonesia, Japan, the United States and China, through diaries, archives and the people van Gulik still haunts. Somewhere between biography and detective story, the man and his hero merge.

Fifteen towns in North America bear the name of the Dutch capital. From east to west, from New York, once Nieuw Amsterdam, to California, Rogier van Eck and Rob Rombout, two filmmakers of Dutch descent, link them by following that one name. Like an open sesame, it opens up small-town America, its reality and its imagination: sheriffs, poets, cowboys, a Vietnam DJ, a civil-rights veteran. An unfamiliar, intimate, sometimes strange America, in which the filmmakers are protagonists among others. Six hours, in four chapters: East, South, Midwest, West.

Fifteen towns in North America bear the name of the Dutch capital. From east to west, from New York, once Nieuw Amsterdam, to California, Rogier van Eck and Rob Rombout, two filmmakers of Dutch descent, link them by following that one name. Like an open sesame, it opens up small-town America, its reality and its imagination: sheriffs, poets, cowboys, a Vietnam DJ, a civil-rights veteran. An unfamiliar, intimate, sometimes strange America, in which the filmmakers are protagonists among others. Six hours, in four chapters: East, South, Midwest, West.

Two towers stand a few kilometres apart near the Belgian-Dutch border. At Brunssum is AFCENT, NATO's command for Central Europe since 1967, which took over Charlemagne's arms and motto; its spokesman is Ed Frieser. At Eben-Emael stands the Eben-Ezer tower, foretold by the prophet Hermas, whose builder Garcet preaches a mystical pacifism: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” A written monologue sets the two towers face to face, though neither hears the other.

Two towers stand a few kilometres apart near the Belgian-Dutch border. At Brunssum is AFCENT, NATO's command for Central Europe since 1967, which took over Charlemagne's arms and motto; its spokesman is Ed Frieser. At Eben-Emael stands the Eben-Ezer tower, foretold by the prophet Hermas, whose builder Garcet preaches a mystical pacifism: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” A written monologue sets the two towers face to face, though neither hears the other.

Canton is said to be the most Chinese of cities: eight million people, a city running wild, where the past disappears under concrete and tarmac. Rob Rombout and the video artist Robert Cahen follow five people caught between two cultures, two systems, two ideas of art. A window, a photograph, a painting or a foreign language always stands between them and the city. The film asks what it means to be in China and, at the same time, not to be there.

In 1896 Georges Nagelmackers launched the Nord Express from Paris to St Petersburg. In 1990 the film rides the 47 hours from Paris to Moscow, in a time of upheaval: in Paris railwaymen lay the new TGV lines, in Berlin the Wall is crumbling, and at Brest, on the Soviet border, the carriages are moved onto broad-gauge bogies. Galina, the sleeping-car attendant, makes tea. In the corridor Theodore, a student, looks out over the curtain. In West Berlin the painter Ben Wagin doubts we will ever go any faster.

In 1896 Georges Nagelmackers launched the Nord Express from Paris to St Petersburg. In 1990 the film rides the 47 hours from Paris to Moscow, in a time of upheaval: in Paris railwaymen lay the new TGV lines, in Berlin the Wall is crumbling, and at Brest, on the Soviet border, the carriages are moved onto broad-gauge bogies. Galina, the sleeping-car attendant, makes tea. In the corridor Theodore, a student, looks out over the curtain. In West Berlin the painter Ben Wagin doubts we will ever go any faster.

The Queen Elizabeth 2 made her first crossing to New York in 1969. In 1992 she is the last ocean liner on the Atlantic, no longer a means of transport but a floating town of 1,500 passengers. A crew of 1,200, among them Captain Warwick, keeps her running day and night. From Southampton to New York, nearly 3,000 people live together for five days in a kind of complicity: first the unpredictable ocean, then New York, far away like a New World.

The Queen Elizabeth 2 made her first crossing to New York in 1969. In 1992 she is the last ocean liner on the Atlantic, no longer a means of transport but a floating town of 1,500 passengers. A crew of 1,200, among them Captain Warwick, keeps her running day and night. From Southampton to New York, nearly 3,000 people live together for five days in a kind of complicity: first the unpredictable ocean, then New York, far away like a New World.

In the North Sea some sixty thousand people live offshore. On the F.G. McClintock drilling rig, eighty men and one woman work around the clock in search of black gold, while a stand-by vessel circles them for their safety. In such a closed space, facing the wild sea, there is little room to say how one feels. “The noise is everywhere, you can’t get away from it,” says Brian Spencer, the toolpusher. After Nord Express and the Queen Elizabeth 2, Rob Rombout films another small society behind closed doors.

In the North Sea some sixty thousand people live offshore. On the F.G. McClintock drilling rig, eighty men and one woman work around the clock in search of black gold, while a stand-by vessel circles them for their safety. In such a closed space, facing the wild sea, there is little room to say how one feels. “The noise is everywhere, you can’t get away from it,” says Brian Spencer, the toolpusher. After Nord Express and the Queen Elizabeth 2, Rob Rombout films another small society behind closed doors.

Four centuries ago Willem Barentsz sailed north and Cornelis de Houtman sailed south from Amsterdam, opening the way to two islands that bear the city's name, in Spitsbergen and in the southern Indian Ocean. Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck, both with their roots in Amsterdam, follow their tracks. Their expedition is of another kind, but their doubts measure up to the daring of those navigators. Between the polar ice and the southern wind, the city comes into view as a triptych.

