The Retreat

The idea of a retreat gets its meaning from its own end. When the cardinals go to the conclave they have the intention of coming back to the believers with a new message to the world: Habemus Papam. The retreat of the cardinals delivers its secret when the smoke comes out of the chimney. Our meeting in the Klein Engelandhoeve, close to the Belgian town of Turnhout, reminded me of this kind of reunion where serious things are to be discussed.

”A retreat has a meaning when it leads to a change. The challenge to make a film in spite of the ban places the directors in front of an extreme difficulty. The bigger the challenge, the more they have to be inspired. Because they were pushed out of the world, they could see it better, and because they were not busy anymore with anything else than themselves, they could realise that they were never more willing to live than after having faced death.”

We were six film critics from different parts of the world and we were invited to think about our work, about cinema and culture; the participants came from Chile, Brazil, Turkey, Tunisia, Belgium and the Netherlands. But as film critics don’t have the pretention to deliver such a holy message to the world, we mostly exchanged ideas about our relation to cinema. We also meditated on the current questions related to our work. But we did best when evocating filmmakers whom we love and consider as particularly inspiring. As for me, I felt inspired in this very special retreat by two outstanding contemporary filmmakers: Kim Ki-duk from South Korea and Jafar Panahi from Iran.

Full story : http://www.eutopiainstitute.org/2013/05/the-retreat-an-act-of-resistance/