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HD 16:9

Colour, Sound

26'​

TEN WEYNGEART adopts the name and setting of a once-utopian Brussels community center, originally conceived as a space of collective idealism but now abandoned by the city's broader public life, its purpose eroded as it becomes a refuge for marginalised and troubled individuals. This transformation of the space into a world governed by a spider—its reign represented through an eerie, almost mythic hierarchy—imbues the narrative with a surreal and unsettling atmosphere. In this strange universe, robots serve as intermediaries, translating the desires and demands of the minute monarch into action, while simultaneously navigating the tensions between the spider and the diverse, often dysfunctional archetypes that populate the world beneath its rule.

 

The unfolding drama becomes a pointed allegory of human behaviour under the weight of social and psychological pressures. Through its bizarre, mechanical mediation, the narrative examines the ways in which individuals, constrained by their personal and societal conflicts, navigate a world that offers little in the way of agency or clarity. The characters are pushed into exaggerated forms of action, their interactions reflecting the ways in which power, isolation, and unacknowledged desire shape human behaviour in oppressive circumstances. The spider, as a symbol of both control and predation, encapsulates the cyclical nature of dominance and subjugation that characterises the internal and external struggles of the human psyche.​

Credits:

  • Film by: Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys

  • Actors: Christoffel de Gruyter, Christine Oplinus, Jeroen Piebenga, Boris Rebetez, Kurt Ryslavy, Erik Thys, Marianne Thys, Wojtek Kulwanowsky, Jan Vanherck, Linda Vandenberghe, Johan Vandermaelen, Etienne Wynants

  • Voice: Walter Thys

  • Assistants: Wannes Gevaert, Jan Piccart

  • Production: Jana Phlips, Margot Vanheusden

  • Soundrecording: Emmanuel De Boissieu

  • Sound effects: Erik Thys

  • Sound mix: Gerald Fenerberg / SounD TouCH

  • Translation: Jodie Hruby

  • Supported by: the Flanders Audiovisual Fund VAF

  • Thanks to: The collaborators of Ten Weyngaert, Galerie Aliceday, Geert De Mot, Carl De Smet, Dopi, Michel Francois, Moritz Küng, Julien Ladavid, Danny Vandeputte, Kwinten Lavigne, Jana Phlips, Dieter Roelstraete, Joost Schouppe, Monika Szewczyk, Koen Theys, Erik Thys, Walter Thys, Margot Vanheusden, Etienne Wynants

 

  • Courtesy: the artists, Gallery Micheline Szwajcer, and GYPEX

  • TEN WEYNGEART is acquired by Frac îl-de-france.

​​

Screenings:

 

  • 2007: MuHKA, Antwerp (BE)

  • 2007: Le Plateau, Paris (FR)

  • ​2008: Gallery Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin (DE)

— Ten Weyngaert | 2007
Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys

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