Gerard-Jan Claes

Up, In, Out, Down, Gerard-Jan Claes, 2026 “A good story can be told in a few sentences,” it says in the newspaper. In other words, a good story has a core that’s so clear and distinct that it can be summarized concisely without detracting fro...

For Sabzian, I wrote about the now second-to-last Hong, What Does That Nature Say to You? (2025)

Up, In, Out, Down, Gerard-Jan Claes, 2026 “A good story can be told in a few sentences,” it says in the newspaper. In other words, a good story has a core that’s so clear and distinct that it can be summarized concisely without detracting fro...

New text: Gerard-Jan Claes / @gerardjanclaes.bsky.social on Hong Sangsoo’s What Does That Nature Say to You? (2025)

Actor Ahmed Ahmedpoor, known for his role as Mohamed Reza Nematzadeh in Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House (1987), passed away last Thursday at the age of 46. ❤️

“And by beauty, I mean the tendency to bring about a state or a development that arises from that which is chosen.” – Frans van de Staak

Een nieuwe Sabzian publicatie: 𝘞𝘏𝘖 𝘐𝘚 𝘔𝘌: 𝘋𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘷𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘴, geschreven door Pasolini in New York tijdens een bezoek aan het NYFF in 1966.
Nu beschikbaar via de Sabzian website en in de Passa Portabookshop.
→ sabzian.be/publication/who-is-me-dichter-van-de-as

Last Thursday at De Cinema, a beautiful screening of Nicolas Philibert’s Être et avoir. Still on Sabzian, two wonderful texts by him:
→ sabzian.be/text/i-never-decided-to-become-a-documentary-filmmaker%E2%80%A6
→ sabzian.be/text/en-sortant-de-l%E2%80%99%C3%A9cole

Tonight, the Frans van de Staak retrospective kicks off at CINEMATEK, in collaboration with Sabzian.
→ sabzian.be/event/frans-van-de-staak-retrospective

Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, still available to watch for free for a few more days on mk2curiosity.
→ mk2curiosity.com/pages/le-film-de-la-semaine

A Citizen of the World, Arta Barzanji, Gerard-Jan Claes, 2025 Just months before his death, in response to a question of Régis Debray about the images “that looked at you when you were a child”, Daney was unequivocal: “the first image that counted for me, almost...

“Cinema is a promise to be one day a citizen of the world.” – Serge Daney

Read the introduction to our new issue on Daney’s cinephilic internationalism, by Arta Barzanji and @gerardjanclaes.bsky.social

This issue was compiled by Arta Barzanji and Gerard-Jan Claes (@gerardjanclaes.bsky.social), and appears in conjunction with an eponymous film programma at ICA London, starting at the end of August!
→ ica.art/serge-daney

Serge Daney and the Promise of Cinema Serge Daney (1944–1992) remains one of the 20th century’s most influential film critics. As a country that was “still missing” from his map, cinema embodied a deeply felt promise of universality for D...

New issue on Sabzian!
Serge Daney and the Promise of Cinema

With contributions by Pierre Eugène, Mónica Delgado, Mohammad Reza Amiri, Emmanuel Burdeau, Christine Pichini, Jun Fujita Hirose, Daniel Fairfax, and a new Daney translation.

Fifty years ago today – 22 May 1975 – ‘Jeanne Dielman’ had its world premiere in Cannes.

See You Later, Sweet Form, Gerard-Jan Claes, 2024 Van der Keuken makes a world exist, he creates a reality. Describing then is not representing something that already exists but rather realising “a” reality. By creating forms, he creates a world of t...

My longer text about the work of Johan van der Keuken, taking the “sweet form” of Herman Slobbe as its starting point, is now also available in English on @sabzian.bsky.social.

“This is May 4th.” – Jonas Mekas

“Hong Sangsoo Works like a Painter Composing His Palette”, Jean-Michel Frodon, 2025 After In Another Country [2012], shaped day by day in Korea, and Claire’s Camera [2017], filmed in Cannes as if in a dream, Isabelle Huppert reunites with Hong Sangsoo for A Traveler’s Needs, winner o...

Very glad to have translated Jean-Michel Frodon’s wonderful interview with Isabelle Huppert on her work with Hong.

www.interviewmagazine.com/film/david-cronenberg-by-jim-jarmusch

“At the end of the day, making movies is all about sunlight.” - Pasolini

A Visit to the Factory, Gerard-Jan Claes, 2025 Jean Baudrillard described obscenity as an excess of visibility, an excess of transparency in which nothing more is suggested or concealed, where there’s no room for seduction as a game of distance an...

“Caught in the construction of his own realism, everything remains coloured by an impossible probability. Above all, Cooper seems intent on defusing the fiction itself.”

@gerardjanclaes.bsky.social on Bradley Cooper's Maestro (2023)

Mirror of Life, a Ten-Film Manoel de Oliveira Retrospective, Comes to BAM on March 28 98% of interviews follow the same pleasantries-exchange / question-and-answer / pleasantries-exchange format, yet there are those rare times an incredible opportunity arrives. Which is to say that whe...

Mirror of Life, a ten-film Manoel de Oliveira retrospective featuring the North American premiere of numerous restorations, begins at BAM on March 28.

Katharine Hepburn on the set of George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), in the spotlight and dramatically framed by silhouettes of crew members and equipment

A Katharine Hepburn series curated by Molly Haskell, plus: Prewar Naruse, Nordic noir, Lewis Milestone, music docs, Willi Forst, a 1925 sampler …

Preview of this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato ! festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/aspettand...

For more Van der Keuken, be sure to check out the Issue on Sabzian with texts by JvdK himself, and the Collection with an overview of the texts about the work of JvdK, as well as a complete annotated filmography.
→ sabzian.be/issue/between-head-and-hands
→ sabzian.be/collection/work-in-progress

The screening of De grote vakantie [The Long Holiday] (2000) yesterday marked the end of the Johan van der Keuken retrospective in Brussels, jointly organized by @sabzian.bsky.social and @cinematek.bsky.social. Thank you to all the audience members who have followed the program since November!

« Les drogues nous ennuient avec leur paradis.
Qu’elles nous donnent plutôt un peu de savoir. »
Henri Michaux, Connaissance par les gouffres

I never knew Paulo Rocha worked as an assistant to Renoir

I am looking for the origin of this quote by Jean Grémillon: “Who could fail to sense the greatness of this art, in which the visible is the sign of the invisible?” Anyone have an idea where I could find it?

New online release on Avila: JE, TU, IL, ELLE (1974) by Chantal Akerman
→ avilafilm.be/en/film/je-tu-il-elle-0

→ www.cinemateca.pt/Cinemateca/Noticias/Lancamento-de-novo-volume-das-folhas-de-Cinematec.aspx