Majority Flemish Production

A young soldier's fear during an artillery attack becomes an unbearable wait followed by a swift, horrific end.

Hit Him on the Head with a Hard, Heavy Hammer departs from the handwritten memoir of the filmmaker’s father and his experience of displacement during wartime. Referring to the notion Thomas Hardy termed ‘The Self-Unseeing’ in his eponymous 1901 poem, the film returns to childhood and the matters that harden us: upbringing, social status, education, labour, and familial bonds. The memoir weaves into the film as both a contemplation on mortality and an illustration of fading memory, reflecting on how we pen our pasts and how they can be re-told.

This year, King will celebrate Christmas with the most hospitable of his subjects, whoever that might be. Mouse hopes King will choose her, so she starts to make the cave as cosy as possible, but that just causes a disagreement with the overprotective Dragon. The pair even fight at the Christmas market, and go their separate ways. Mouse hangs out with the foul-mouthed Brother, while an unfortunate spell renders Dragon invisible and inaudible. Which makes a reconciliation difficult, of course.

Hello, Are We in the Show? is a poetic animation film that uses the formal language of a nature documentary. The film offers us a glimpse of daily life in the Sonian Forest near Brussels, and shows us the fauna and flora without disguising the influence of city and people.