Olivier Smolders

A cinematographic “cadavre exquis”, whose entrails reveal the odd nature of a (un)certain Belgian cinema. Authors, directors, actors who have proved that imposture could be an act of creation. Convinced that any so-called “new” cinematographic production was in fact a rehash of what had already been made, these pirates of images snuck as forgers, liars, tricksters, usurpers, … Outlaws of the cinema who falsified its form. From the filmed imposture of Man Bites Dog to Jan Bucquoy’s fabulist biopic, everything participates in the dynamiting of institutional language through simulacrum and absurdity. This free journey in the “cine-belgitude” has for vocation to approach these marvellous eccentrics followers of a overexcited and stripping situationism.

In this short film, Smolders theorizes about the effect of the gaze of strangers on the viewer, particularly in terms of what happens to these models after they have been captured by the image, by the camera.

In a world overtaken by eternal darkness, the buttoned down entomologist abandons his phantoms to embrace the unknown.

In a world overtaken by eternal darkness, the buttoned down entomologist abandons his phantoms to embrace the unknown.

In a world overtaken by eternal darkness, the buttoned down entomologist abandons his phantoms to embrace the unknown.

A young teacher is the victim of a cruel joke. When she enters the classroom, all her pupils are naked, standing near their bench. Their clothes are heaped up on the podium.

A young teacher is the victim of a cruel joke. When she enters the classroom, all her pupils are naked, standing near their bench. Their clothes are heaped up on the podium.

A man accepts a concierge job, which comes with a small apartment, in an old building and, locked inside his lodgings, undertakes a strange job of grieving. He discovers that behind the walls, a system of secret corridors allows tenants to be observed. But is it really the tenants that he is spying on?

A man accepts a concierge job, which comes with a small apartment, in an old building and, locked inside his lodgings, undertakes a strange job of grieving. He discovers that behind the walls, a system of secret corridors allows tenants to be observed. But is it really the tenants that he is spying on?

A small, empty boudoir slowly becomes populated by a series of young women, their still and open expressions gradually engulfing the screen, as a nun narrates an account of religious rapture. Belgian filmmaker Olivier Smolders continues a brilliant exploration of religious ecstasy, figured in and epitomized by the erotic, death-defying gaze of the camera lens, in this sublime black-and-white treatment set to excerpts from the theological writings of Saint Teresa of Avila.

Based on the real life story of Sagawa, a Japanese student who killed, dismembered and ate a young Dutch girl in Paris.

The camera slowly pans through a room as Smolders offers various observations and memories.

The camera slowly pans through a room as Smolders offers various observations and memories.

Mental anguish is all that's present in the film Seuls / Alone (1989). Shot like a grungy medical documentary, Smolders and co-director Thierry Knauff intercut shots of several children at a Belgium psychiatric clinic. The kids are shown with forlorn expressions, twicthing their eyes, sometimes smiling, shaking, jumping, rocking their heads side to side, or smacking their heads with horrific glee against walls. It's a minimalist work that captures the intense monotony of lost and disturbed young minds, and maintains a gritty intensity.

At the end of the 18th century, Florentine artists recreated in wax the bodies laid bare by the surgeon’s scalpel. In a symmetrical gesture, this Little Anatomy dissects the images themselves, performing incisions, grafts, and mise en abyme. From this emerges a people of strange creatures.

At the end of the 18th century, Florentine artists recreated in wax the bodies laid bare by the surgeon’s scalpel. In a symmetrical gesture, this Little Anatomy dissects the images themselves, performing incisions, grafts, and mise en abyme. From this emerges a people of strange creatures.

On vacation in the countryside, a filmmaker thinks about the mourning of his parents. As their faces, and most especially their gaze, fades away, he starts meditating on masks as passages to the afterlife.

On vacation in the countryside, a filmmaker thinks about the mourning of his parents. As their faces, and most especially their gaze, fades away, he starts meditating on masks as passages to the afterlife.

The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.

The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.

Some David Lynch films revisited through plans by Bergman, Lang, Bunuel, Hitchcock, Fellini and a few others: didactic montage directed by Olivier Smolders on a proposal from the ART BLOW UP site, a the occasion of the broadcast of Twin Peaks.

The title (NOVENA in English) refers to the nine days of prayers undertaken in Roman Catholicism as an act of devotion or penitence with the aim of obtaining a state of grace. In Olivier Smolders' brooding, impressively refined short film, realized in black and white with liturgical choral music punctuating its obsessive narrative, a writer retreats into the seclusion and tumultuous memories of his old college. There he assumes a vow of silence mocked by his nearly ceaseless internal monologue and the violent, morbid preoccupations of his mind as he attempts to reconcile the competing forces of the ascetic and the voluptuary. - Robert Avila

Ten films written and directed by Olivier Smolders too freely inspired by the work of Ignace de Loyola

Reflections in a surrealist tone about the art of cinema.

Reflections in a surrealist tone about the art of cinema.

Some footage and shots of expressionless actresses seen in Ravissements are repurposed in La philosophie dans le boudoir / Philosophy in the Boudoir (1991), wherein Smolders takes extracts from the Marquis De Sade’s nutbar text and applies them to scenes of a man in a prison cell, and single or groups of women often standing with the same blank expressions as the man. Perhaps to characterize De Sade’s libertine philosophy and rude text as words and ideas worthy of anyone, Smolders alternates his actors, with several men portraying (presumably) the incarcerated De Sade.