Film Fest Gent - Videodroom 2025: La coquille et le clergyman (The Seashell and The Clergyman)

Experience a night of breathtaking surrealism and electrifying sound art as VIDEODROOM takes over the Miry Concert Hall for a singular event: Film Fest Gent’s Videodroom 2025: La coquille et le clergyman (The Seashell and The Clergyman). The program opens with Norwegian pianist Anja Lauvdal performing a captivating new soundtrack to Germaine Dulac’s silent film masterpiece, *La coquille et le clergyman*. Following this, prepare to be mesmerized as the hypnotic tape loops of Natasha Pirard intertwine with Pere Portabella's enigmatic *Cuadecuc, vampir*. *Cuadecuc, vampir* holds a truly unique origin story. Born from a fascinating collaboration, the film captures the making of Jess Franco’s Dracula project, featuring a young Christopher Lee, through the lens of experimental filmmaker Pere Portabella. Shot in stark black and white, Portabella's avant-garde “making-of” offers a poetic and revealing counterpoint to the horror film, exposing the realities of filmmaking while subtly critiquing the oppressive Franco regime. A film hovering between fiction and documentary, it's a layered work that ultimately reveals a deeper, more unsettling horror. To mark Portabella’s upcoming 100th birthday and in close collaboration with his family, musicologist and composer Natasha Pirard has created a stunning new score for *Cuadecuc, vampir*. Already recognized as a leading voice in Belgian experimental music – her *Dream Cycles* album drawing comparisons to William Basinski, Suzanne Ciani, and Félicia Atkinson – Pirard crafted this soundtrack during a residency at IPEM, Ghent’s institute for psychoacoustics. Immersed in the sounds of the ultra-rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer (one of only four working units left!), Pirard’s score is built on evocative tape loops and mesmerizing textures, amplifying the film’s haunting atmosphere and revealing new dimensions of its enduring power.