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'On board of the submarine KOURSK K-141 / à bord du sous-marin KOURSK K-141'

Party boarding on the 25th of April at 9 pm at Nadine, 80 rue Gallaitstraat 1030 Brussels

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Komplot presents the première of 'Marcel'

A film by The Marcel Collective

Screening on April 22nd at 8pm after the première of 'Cittadelarte' by Fabio Wuytak

Beursschouwburg, rue Auguste Ortsstraat 20-28, 1000 Brussels

Marcel is a collective, of Brussels based visual artists, writers, curators and musicians, formed to make a film of the same name and give birth to a film director of the same name. 'Marcel' is a docu-drama which charts the factual and fictional associations between three celebrated artists who gravitated around the surrealist movement in Belgium and France: Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Mariën and Marcel Broodthaers. A rocambolesque mise en scène, hallucinatory decor and spatiotemporal collages make the reappearance of these ghosts of surrealism possible.

'Marcel' takes as its point of departure a reinterpretation of Marcel Mariën's controversial film, 'L'imitation du cinéma' (1959), itself a satire of the book 'The Imitation Of Christ' (Thomas A. Kempis, 1424). Playing on the intentionally outdated aesthetics of this historic film, Marcel critiques current cultural trends for historical reenactment and the aestheticization of documentary form, in a similar way to Mariën who based a film on a book of religious devotion from the Middle Ages to critique surrealism and bourgeois Christian society.

'Marcel' was shot over five days in summer 2009, within the confines of a "conventional" film shoot, with all the hierarchical constraints this implies. The cast was a blend of professional actors and amateurs from the social and artistic circles surrounding the filmmakers. Through a series of collective discussions, open screenings of work in progress it became a meditative exercise on the collective filmmaking process itself; adhering to Barbara Hammers maxim that: "collective filmmaking is like walking over dead bodies to achieve your aim, and it’s a paradox which cannot be solved."

'Marcel' is a deconstruction of historical persona, which shatters an archaeological cultural experience into fragments of non-linear "faction", making explicit the filmakers personal relationship to knowledge. At the same time, the film uses the documentary form as a tool to engage in cultural pickpocketing; Mariën himself being no stranger to deception, passing forged bank notes drawn by Magritte and financing 'The Imitation Of Cinema' with money he (allegedly) swindled from the company he worked for.

Trailer: http://www.vimeo.com/8671107

Year / Country : 2010 / Belgium. Language: French / English / Dutch (w/ English subtitles). Duration: 27'00"

Supported by Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) http://www.vaf.be & Netwerk

Produced by Komplot http://www.kmplt.be