Chicagoblock, stories from the elevator
With its twenty-plus floors, the Chicagoblok high rise in Antwerp has a bad reputation in the city. People of more than 100 nationalities forcibly live together there, only meeting each other in the elevator. Starting from the elevator, the camera records the love and life stories of a number of residents, like pensioner Louis who married a younger Thai woman and loud Sandra, who is trying to get her Maroccan internetlove to Belgium. The film is a caleidscope of tales of people on the sideline of ‘respectable society’, in a flat with a bad name but a hopeful wide view.
65 minutes IKON / Holland Harbour
Premiere Dutch Film Festival 2010, selection Gouden Kalf competition
Golden Deer Award ‘Best European Documentary’, Dialektus Documentary Film Festival Budapest (Hungary) 2009, Best Documentary International 1001 Documentary Film Festival Istanbul (Turkiye) 25th Kasseler Docfest (Germany) Festival du Film Independent Bruxelles 2008 (Belgium)