Content from Kaos Films

Following in the wake of Benoît Poelvoorde and Philippe Geluck, comedians, actors and other Belgian singers have established themselves in France in recent years, in the media and on stage. But, if we appreciate them today, this was not always the case. In this documentary, director Olivier Monssens acts as the spokesperson for his compatriots. Through testimonies and delicious archive images, he returns to the not-so-distant era when our neighbors were considered friendly but somewhat idiotic people. The film is also an opportunity to understand what characterizes the Belgian spirit by focusing on some of its facets: humor and its famous local variation, self-deprecation, cinema and music.

For more than a decade, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man during the infamous Third Reich, assembled a collection of thousands of works of art that were meticulously catalogued.

The Smurfs were created in 1958 by the Belgian comic author Peyo (Pierre Culliford, 1928-1992) and they are one of Belgium's most recognized exports. From Brussels to Los Angeles, via Dubai, a journey into the tiny world of the famous little blue people, from the story of the creation of the original comic to the account of their huge global commercial exploitation.

An American low-budget action film celebrated an unexpected worldwide success in 1988: "Bloodsport". With its, the world of film fans and martial arts cinema discovered a new idol: Jean-Claude Van Damme. In the 1970s there was Bruce Lee, but at the end of the 1980s a Belgian won the day. Van Damme was a karate master and had unparalleled strength and flexibility. For ten years he was one of Hollywood's hottest action stars. But excessive overconfidence and drugs bring him down again. At home in Europe he becomes a laughing stock on talk shows. Only with "JCVD" does he manage to get back on his feet, playing his character with perspective and self-irony, but without ever giving up the reputation that his action films brought him and which has been a cult for several generations. The highs and lows of his eventful life are told through archive footage and contributions from people close to the popular Belgian actor.

Follows a lonely spinster, who's living on her own on a secluded farm in the mid-west of the USA. Unable to keep the farm by herself she hires a drifter as her handyman in return for food and lodging. As Christmas approaches the relationship between them with surprising and unexpected turn.

Despite its Afro-American origins, the history of disco music, the soundtrack of the seventies, would be inconceivable without a handful of legendary European music producers who conjured up some of the biggest world-wide hits in the anonymity of their studios.

Karen is resigned to a life of suburban ennui, the dreams of her youth a distant memory. On an autumn afternoon as she struggles to get her baby to sleep she is disturbed by a door-to-door Salesman. Desperate for adult companionship she engages with the enigmatic Salesman. He claims that he can sell her something that will radically change her life; he offers Karen, an opportunity to fulfill her long forgotten dreams and ambitions.

By the end of the seventies, disco music, considered too mainstream, was dead. But DJs and dance floors still needed new records and faster rhythms. Built on synthesizer sounds, the hi-nrg (high energy) style swept the gay clubs before hitting the charts during the eighties.

Television makes us sluggish, hypnotizes us, and makes us addicted. Why? How? Is it intentional? From European homes to American laboratories, via the studios of a Japanese channel, the Tube team investigates. Its goal: to discover what the all-powerful television industry is hiding from us on the other side of the screen.