There was a time when Nieuwstraat/rue Neuve contained no fewer than twenty cinemas and when 5,000 people packed into the cinemas on Adolphe Max on Friday and Saturday evenings. Those were the days of the Caméo, the Écuyer, the Apollo, the Pathé Palace, and the Eldorado. This year’s edition of the Nuit Blanche – which is still absolutely free of charge – brings that golden age of the big screen in Brussels back to life via some 30 events and installations. We take a quick look at some of the main venues in the company of the cinema historian Isabel Biver, who will be giving guided tours during this cinematic edition of the Nuit Blanche.
Actor’s Studio
“The Actors’ Studio is the brainchild of Claude Diouri, a sort of Brussels cinematic adventurer who is at once director, proprietor, and distributor. He also runs the Styx in Elsene/Ixelles. He built the third room at the Actor’s Studio with his own hands.”
Nuit Blanche: the golden age of the big screen
(Segunda Piel)
Thanks to Audrey Lucie Riesen and her performance Sweet Dreams, you will be able to rub shoulders with your favourite film stars here. The Actor’s Studio is also presenting a screening of Gerardo Vera’s Segunda piel (in Spanish, with Dutch and French subtitles), starring Javier Bardem, and Laurent Bouhnik’s equally disconcerting Q (in French), which looks at three women looking for love.
Sweet Dreams: 21 > 2.00, Segunda Piel & Q: 2.00
Place De Brouckère
“Built in 1933 as a competitor for the Métropole, the Eldorado – with 2,700 seats – had an art deco style of African inspiration, with a little bit of Egypt and a lot of the Congo,” explains Isabel Biver. “It was an imposing establishment, with lifts, marble, and exotic woods in the interior. Just being in that cinema was already spectacular. The cinema has been partially preserved, as the Grand Eldorado in UGC De Brouckère.”
Thanks to Audrey Lucie Riesen and her performance Sweet Dreams, you will be able to rub shoulders with your favourite film stars here. The Actor’s Studio is also presenting a screening of Gerardo Vera’s Segunda piel (in Spanish, with Dutch and French subtitles), starring Javier Bardem, and Laurent Bouhnik’s equally disconcerting Q (in French), which looks at three women looking for love.
Sweet Dreams: 21 > 2.00, Segunda Piel & Q: 2.00
Place De Brouckère
“Built in 1933 as a competitor for the Métropole, the Eldorado – with 2,700 seats – had an art deco style of African inspiration, with a little bit of Egypt and a lot of the Congo,” explains Isabel Biver. “It was an imposing establishment, with lifts, marble, and exotic woods in the interior. Just being in that cinema was already spectacular. The cinema has been partially preserved, as the Grand Eldorado in UGC De Brouckère.”
(Crashed)
The square outside, for once without cars, will be livened up on 4 October by a giant screen, onto which will be projected extracts from films from the last 30 years set in Brussels, as well as Crashed, a montage of car pile-ups put together by Marco Laguna, with concerts by Syndrome, Dirty Beaches, and Luke Abbott as soundtrack. Underground, in the metro station, there will be an interactive installation, Escape, the work of a young group called Chapter One.
Crashed: 20.30 > 1.00, Escape: 20 > 0.30
ABC
“Over its 40 years of operation, the ABC was always an erotic cinema. What was distinctive about the ABC was that it could present film screenings and striptease shows at the same time. It closed in 2013; the film reels were saved in collaboration with the Cinematek and the CinéAct association is still trying to ensure the cinema’s future.”
The square outside, for once without cars, will be livened up on 4 October by a giant screen, onto which will be projected extracts from films from the last 30 years set in Brussels, as well as Crashed, a montage of car pile-ups put together by Marco Laguna, with concerts by Syndrome, Dirty Beaches, and Luke Abbott as soundtrack. Underground, in the metro station, there will be an interactive installation, Escape, the work of a young group called Chapter One.
Crashed: 20.30 > 1.00, Escape: 20 > 0.30
ABC
“Over its 40 years of operation, the ABC was always an erotic cinema. What was distinctive about the ABC was that it could present film screenings and striptease shows at the same time. It closed in 2013; the film reels were saved in collaboration with the Cinematek and the CinéAct association is still trying to ensure the cinema’s future.”
(© Gilles Vranckx)
For the Nuit Blanche, the association will organise a Seventies evening there, with kung fu and spaghetti Western films, along with some horror and erotic gems and, starting at two in the morning, a DJ who will play 1970s hits.
Cine 70’s: 20 > 3.00
Hotel Métropole
“Inaugurated in 1932, the Métropole was designed by the architect Adrien Blomme at the request of the Wielemans family, for whom he also designed the Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery; they wanted to have a cinema adjoining their hotel of the same name on place De Brouckèreplein,” explains Isabel Biver.
For the Nuit Blanche, the association will organise a Seventies evening there, with kung fu and spaghetti Western films, along with some horror and erotic gems and, starting at two in the morning, a DJ who will play 1970s hits.
Cine 70’s: 20 > 3.00
Hotel Métropole
“Inaugurated in 1932, the Métropole was designed by the architect Adrien Blomme at the request of the Wielemans family, for whom he also designed the Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery; they wanted to have a cinema adjoining their hotel of the same name on place De Brouckèreplein,” explains Isabel Biver.