Four centuries ago Willem Barentsz sailed north and Cornelis de Houtman sailed south from Amsterdam, opening the way to two islands that bear the city's name, in Spitsbergen and in the southern Indian Ocean. Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck, both with their roots in Amsterdam, follow their tracks. Their expedition is of another kind, but their doubts measure up to the daring of those navigators. Between the polar ice and the southern wind, the city comes into view as a triptych.

Four centuries ago Willem Barentsz sailed north and Cornelis de Houtman sailed south from Amsterdam, opening the way to two islands that bear the city's name, in Spitsbergen and in the southern Indian Ocean. Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck, both with their roots in Amsterdam, follow their tracks. Their expedition is of another kind, but their doubts measure up to the daring of those navigators. Between the polar ice and the southern wind, the city comes into view as a triptych.

In Perm, an isolated city in the snowbound Urals, a festival named after Robert Flaherty, Flahertiana, brings together some forty Russian directors to take stock of documentary cinema. The debates are heated, at minus twenty-five degrees, and between the interviews their own films answer back. Rob Rombout is the only foreign filmmaker at this “international” festival. He is on a special Perm-mission.

In Perm, an isolated city in the snowbound Urals, a festival named after Robert Flaherty, Flahertiana, brings together some forty Russian directors to take stock of documentary cinema. The debates are heated, at minus twenty-five degrees, and between the interviews their own films answer back. Rob Rombout is the only foreign filmmaker at this “international” festival. He is on a special Perm-mission.

In 1772 the navigator Yves de Kerguelen came upon an archipelago in the far south of the Indian Ocean. “These isles are a fearsome trap,” he wrote in his log; all he left there were the few cats he had on board. Two centuries later the scientists of the Popchat mission land on Kerguelen to trap the cats, which have gone wild, and to see how they have adapted to the freezing climate. But who is observing whom?

Rob Rombout crosses Alsace by train, a stranger passing through, and talks with the people he meets, among them Sylvie Levy, Philippe Poirier, Ibtissam Mellouki and Daniel Ziegler, about things that seem to have nothing to do with regional identity. In a compartment nobody knows anyone; all they share is the same train at the same time. Listening, looking out of the window, moving on: from their stories the film draws a portrait of a region, shared for a moment with strangers.

In 1998 Carnival, the largest cruise company in the world, bought the Cunard Line. A few people inside it dared to propose a new liner in the Cunard tradition, for an American market always looking for something new: the longest, largest and most expensive ship ever built. Micky Arison, the architect Stephen Payne, the interior designer Andrew Collier and Commodore Ronald W. Warwick take up the challenge, and at Saint-Nazaire the Queen Mary 2 takes shape.

In 1998 Carnival, the largest cruise company in the world, bought the Cunard Line. A few people inside it dared to propose a new liner in the Cunard tradition, for an American market always looking for something new: the longest, largest and most expensive ship ever built. Micky Arison, the architect Stephen Payne, the interior designer Andrew Collier and Commodore Ronald W. Warwick take up the challenge, and at Saint-Nazaire the Queen Mary 2 takes shape.

Roger Vandermeiren is a union delegate at Monsanto, a factory near Antwerp. When he defends a colleague accused of stealing documents, he is dismissed. A seven-week strike does not save his job. During six months of legal proceedings he goes on working as a delegate from a caravan at the factory gate, until a court confirms his dismissal. The film follows the case step by step, with library footage and his own account.

Roger Vandermeiren is a union delegate at Monsanto, a factory near Antwerp. When he defends a colleague accused of stealing documents, he is dismissed. A seven-week strike does not save his job. During six months of legal proceedings he goes on working as a delegate from a caravan at the factory gate, until a court confirms his dismissal. The film follows the case step by step, with library footage and his own account.

Noël N’Tunda is forty-two. Born in Rwanda, he has lived in Belgium since he was twelve, on a welfare allowance that is just enough to live on. His days are all alike: chance meetings in bars, appointments with social workers. Noël shows the places he passes every day and tells of those that shaped his life, and Rob Rombout follows him with direct questions. Noël answers with humour: “There is an ocean between what I expected from life and what I have become.” The film moves between past and present. And also: “If I could afford it… I would go swimming.”

Noël N’Tunda is forty-two. Born in Rwanda, he has lived in Belgium since he was twelve, on a welfare allowance that is just enough to live on. His days are all alike: chance meetings in bars, appointments with social workers. Noël shows the places he passes every day and tells of those that shaped his life, and Rob Rombout follows him with direct questions. Noël answers with humour: “There is an ocean between what I expected from life and what I have become.” The film moves between past and present. And also: “If I could afford it… I would go swimming.”

A parody of a television panel discussion, made as a student film at the RITCS in Brussels. In the studio, three experts debate the punk phenomenon. Jef, a punk, is invited to speak from experience. One expert, Dr John Pusher, author of “How Paradise Was Lost”, develops his theory live and reaches his conclusion: where crisis rises, punk rises. In his words: “Puncrises.”

A parody of a television panel discussion, made as a student film at the RITCS in Brussels. In the studio, three experts debate the punk phenomenon. Jef, a punk, is invited to speak from experience. One expert, Dr John Pusher, author of “How Paradise Was Lost”, develops his theory live and reaches his conclusion: where crisis rises, punk rises. In his words: “Puncrises.”