202630 minDocumentary

VideoVeterans

In the 1980s, at the World Wide Video Festival in The Hague, Rob Rombout got to know four video artists: Péter Forgács, Robert Cahen, Terry Flaxton and Walter Verdin. In 1988 he won the grand prize at Montbéliard himself, with Entre deux tours, and that was just when he took leave of video art. He wanted to make auteur films, with his own signature, but no longer alone: with a crew, with funding, for television and festivals rather than museums. The four stayed true to their solitary art, and he admires that persistence. More than thirty years on he invited them to a small studio, with a film crew (a small one, admittedly). The shoot, two days in Brussels in 2024, was meant as a pilot, but no producer could or would make such a long film. So this rough, unpolished sketch has become the end point of the project.