Robbe De Hert

Directing

Robbe De Hert

Born 1942-09-20 · Farnborough, Hampshire, England, UK

Robin François De Hert (20 September 1942 – 24 August 2020) was a Belgian film director.

Acting credits

Adieu Filippi poster
NR

Filippi is a circus clown who lives a double existence: on stage he is successful and beloved, but privately he is consumed by jealousy and emotional fragility. He is in love with Arlette, a trapeze artist, but she prefers his rival Mario. When Filippi attempts to eliminate Mario, the situation spirals into tragedy, leading to Arlette’s death. Unable to cope with guilt, Filippi becomes trapped in a downward spiral of remorse, illusion, and emotional collapse. The story is largely told through flashbacks within the circus environment, blurring reality and memory.

Adieu Filippi

1968

The Enemies poster
5.6

In the freezing winter of 1944, the devastating Battle of the Bulge rages across Belgium. Amid the chaos, an American soldier separated from his unit crosses paths with Richard, a cynical young Belgian boy, and Willy, a wounded German soldier they take as a prisoner.Stranded in a desolate, snowy landscape where survival overrides military allegiance, the three mismatched individuals form a fragile, surreal bond. As they trudge through the war-torn countryside, their basic survival instincts push political ideologies aside.

The Enemies

1968

Paniekzaaiers poster
5.8

Gaston and Leo are active in Antwerp's motorbike brigade. But the two are demoted to simple neighbourhood cops. When they track down a dangerous woman kidnapper and his accomplice, the pair soon find themselves back in favour. Before they can complete their sleuthing, they must escape the attentions of their wives.

Paniekzaaiers

1986

Silent Bruges poster
6.2

Hugues cannot get over the untimely death of his wife Blanche, who made him happy for ten years. He lives alone in his house in Bruges, a city he would like to be dead like his wife. The sorrowful widower has transformed the place he lives in into a shrine dedicated to his beloved wife. One day, he meets Jeanne, a ballet dancer, who looks like Blanche.

Silent Bruges

1981

Springen poster
4.5

Springen (Jumping) is an absurdist comedy set inside 'Sempa Vivax', an exclusive and highly unusual retirement home housed in a castle.The facility caters specifically to wealthy elderly residents, offering them the unique opportunity to fully realize their wildest, final fantasies and unfulfilled dreams. Under the guidance of the home's eccentric staff, the residents engage in bizarre and extravagant activities, which range from reenacting passionate past romances to staging a simulated atomic war for entertainment.The narrative unfolds through the various subplots of these residents as they navigate their surreal daily lives, attempting to escape the realities of old age and mortality through illusion and play. The story explores the chaotic dynamics between the elderly elite, their families, and the staff members who facilitate their increasingly elaborate delusions.

Springen

1986

Pallieter poster
5.3

In this film version of the Dutch-language classic ('heimat'-)novel by Flemish author Felix Timmermans, the title character is a city-boy from Lier who after recovering from a life-threatening disease changes his life completely and his name to the self-invented Pallieter. He moves in with Charlote, a naive, caring relative in the country, where he starts frolicking, no longer caring for image, career or possessions, but concentrates on enjoying life -such as a draftee relative's Brueghelian wedding- and finds love with Marieke. A dark story-line however is when projected work on the river in the name of economical progress threatens the rural landscape they have fallen in love with...

Pallieter

1975

Potemkine 3 poster
9.0

Recovering all of the intertitles of the Battleship Potemkin, Jean-Marie Buchet substitutes for the images of the film various views that he himself shot and which are unrelated to the initial work, thus joining the technique of diversion widely recommended and applied by the Situationists.

Potemkine 3

1974

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film poster
7.0

A documentary celebrating 25 years of flemish subsidised cinema.

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film

1990

Le Filet Américain poster
9.0

The documentary's legacy lies in its unapologetic fusion of agitprop and satire, a signature style of De Hert’s Fugitive Cinema collective. By juxtaposing Mandel’s economic theories with absurd military parades, the film exposes the contradictions of a society preparing for war while its social fabric decays. De Hert employs rapid montage, pop music, and street-level interviews to strip away the facade of state authority.Decades later, Le Filet Américain remains a vital historical document. It captures a specific era of Belgian polarization, marked by economic crises and the rise of the gendarmerie. The metaphor of the meat grinder endures as a powerful critique of how institutional systems compromise individual dignity for corporate profit.

