Olivier Smolders

Let’s be honest, a director, lecturer (at the University of Liège) and professor at the INSAS and ISVK, who is also a tightrope walker, fly-fisher and member of the Zutists (a bunch of poets who know no rules), can only rouse our sympathy. In fact, the entire oeuvre of Olivier Smolders is one big travesty of “cinematographic laziness”. In his films (Novena, Adoration, Seuls, The amateur, Mort à Vignole) and books (Cinéma parlant, Ideas about film, In Praise of Pornography, Paul Nougé, à l’école de la ruse, David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Expérience de la bêtise), Smolders always interlards his thoughts about the moving image with humour and a large amount of surrealism. He will introduce us to his first long feature, Nuit Noire.