‘Paragate - Jialai Wang + Caisses fermées, caisses ouvertes - Hugo Amoedo Canal’

New and emerging filmmakers present their first or second films, making a significant impact on the future of cinema.

Paragate by Jialai Wang

“I watch my grandmother’s health deteriorating through the screen of my phone. When I arrive in China, she is dead. I am alone with my mother. She devotes herself entirely to her religious practice. As I walk the streets of the neighbourhood where I grew up, I gradually realise that she, like me, was looking for her mother’s love, and she will not find it.”

Jialai Wang grew up with her mother in a Shanghai suburb. She moved to Belgium in 2016 to study filmmaking at INSAS. In 2021, her short film Au pied de l’arbre Ashoka won the award for best experimental documentary at the Doc.Berlin festival.

​​​​​​​Caisses fermées, caisses ouvertes​​​​​​​ by Hugo Amoedo Canal ​​​​​​​

Galician writer Xavier Queipo is preparing to move back home after living in Brussels for more than 30 years. He is emptying his house and packing his souvenirs into crates for the movers to load onto the truck to take them back to Spain. Another Galician, filmmaker Hugo Amoedo, who has also settled in Brussels, does not know when he will be able to return. Meanwhile, he teaches his son to ride a bike, he has doubts, he has dreams, he has ideas for films, and he argues at the post office counter.

Hugo Amoedo Canal lives and works in Brussels and has already made several short films in different genres. His work broaches topics such as love, exile, and uncertainty.