Wunderground Film Festival
Get Lost in the Wonder of Film at the Wunderground Film Festival.
Making films is truly the process of creating art – vibrant, living works that evoke emotion and resonate with viewers.
This essential truth often gets lost in today’s world, which sees cinema as a means of commerce and often overlooks obscure and experimental works of great value but limited box office appeal.
That’s where the Wunderground Film Festival steps in, acting as an island oasis for art amidst a sea of commercialism. This contemporary cinema exhibition and film festival places its films where they belong – within the vibrant context of other art forms. This unique juxtaposition of works encourages patrons to engage in an active dialogue – both with the films and with other works of art. This unprecedented interaction of film with paintings, sculptures, and conceptual art challenges the established framework within which patrons experience art.
The oasis that will serve as the site for this haven is as unique as the festival. The Verbeke Foundation in Kemzeke, Belgium, will host the festival in May 2025, as part of its exhibit series, showcasing a series of screenings and video installations.
Art collectors Geert Verbeke and Carla Verbeke-Lens founded the Verbeke Foundation in 2007 to be a place where culture, nature, and ecology are closely intertwined. Evolving through time, the collection has been expanded to include contemporary artworks as well as installations which are predominantly constructed in situ. With 12 hectares (29.7 acres) of scenic area and 20,000 m2 (4.9 acres) of covered space, the Foundation is one of the largest private initiatives for contemporary art in Europe.
Against this expressive and gloriously untidy backdrop, an emotive selection of Wunderground films will include contemporary cinema, underground films, experimental work and minimalist films. The Foundation is open to narrative, documentary, animated shorts and feature films. The selected works will be exhibited and screened over the course of a month, four days a week, in a loop.
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Tangle (Belgium) by Carla Hoogewijs, Frank Stevens
Tangle is a multimedia film blending vivid imagery, haunting words, and evocative soundscapes to delve into the core questions of human existence. Structured as a monologue in five chapters, it begins with a single breath of steam and culminates in the miracle of cell division, symbolizing the cy...
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Essai 21 (France) by Florian Mauny
Exhausted by his work and routine, a person decides to suddenly break his daily life and wander in unknown places, in which he gradually sinks and gets lost.
Running time: 01:04:14 -
Kissing Ralph (United States) by Daniel Lewinstein
Kissing Ralph explores the anxiety of intimacy, from the point-of-view of an alien struggling to participate in human rituals of love, sex, and family life.
Running time: 00:40:00 -
Higher Grounds (United States) by Joe Kramer
On the fateful day intelligent life arrives to destroy Earth, one slacker alien gets sidetracked when he’s smitten with a bitter barista. Suddenly, our survival depends on whether this space-schmuck can get her number, before his plucky partner blows us sky high.
Running time: 00:16:59 -
The Core (Romania) by Robert Obert
This short animated film illustrates a common consciousness from which materialized instances of feminine and masculine emerge, only to morph again into a single core. It is a metaphor of a love connection between two partners, fueled from the same source, but also for the power of creation that ...
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Previous Appearances (United States) by Audrey Coombe
"Previous Appearances" (2024) is a collaboration between filmmaker and artist Audrey Coombe and the poet, ethicist, and chaplain Andrew McCarron. Shot in Scandinavia, the piece pairs seemingly familiar – and at times surprisingly uncanny – images with McCarron's writing from his own travels to th...
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Terra Rara (Switzerland) by Meret Sofie Kernen
An essay film about the materialization of the cloud. Almost every action on the Internet is connected to a cloud. The cloud is omnipresent, yet invisible. Everyone uses it, but hardly anyone talks about it. Although its infrastructure affects essential parts of global systems and our daily lives...
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Hands (Portugal) by Filipe Piteira
Hands are the connection and the path between the body and soul. The mode of search and self-knowledge, which is intuitive and sensorial, with them, discovering and transcending themselves. It is the receptive and restless mind that transforms hands into instruments of grace.
Running time: 00:07:00 -
The Temple Returns (Brazil, Spain) by Jose Aragon
A dance video that tells the story of the internal and incessant search of human beings to discover the purpose of their lives.
It is a reflection on the issues of humanity that prevent us from evolving, such as power and subjugation, the uncontrollable hunger to fulfill desires, and the lack of ...