Le Filet Américain

1981

Camera Sutra (or the Pale Faces) poster
10.0

The Herts Camera Sutra or The Palefaces (1973) is a militant and visually fragmented critique of Belgian bourgeois society, blending documentary collage with semi-autobiographical fiction. De Hert attacks the distractions of nationalism, religion, and popular culture while exposing capitalism, social injustice, and postcolonial exploitation. The film’s second half shifts to a disillusioned group of rebellious youths, revealing the uncertainty and emotional paralysis behind revolutionary ideals. Both politically fierce and deeply self-questioning, the film captures the tension between radical ambition and powerlessness.

Camera Sutra (or the Pale Faces)

1973

Koko Flanel poster
6.4

Placide's dad tells him on his deathbed he'll haunt Placide if he doesn't find a wife soon. Placide cautiously agrees, but he only wants to settle for a very beautiful woman. That might be easier said than done, since he is a vagabond. When he accidentally enters a photo shoot, Placide meets Sarah. He falls in love, but she is way out of his reach.

Koko Flanel

1990

Misstakes poster
7.0

André Mahy, an artistic but unemployed director, gets an offer to make a movie, the script of which appears to be a 'Kiekeboe' comic story entitled Misstakes. A fascinating dialogue develops between the fictional story of the family Kiekeboe and the real story of André Mahy and his film crew.

Misstakes

2000

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Golgotha poster
10.0

Short animation film about the crusade of a Hebrew figure who is looking for somewhere to lay down his cross.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Golgotha

1967

19 december poster
7.0

A short war film

19 december

1965

No artwork available
8.0

This historical costume drama is a mini-series on the life of Flemish first-rate Baroque painter Pieter Pauwel Rubens (1577-1640), whose artistic success throughout Europe not only made him a fortune allowing him to stock his Antwerp residence ('Rubenshuis' in Dutch) and a castle at Elewijt, in the countryside nearer Brussels, with numerous fashionable treasures, but also became an ennobled diplomat for the Spanish Hapsburg rulers of the Southern Low Countries (now Belgium), who often traveled, for painting commissions and/or diplomatic missions, to and worked in Italy, France, Spain, all Catholic powers, as well as protestant England and the United Provinces (mainly Holland), also allowing him to meet other prominent contemporaries such as artists. It further covers his marriages to Isabella Brandt and Hélène Fourment.

Rubens, schilder en diplomaat

1977

Hollywood on the river Scheldt poster
7.0

Overview of the history of cinema in Flanders.

Hollywood on the river Scheldt

2018

Gejaagd door de winst (of het A.B.C. van de moderne samenleving) poster
10.0

A three independent parts sci-fi drama. In the first, entitled The Bomb, a story of a garage mechanic is told who finds an atomic bomb by accident. The second part, entitled The Last Judgment, deals with the consequences of a military convoy carrying biological weapons going mad. In the third part, entitled Experts Of Evil, there is an accident at a chemical plant when a,pressurized container with dioxin explodes resulting in leakage.

Gejaagd door de winst (of het A.B.C. van de moderne samenleving)

1977

Behind the camera

Brylcream Boulevard poster
9.0

In this sequel to Blueberry Hill, the boys of the Catholic metal working-class, who are now all working, decide to take revenge on the hated former principal Verbiest, after the sanctimonious 'pillar of society' assaulted one of their girls.

Brylcream Boulevard

1995

De Bom (of het wanhoopskomitee) poster
NR

One day a garage owner finds an atomic bomb that has been lost by an airplane. He hides the bomb and shakes the country when he announces that he will not return the bomb until the production of such weapons of destruction is stopped.

De Bom (of het wanhoopskomitee)

1969

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film poster
7.0

A documentary celebrating 25 years of flemish subsidised cinema.

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film

1990

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film poster
7.0

A documentary celebrating 25 years of flemish subsidised cinema.

