Bas Devos: Shining, Rising Star in European Filmdom

The 13th BJIFF

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Bas Devos is relatively new to Chinese movie fans. But this young Belgian director, born in 1983, has been a regular at the world's top film festivals, and his unique cinematic form and natural and soothing aesthetic style have already gained worldwide attention.

The Beijing Film Panorama section of the 13th Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF) will feature four feature films written and directed by Bas Devos. In addition, Bas Devos will be present at the event to share his views with movie fans on his works.

　　Bas Devos

Bas Devos’s first feature, Violet (2013), was selected for the Berlin International Film Festival and won the Generation 14plus Grand Prix. Hellhole (2019) premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Director – International in the Young Cinema Competition (World) at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Ghost Tropic (2019) was selected for the Directors' Fortnight at the Festival de Cannes. Bas Devos returned to the Berlin International Film Festival with his latest title Here (2023), which won Best Film and the FIPRESCI Award in the forward-looking and pioneering Encounters section.

Bas Devos grew up in a small village in the north of Belgium and moved to Brussels when he went to study film. Not a filmmaker who toes the line, Bas Devos once expressed his understanding of filmmaking, “I am attracted to something on the border of the narrative—where the story ends, but the image and sound linger.” For him, what is most fascinating about film is not just storytelling, but the emotions and atmosphere that linger behind the story.

　　Still of Violet

Bas Devos's feature debut, Violet, is a story enveloped by a series of emotions. The film depicts the trauma of a teenager who witnesses violence against his friend. In this grief-themed film, Bas Devos makes us immerse ourselves in the melancholy atmosphere of the story through the meticulous design of sound and the extreme use of environmental space.

　　Still of Hellhole

In his second feature, Hellhole, Bas Devos centers on three characters of different identities and ethnicities, presenting a precise and in-depth look at the state of Brussels and the emotions of its lost souls amid political intrigues. Continuing the emphasis on atmosphere and state of mind from Violet, the film also ventures into camera movements, with several jaw-dropping displays of the urban spaces in Brussels.

　　Still of Ghost Tropic

The release of Bas Devos’s third feature film, Ghost Tropic, came on the heels of Hellhole, and the film is also an exploration of the urban spaces in Brussels. In an interview, Bas Devos noted his love for the films of Chantal Akerman, Hong Sang-soo and Kelly Reichardt, and Ghost Tropic is exactly influenced by Akerman’s A Whole Night (1982).

Ghost Tropic tells the story of an old woman from North Africa who crosses Brussels on foot, alone, at night. The film is also shot with a minimalist approach, with few particularly memorable events, but the fact that it is extremely rich in detail and in the emotional and psychological changes that happen to the characters. Alongside, Bas Devos and the cinematographer succeeded in making the long walk fascinating and unforgettable, thanks to their unique mastery of 16mm film.

The Hollywood Reporter, a renowned film magazine, enthusiastically praised Ghost Tropic that “this is the kind of really small movie that is really great.”

　　Still of Here

Bas Devos directed his latest feature film, Here, which zeroes in on a “fortuitous meeting” between a Romanian worker and a female Belgian-Chinese scholar in Brussels. The film has been rated as Bas Devos’s “best work”.

The worker from Romania is about to return to his homeland and distributes his own food to the people around him as a token of remembrance. By chance, the two protagonists explore the natural world of growing plants together. But Bas Devos does not film it into an unforgettable love story, in which the two people do not know their respective names until the end of the film.

Throughout the film, rain, plants, or the natural world, becomes the most important element of the film. This is related to his childhood experience of playing in the forest near his village. In his opinion, if he lost anything after moving to Brussels, it was the possibility of getting lost in nature.

　　Still of Ghost Tropic

Since the shooting of Hellhole, Bas Devos has been following the diversified city of Brussels. Brussels is home to a large number of immigrants and people from all over the world living in the “center of the EU’s decision-making”. Rather than making the film with first-order logic, he has chosen a gentler and quieter approach to the lives and encounters of these alien ordinary people.

It is through his extreme exploration of cinematic form and his exact positioning of himself that Bas Devos’s cinematic aesthetic has matured. Also, he has become a high-profile rising star in the contemporary European filmdom. Viewers are welcome to enter the cinema for an unforgettable audiovisual journey.