“The first cinema in Belgium to have no boxes, it was very luxurious and had 3,000 seats; the Métropole was a modernist masterpiece and an engineering tour de force. It was the last cinema to open on Nieuwstraat/rue Neuve and it was also the first to close, in 1991. Today, the site is occupied by a major Spanish clothing chain, but it still belongs to the Wielemans family, as does the hotel.” During the Nuit Blanche, the cinema and the 1920s will take over the Hotel Métropole for a performance entitled Where is Mr Gatsby?, which involves shooting a film in which only people dressed in 1920s style are allowed in. Gentlemen, dinner jackets! Ladies, hats, pearl necklaces, and flapper dresses!
Where is Mr Gatsby?: 20.30 > 0.30, 30 min.
Galeries Cinéma
“With a fine location in the Koninginnegalerij/Galerie de la Reine, this cinema was built in 1939 in a Mediterranean Romanesque style, with rounded arches and a floor decorated with images of sea creatures. The Arenberg occupied it from 1987 to 2006.”
Where is Mr Gatsby?: 20.30 > 0.30, 30 min.
Galeries Cinéma
“With a fine location in the Koninginnegalerij/Galerie de la Reine, this cinema was built in 1939 in a Mediterranean Romanesque style, with rounded arches and a floor decorated with images of sea creatures. The Arenberg occupied it from 1987 to 2006.”
(© Anaïs Boudot)
In addition to David Cronenberg’s ultimate cult film Crash, the cinema presents two installations that employ stereoscopy (which uses two flat images to create an impression of depth), in each of which a female character is central: Lauren Moffatt’s Not Eye and Anaïs Boudot’s Mirrors Float Us.
Not Eye: 20 > 1.00, Mirrors Float Us: 20 > 3.00, Crash: 2.00
Hotel Marivaux
“At the time, within this perimeter, there were four adjoining cinemas: the Marivaux, the Plaza, with its art deco ornamentation of Hispanic inspiration, the Apollo, which specialised in the fantasy repertoire, and the Variétés, which was the cinema of Cinerama, with its curved screen. Just for those cinemas, about 5,000 people used to arrive in the area, at more or less the same time.
In addition to David Cronenberg’s ultimate cult film Crash, the cinema presents two installations that employ stereoscopy (which uses two flat images to create an impression of depth), in each of which a female character is central: Lauren Moffatt’s Not Eye and Anaïs Boudot’s Mirrors Float Us.
Not Eye: 20 > 1.00, Mirrors Float Us: 20 > 3.00, Crash: 2.00
Hotel Marivaux
“At the time, within this perimeter, there were four adjoining cinemas: the Marivaux, the Plaza, with its art deco ornamentation of Hispanic inspiration, the Apollo, which specialised in the fantasy repertoire, and the Variétés, which was the cinema of Cinerama, with its curved screen. Just for those cinemas, about 5,000 people used to arrive in the area, at more or less the same time.
(© Nathalie Maury)
The Marivaux was built on the site of the Théâtre du Cinématographe, the first cinema in Brussels. Its sumptuous façade has been faithfully restored and its rooms have become meeting and conference venues called after film-makers.” During the Nuit Blanche, the Hotel Marivaux, headquarters of the last Kunstenfestivaldesarts, will host Isabelle Bats’s “marathon of audio-visual knowledge” and an interactive installation by Todor Todoroff and Christian Graupner that combines sound, video, light, and concerts of electro-acoustic music.
On achève bien les fiches «Première»: 21 > 1.00, PendulA: Installation 20 > 3.00, performance 21, 22, 23, 0 & 1.00, 15 min.
Cinéma Nova
“The architect Adrien Blomme, who designed the vast cinema at the Métropole, also built a small cinema in 1935, the Studio Arenberg, which is now occupied by the Nova. In the 1980s, the Studio Arenberg was very well known and was visited by, for example, Piccoli and Pasolini. It’s a cinema with a pretty consistent record, as it has always offered a quality repertoire.”
The Marivaux was built on the site of the Théâtre du Cinématographe, the first cinema in Brussels. Its sumptuous façade has been faithfully restored and its rooms have become meeting and conference venues called after film-makers.” During the Nuit Blanche, the Hotel Marivaux, headquarters of the last Kunstenfestivaldesarts, will host Isabelle Bats’s “marathon of audio-visual knowledge” and an interactive installation by Todor Todoroff and Christian Graupner that combines sound, video, light, and concerts of electro-acoustic music.
On achève bien les fiches «Première»: 21 > 1.00, PendulA: Installation 20 > 3.00, performance 21, 22, 23, 0 & 1.00, 15 min.
Cinéma Nova
“The architect Adrien Blomme, who designed the vast cinema at the Métropole, also built a small cinema in 1935, the Studio Arenberg, which is now occupied by the Nova. In the 1980s, the Studio Arenberg was very well known and was visited by, for example, Piccoli and Pasolini. It’s a cinema with a pretty consistent record, as it has always offered a quality repertoire.”
(L’Étreinte)
The Nova is hosting a sound installation by Chloé Despax and Emanuel Lorrain, who have worked on accounts collected by the Bruxelles Nous Appartient/Brussel Behoort Ons Toe association, a story of framing and cropping in the history of the cinema (in French), and Paul Collet and Pierre Drouot’s controversial Belgian film L’Étreinte (in French, with Dutch subtitles).
Cinepolis: 20. > 0.00, Cadrages et recadrages (FR): 0 > 1.30, L’Étreinte: 2.00
NUIT BLANCHE • 4/10, 20 > 3.00, gratis/gratuit/free, Verschillende locaties/Divers lieux/Various locations, Brussel/Bruxelles, nuitblanchebrussels.be
Read more about: Events & Festivals
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