‘RETRO’

A film by Patricia Niedzwiecki

Under the aegis of the Culture Department of the City of Brussels

With
Daniel Blumenthal, Aphrodite Patoulidou, Lilien Citrini, Yu Matsumoto & the Royal Ballet School Antwerp

On 3rd September 1944, after four and a half years of heavy nazi occupation and painful deprivation, the 2nd British Army of General Dempsey rushes through the gates of the City, followed the next day by the Piron Brigade. The news elicits an unrivaled popular acclaim to the rhythm of enthused Brussels men and women who start dancing in the streets of Liberated Brussels. That is how RETRO ends. It is the 10th opus in the Film Series The Gaps Of Memory, which started to be shown on screen both in Belgium and abroad in the 2010s.
The laughing faces of young people sitting on the tanks of the Allied Armies are engraved in the collective memory of their children and grandchildren amongst whom the director’s female relatives, Blanche the pianist and singer and Sarah the dancer.
The film shows how life in wartime becomes more liveable thanks to artists.
From 1870 till the 1950s, RETRO also evokes prominent artists such as Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler, Jean Cocteau, Sarah Bernhardt, Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, Al Jolson, Pierre Dac ... who resisted and fought for us during WWI, the interbellum and WWII up to the Cold War.
In RETRO artists of all feathers keep on singing, playing the piano but also dancing on a volcano.

Previews in the framework of the 74th anniversary of the Liberation of Brussels.