Belvedère Boekentoren Screening – Audrey Lam / Dorsky & Hiler
’25
Belvedère (Boekentoren)
Rozier 3
B-9000 Gent
Us and the Night © Audrey Lam
Belvedère (Boekentoren)
Rozier 3
B-9000 Gent
Art Cinema OFFoff goes all out with a unique screening in one of the most impressive spaces in Ghent and beyond: the belvedère of the Boekentoren, the modernist masterpiece by Belgian architect Henry van de Velde. Originally, he wanted to turn this mythical site at the highest point of the city into a Museum of the Book. We are showing two singular films that explore the space, memory and imagination of libraries.
In her poetic debut feature film, Us and the Night (2024), Australian filmmaker Audrey Lam presents the university library as the perfect setting for the nocturnal encounters of two travellers, Xiao and Umi. She shot the film with them over the course of ten years on transcendent 16mm stock at the university library in Brisbane, where she used to work.
Library (1970) is a little-known, unexpected, and rarely screened film by two towering figures of experimental cinema, Nathaniel Dorsky and his longtime partner Jerome Hiler. They lovingly portray the public library in New Jersey as a place of encounter and exchange at the heart of the community.
→ In the presence of filmmaker Audrey Lam
→Only 75 spectators allowed. Please, buy your ticket in advance.
→ Entrance via Rozier 3 – the black gate by the incline. Not through the main entrance of the Boekentoren at Rozier 9.
Audrey Lam
Us and the Night
Night after night, two travellers cross paths at a university library. The library’s symmetry, rhythms and recurrences form a fantastic geography for their stories and adventures.
“I liked thinking about how a new language can be an invitation and a game; how reading steps us into the familiar and the unknown; and how libraries can be like fantastic, exhilarating adventures to the sea, into the universe, to anywhere else. Stories and accounts are part of what the film is about. I hope the viewer – a reader, of sorts – will find other things too.” – Audrey Lam
Us and the Night © Audrey Lam
Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler
Library
Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler created Library on commission from New Jersey’s Sussex County Library. The short film is a charming portrait of the public library system based on the style of old ‘industrials’: “An industrial is an educational film but usually it’s made by a corporation or a company to promote their product in a subtle way. It’s not an ad.” (Nathaniel Dorsky)
The film features a minimalist soundtrack by Tony Conrad and narration by his then-wife Beverly Conrad, the filmmaker and actress who appeared in films by Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Gregory Markopoulos, Ron Rice, Stephen Dwoskin, and others.
“Library reveals its avant-garde roots in two stylized flourishes: an accelerated tracking shot past the stacks of the State Library in Trenton that playfully cites Alain Resnais’ Toute la memoire du monde (1956), and a time-lapse sequence of a 16mm print of Nosferatu (1922) being projected within the library.
While Library expresses a sincere appreciation for the eponymous institution, its most heartfelt sequences are dedicated to the books themselves, a clear affection revealed by the co-directors’ original title, Books for All.” — Haden Guest (Harvard Film Archive)
“Reading imparts a deeper interest and sensitivity to living. There is nothing in our daily experience that cannot be made more meaningful through reading.” — final words of the voice-over narration
New digitization by the Harvard Film Archive
Library © Harvard Film Archive
Belvedère, 2021 © Michiel Hendryckx