Reel Borders: Grensdwalers

Borders are more than just lines on a map. They are histories rooted in the landscape; scars that hold an archive of pain, and symbolic demarcations that protect and divide. The Reel Borders research project presents these complex realities through essayistic documentary cinema. This film programme tells stories that show us the environment around borders, as well as their residents and visitors.
Ranging from everyday encounters to the creative ways in which people claim their own space, these four film poems invite you to reflect on how borders have shaped our past and continue to define the present day.

1. Omlijn Mij (Rosa Lut, 2025, 19’, Belgium-the Netherlands)
Can a border be a place of potential connection? By visiting and documenting the border between Belgium and her home country the Netherlands, Rosa Lut explores what it’s like to stand on the border between two spaces.

2. Death of a Mountain (Nuno Escudeiro, 2025, 37’, Portugal-France)
Using archive material and 8-mm images he filmed himself, Nuno Escudeiro weaves an ending to his Alpine trilogy. Here, the possible disappearance of a mountain on the French-Italian border blends with the life of a local resident.

3. Dragon’s teeth (Lennart Soberon, 2024, 21’, Ireland-Belgium) 
A young woman rakes up intergenerational memories of the military occupation of the Northen Ireland border region. These stories awaken the ghosts of the past and question the suppressed stories of the landscape.

4. We Were There (Sally Hllouby, 2023, 10’, Turkey-Syria) 
We Were There delves into themes like memory, identity and bonds with your home country. Through short video images of Aleppo, Syria, the director struggles to remember her city, ten years after leaving home.

After the screening of the four short films we will talk with two or three of the filmmakers about borders and identity.