Barely a kilometre off the Belgian coast, 35,000 tons of chemical munitions are buried at the bottom of the sea. The scraps of yesterday’s wars are secreting toxic gases today and the film explores the effects this will have – from fishing boats to delicatessen counters. An ominous droning lies over the impressive images of already dubious production processes. The shrimp end up in fish cakes. The seagulls lament the calamity. The people are at a loss.

A place in Ghent, watched by the flightless and garrulous pigeon Lukaku. Living in a particularly close relationship with its owner, Francesco D’Amico, he gains insights into the human grotesque. Director Annelein Pompe lets him talk, introduce us to the world of pigeon breeding and reveal the thoughts of a few persons who retain small, hidden refuges in the mundane daily business.

“I look behind things,” says Lukaku. Neck twisted so that he sees the world upside down, strange things are revealed. He guides us through a Flemish microcosm that tells of a honey shop as well as a kiosk. Usman, a Pakistani pigeon lover, works in the latter. He is his own boss, unlike the “Dutch good-for-nothing” of the honey shop who is harassed by surveillance cameras and must fear for his job. Annelein Pompe creates a modern fable that tells of people’s attachment to their ordinary existence – but also of those invisible moments when spirit and body drift apart, when dreams and poetry begin. Pompe intertwines this human talent for shadow work with the fascination for pigeons, which always return to their owners and yet live in freedom.