Film Archive

Filmstill Tales from the Source

Tales from the Source

Tales from the Source
Léonard Pongo
International Competition Documentary Film 2024
Documentary Film
Belgium
2024
39 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None
For ten years, Belgian photographer and artist Léonard Pongo has been documenting the landscapes of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In his latest work, he enters into a sensual dialogue with them. The precise camera often focuses on light reflections that literally draw us into the moving images, while at the same time revealing the cinematographic apparatus behind them. In combination with the elaborate sound design and the restrained, beautiful music of “Bear Bones, Lay Low”, the solo project of the Belgium-based Venezuelan Ernesto González, the portrait of a landscape emerges which the captivating montage composition turns into a visual, auditive and meditative pleasure.
Nonetheless, “Tales from the Source” is not a traditional “nature film” but an aesthetic positioning inspired by Congolese traditions, art and philosophy which – as the artist himself emphasises – represents the Congolese landscape “as a source rather than a resource.” The result is best described as an experience rather than a representation.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Léonard Pongo
Script
Léonard Pongo
Cinematographer
Léonard Pongo
Editor
Léonard Pongo, Fairuz Ghammam
Producer
Marie Logie, Auguste Orts
Co-Producer
Twenty Nine Studio & Production
Sound
Cédrick Mbongo Mbulu, Léonard Pongo
Sound Design
Laszlo Umbreit
Score
Bear Bones, Lay Low
World Sales
Auguste Orts
Nominated for: Silver Dove
Filmstill We Had Fun Yesterday

We Had Fun Yesterday

We Had Fun Yesterday
Marion Guillard
International Competition Documentary Film 2024
Documentary Film
Belgium
2024
34 minutes
French,
English
Subtitles: 
English
Unexpectedly, Marion Guillard captures the perfect shot: A flock of birds pirouette in the evening sky, the camera follows their graceful movements as if hypnotized, symbiotically. The road to this moment was long. Guillard shares her journey to the USA with us, which is not only marked by feelings of alienation from her family – the postcard motifs spread before her eyes also leave her cold. In a voiceover, she talks about her relationship to herself and her body, about an ideal of femininity she does not conform to, and disturbing encounters with men.
“We Had Fun Yesterday” follows Guillard’s stream of thought, both autobiographical exploration and reflection about the way we look at others: animals – wild or caged; nature - unspoiled or shaped by humans. The result is a surprising weave in which mental and digital images arise and crumble.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Marion Guillard
Script
Marion Guillard
Cinematographer
Marion Guillard
Editor
Pauline Piris-Nury, Lenka Fillnerova
Producer
Cyril Bibas
Co-Producer
Stefanie Bodien
Sound
Marion Guillard
Sound Design
Maxime Thomas, Sébastien Van Dhelsen, Jeff Levillain