According to recent medical findings, viruses can also cause a weakening or even loss of memory. Such an epidemic is the speculative narrative foundation of this film. The suspicion is uttered by the sonorous voice of an old man, who wakes up after having lost his memory in an unspecified incident and goes on a mental journey into his childhood. But the perspective soon widens to include collective life and conspiracy theories directed against the government – even questions about the last things.

The images illustrating this narrative were made between 1927 and 1998 and are now restored digital copies in the holdings of the Royal Belgian Film Archive. They cover a spectrum from home movies on the beach to the central iconic events of Brussels history, for example the Nazi deportations or the big fire in the “À l’innovation” department store in 1967. But art films, science films and documents of industrial history are also interwoven – with film aesthetics so homogenised that they are, out of their original contexts, convincingly integrated into the suggestively proposed new narrative logic, while always referencing the past, too.

Silvia Hallensleben

All women have it. Some say it’s a gift from God so they can give more pleasure to their husbands. Others believe the men are responsible for making the “sacred water” flow. In Rwanda everyone is sure that the white people don’t believe in it – and are really missing out here. It’s a tradition, a ritual, every woman’s secret. In mythological tales and enchantingly beautiful landscape shots director Olivier Jourdain looks for the superstructure of this mystery which is expressed in many intricate ways and turns out to be a thoroughly modern thing. The most beautiful thing in the world is discussed surprisingly frankly and confidently – along with gender relations.

Dusabe Vestine above all, a passionate radio show host, pursues a mission of making the “sacred water” a subject of public debate in her show. Nor is she afraid to travel the stony paths through the villages to preach her own Rwandan practice: a miracle only women can achieve. If you have associated Africa only with Aids, lack of contraception, genital mutilation and the suppression of women so far, you will be disabused by this film. The Occident, so proud of its enlightenment, has a lot to learn from Rwanda.

Cornelia Klauß