Charbon

Charbon is a journey in time from Zwartberg in Belgian Limburg to Ukraine and Iraq, to pause at the spot in Idroscalo where Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered.

“My grandfather Marcel began his career as a coal engineer on the front line between Germany and France in 1918. My father Marcel started his career as a petroleum dealer after World War II and I became a filmmaker in the Anthropocene thanks to them. The film is a personal retrospective of the last 100 years driven by fossil fuels.”

Manu Riche (1964) is a Belgian filmmaker and theatre director, known for his compelling documentary portraits (Hoge Bomen). He made the documentary film Snake Dance (2012) and the feature film Problemski Hotel (2015). He collaborated with Ai Wei Wei for the performance Trial about Fake for Kunstenfestivaldesarts (2015).

He started working on Charbon in 2018, as part of a PhD in the Arts (RITCS/VUB).