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film

1990

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film poster
7.0

A documentary celebrating 25 years of flemish subsidised cinema.

Janssen & Janssens draaien een film

1990

Le Filet Américain poster
9.0

The documentary's legacy lies in its unapologetic fusion of agitprop and satire, a signature style of De Hert’s Fugitive Cinema collective. By juxtaposing Mandel’s economic theories with absurd military parades, the film exposes the contradictions of a society preparing for war while its social fabric decays. De Hert employs rapid montage, pop music, and street-level interviews to strip away the facade of state authority.Decades later, Le Filet Américain remains a vital historical document. It captures a specific era of Belgian polarization, marked by economic crises and the rise of the gendarmerie. The metaphor of the meat grinder endures as a powerful critique of how institutional systems compromise individual dignity for corporate profit.

Le Filet Américain

1981

Le Filet Américain poster
9.0

The documentary's legacy lies in its unapologetic fusion of agitprop and satire, a signature style of De Hert’s Fugitive Cinema collective. By juxtaposing Mandel’s economic theories with absurd military parades, the film exposes the contradictions of a society preparing for war while its social fabric decays. De Hert employs rapid montage, pop music, and street-level interviews to strip away the facade of state authority.Decades later, Le Filet Américain remains a vital historical document. It captures a specific era of Belgian polarization, marked by economic crises and the rise of the gendarmerie. The metaphor of the meat grinder endures as a powerful critique of how institutional systems compromise individual dignity for corporate profit.

Le Filet Américain

1981

Camera Sutra (or the Pale Faces) poster
10.0

The Herts Camera Sutra or The Palefaces (1973) is a militant and visually fragmented critique of Belgian bourgeois society, blending documentary collage with semi-autobiographical fiction. De Hert attacks the distractions of nationalism, religion, and popular culture while exposing capitalism, social injustice, and postcolonial exploitation. The film’s second half shifts to a disillusioned group of rebellious youths, revealing the uncertainty and emotional paralysis behind revolutionary ideals. Both politically fierce and deeply self-questioning, the film captures the tension between radical ambition and powerlessness.

Camera Sutra (or the Pale Faces)

1973

Camera Sutra (or the Pale Faces) poster
10.0

The Herts Camera Sutra or The Palefaces (1973) is a militant and visually fragmented critique of Belgian bourgeois society, blending documentary collage with semi-autobiographical fiction. De Hert attacks the distractions of nationalism, religion, and popular culture while exposing capitalism, social injustice, and postcolonial exploitation. The film’s second half shifts to a disillusioned group of rebellious youths, revealing the uncertainty and emotional paralysis behind revolutionary ideals. Both politically fierce and deeply self-questioning, the film captures the tension between radical ambition and powerlessness.

Camera Sutra (or the Pale Faces)

1973

De Dokstaking (Dokstaking '73) poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

De Dokstaking (Dokstaking '73)

1975

Henri Storck, ooggetuige poster
9.0

Robbe de Hert’s Henri Storck, ooggetuige (1986) is a brilliant cinematic homage to the founding father of Belgian documentary cinema. Filmed around Storck’s 80th birthday, the film eschews standard biographical formulas. Instead, De Hert crafts an intelligent, vibrant collage that synthesizes rare archival footage with intimate anecdotes told by Storck himself.The documentary excels at tracing Storck’s evolution from an Ostend avant-garde poet to a fierce social activist. De Hert’s signature rebellious tone shines through in bold creative choices, such as overlaying John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" onto the silent, gritty footage of Misère au Borinage (1933). This creates a powerful bridge between 1930s labor struggles and modern social critique

Henri Storck, ooggetuige

1986

Henri Storck, ooggetuige poster
9.0

Robbe de Hert’s Henri Storck, ooggetuige (1986) is a brilliant cinematic homage to the founding father of Belgian documentary cinema. Filmed around Storck’s 80th birthday, the film eschews standard biographical formulas. Instead, De Hert crafts an intelligent, vibrant collage that synthesizes rare archival footage with intimate anecdotes told by Storck himself.The documentary excels at tracing Storck’s evolution from an Ostend avant-garde poet to a fierce social activist. De Hert’s signature rebellious tone shines through in bold creative choices, such as overlaying John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" onto the silent, gritty footage of Misère au Borinage (1933). This creates a powerful bridge between 1930s labor struggles and modern social critique

Henri Storck, ooggetuige

1986

De droomproducenten poster
10.0

Documentary exploring why Belgian television doesn't invest more money in Belgian cinema as is the case in e.g. the netherlands.

