De Cinema actively explores and celebrates the global contemporary film landscape. In our CINEMA NOW-series, we collect those titles that challenged or moved us most: new films that dare to defy cinematic boundaries and narrative structures as we know them. CINEMA NOW highlights remarkable debut features as well as the latest films from renowned directors. But most importantly, it highlights those gems that received little to no media attention or were not released in Belgium in the first place.

HIGHLIGHTS

Óscar once dreamed of a life as a poet. Fame never came, but his obsession with poetry never faded. Older, bitter and unpredictable, he clings to the memory of a career that never truly took off. UN POETA is Simón Mesa Soto’s most personal film. After his feature debut, he considered giving up filmmaking. He imagined himself at fifty, working as a teacher and looking back on a failed artistic life. Instead of making his protagonist a filmmaker, he chose a poet: an even more utopian figure, according to Mesa Soto.

In her stunning debut film BLUE HERON, Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker Sophy Romvari takes a kaleidoscopic and tender look at the childhood of eight-year-old Sasha, whose family migrated from Hungary to Canada. Their fresh start, however, is disrupted by the increasingly dangerous behaviour of Jeremy, her eldest brother.

When in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA young director Kris (Hannah Einbinder) gets the chance to reboot the iconic ’80s slasher franchise Camp Miasma, she travels to the dilapidated summer camp from the original film. There, she meets the original ‘final girl’ Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), who lives there as a stylish recluse. As the two watch the old film reels together, a sultry, sensual dynamic develops, and the boundary between film fantasy and reality begins to blur in a hypnotic fashion.