De droomproducenten

1984

Zware jongens poster
5.7

Gaston grew up on the fringes of society and interacts with other people as little as possible. Leo, on the other hand, is a very bourgeois person. He lives way above his station, but has a heart of gold. Using forged cheques and unsecured credit cards, he tries to keep up appearances. By a coincidence, Gaston's fate is linked to Leo's.

Zware jongens

1984

Zware jongens poster
5.7

Gaston grew up on the fringes of society and interacts with other people as little as possible. Leo, on the other hand, is a very bourgeois person. He lives way above his station, but has a heart of gold. Using forged cheques and unsecured credit cards, he tries to keep up appearances. By a coincidence, Gaston's fate is linked to Leo's.

Zware jongens

1984

Elixir d'Anvers poster
9.0

Six young filmmakers were each given the chance to shoot a short on a common theme. Combined, their efforts result in a feature. The idea is to tell an alternative history of Antwerp, based on tall stories, rumors and events.

Elixir d'Anvers

1996

Trouble in Paradise poster
NR

In the harbor of Rotterdam, an action group called "Redpeace" discovers illegal weapon transports. Those are executed by shipping-trade Kusters Shipping Company. The discovery is annoying for Ann Kusters, the wife of Erik Kusters. She functions as a translator with the European parliament. It gets even worse when Ann is discovered and photographed while she's having an intimate rendez-vous with a french politician, whose investigating the illegal weapon transports. Short after, the man is found dead...

Trouble in Paradise

1989

Trouble in Paradise poster
NR

In the harbor of Rotterdam, an action group called "Redpeace" discovers illegal weapon transports. Those are executed by shipping-trade Kusters Shipping Company. The discovery is annoying for Ann Kusters, the wife of Erik Kusters. She functions as a translator with the European parliament. It gets even worse when Ann is discovered and photographed while she's having an intimate rendez-vous with a french politician, whose investigating the illegal weapon transports. Short after, the man is found dead...

Trouble in Paradise

1989

Trouble in Paradise poster
NR

In the harbor of Rotterdam, an action group called "Redpeace" discovers illegal weapon transports. Those are executed by shipping-trade Kusters Shipping Company. The discovery is annoying for Ann Kusters, the wife of Erik Kusters. She functions as a translator with the European parliament. It gets even worse when Ann is discovered and photographed while she's having an intimate rendez-vous with a french politician, whose investigating the illegal weapon transports. Short after, the man is found dead...

Trouble in Paradise

1989

Blueberry Hill poster
6.6

Antwerp in the fifties. Robin de Hert grew up in a Catholic parochial environment; on the one hand there is his authoritarian father and the sadistic secretary of the Catholic boys technical school, on the other hand there are the 'Grieten' and the French teacher with whom Robin is getting a good band through a secret they share. If the secretary finds out about this secret, this has major implications for both the teacher and the students ...

Blueberry Hill

1989

Blueberry Hill poster
6.6

Antwerp in the fifties. Robin de Hert grew up in a Catholic parochial environment; on the one hand there is his authoritarian father and the sadistic secretary of the Catholic boys technical school, on the other hand there are the 'Grieten' and the French teacher with whom Robin is getting a good band through a secret they share. If the secretary finds out about this secret, this has major implications for both the teacher and the students ...

Blueberry Hill

1989

Lijmen/Het been poster
7.0

Story of two con men, Boorman and his younger assistant Laarmans, who are trying to sell companies their non-existing magazine.

Lijmen/Het been

2000

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Golgotha poster
10.0

Short animation film about the crusade of a Hebrew figure who is looking for somewhere to lay down his cross.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Golgotha

1967

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Golgotha poster
10.0

Short animation film about the crusade of a Hebrew figure who is looking for somewhere to lay down his cross.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Golgotha

1967