Meet our graduates
Abraham Cerda | Grimm Merckaert | Kimia Hendi | Lucas Gortemaker | Luna Brusselaers | Maurice Luijten | Mischa Dols | Penelope Gratacos | Vince De Leenheer | Yüksel Çilingir
#1 | Abram Cerda
Pas mon style
Pas mon style is a diary of handy-cam video and dating app conversations that explore the filmmaker’s sense of confinement to unwritten rules within queer male dating app culture. Digital intimacy exposes intersecting identities - how they’re boxed, questioned, and valued in the society he currently resides.
Abram Cerda (1994) is a queer mixed-race filmmaker and devoted cat dad, born and raised in Southern California. He graduated with his BA from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 2016. He is currently an MA candidate in Audiovisual Arts at the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, Belgium.
Contact
Instagram @abrampaul
#2 | Grimm Merckaert
Space Surfers
In this documentary Tuur and Vic wander around the polluted planet Earth. As they encounter the active and left behind parts of an industrial society, they investigate the possibilities of moving to another habitable planet. Space Surfers immerses the viewer into an apocalyptic world, visually as well as with soundscape.
Grimm Merckaert is a Belgian filmmaker with a wide passion for collaborative documentaries. While creating the documentary concept (and series) Generation Youth (2019) in his second bachelor year, it became clear he wanted to portray the generation he is part of in a different way. What about focusing on powerful stories within generation Z? To show the world a different way of power and influence. Bird of Paradise (2021) was born, a documentary film focusing on the strong aspects of a queer person.
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#3 | Kimia Hendi
Inherent
Inherent is a 15-minute long hybrid film about a 27-year old Iranian girl, Dana, who is searching for her mother’s illegal books that were buried a long time ago in a distant meadow.
An independent filmmaker originally from Iran, Kimia Hendi obtained a BA in Cinema, having specialised in Cinematography at Tehran’s University of Art. After that, she has completed a MA of Film & TV at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), winning the Outstanding Achievement Award 2018. Since 2015, she has made four short films and a documentary named Adam and Eves. In 2019 she won the MIFF Emerging Australian Director. Hendi is currently attending a short course in Belgium to expand her knowledge on European filmmaking.
Contact
Instagram @kimiaindi
#4 | Lukas Gortemaker
UNNAMED
An endless body of water is the authority to which I am subject. As I sink deeper, its mass and subsequently its force increase. And I sink deeper. Warm water is the comforting blanket, rather than the suffocating fate, to which my paralyzed body is no match. A night song resonates through the depth of the ocean and becomes clearer and clearer until I am only wading in the water. The texture of sand stimulates the numbed soles of my feet until we reach the dunes. There, sand turns to cold hard floor while the enduring night song (which was mostly ambient) reveals an underlying sense of rhythm. The dance floor is packed, sweaty shoulders bump into mine as dancers form a tight circle around me. In this very moment my heart knows joy.
Lucas Gortemaker owns many guitars, although he does not know how to play any of them. Born in Rotterdam (1993), he began to walk the life of a promising young man. By the age of eight, he showed great potential in the world of dancing. With hopes of becoming the greatest dancer, dead or alive. A severe hangover unfortunately caused him to forget all that he had learned so far. This life changing event was followed by a decision to become a master in the game of chess. A lack of ambition, impatience and bad sportsmanship unfortunately made him retire at an early point in his career. Today, he spends his days streaming his endless podcast on music and conspiracy theories from his attic room in Brussels, hoping for a tired soul to tune in.
His motto: "Do not make a hat out of a helmet, please.”
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#5 | Luna Brusselaers
I AM NOT THE ONE I AM
I AM NOT THE ONE I AM explores an ambivalent universe that combines the search for self, the desire to disappear, beliefs, intrigue, island dynamics, cultures, but also a subtle approach and exploration of the fine line between truth and lies. The film begins with a trip to the island. The woman, played by Louise Bailly, travels alone. Her silent observation of the people around her, and eventually the island, tells a story without dialogue. The story unfolds slowly, intertwined with scenes from the hospital, where the woman's identity is being sought. At its core, I AM NOT WHO I AM is a study of the character of a woman who tries to break free and, despite social conventions, escape the control of the people around her. Amnesia tries to resist all attempts to explore the truth.
Luna Brusselaers, a Belgo-Croatian filmmaker, explores her Croatian roots through her movies. Born into a family of architects, she was surrounded by a creative environment that allowed her to discover her love for art. Brusselaers grew up between two opposite worlds, a Belgian father and a Croatian mother, an internal battle that can be found in several of her works. She explores, with requirement and prolixity, her relationship with Dubrovnik, living between two cultures and the concept of identity. Next to film directing, Luna has developed a profound passion for film production, which she will pursue next academic year in an MA in International Film Business program in London.
Contact
+32 479 01 55 59
#6 | Maurice Luijten
α Ori (2022)
It is the 27th of November, 1382. The Flemish army gets defeated by the French during the Battle of Roosebeke. Far away in the night sky, a star is sitting brightly off the shoulder of Orion. Betelgeuse (α Ori), one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye, sends out its light, for us to capture on this present day, the seventh of February 2022, after traveling through space for 640 years. Some say the star is already dead without us knowing, that we are looking at an echo of what has in fact already left us. An afterimage, keeping Orion’s shoulder intact.
Contact
Instagram @mauriceluijten
#7 | Mischa Dols
Online Bodies
Online Bodies seeks to explore bodies in virtual space, mapping the twilight zone between the physical and virtual. The project uses various ways of image production, notably: deepfaking, 3D animation, screen-recording, data-moshing and 16mm film. Online Bodies consists of six independent videos woven together with images of a Solar Anus. Hand in hand with a blog (www.onlinebodies.net) Online Bodies tries to produce an image of the future.
The project will have three different screening versions: installation, single-screen and Youtube-playlist.
After working in the Dutch film industry for several years, Mischa Dols moved to Brussels in 2017 to attend LUCA School of Arts. In Brussels he has explored the art side of cinema, making short films and installations. In 2019, Dols was granted a fine arts scholarship at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul, where he developed a broader, intermedia approach to filmmaking during a five-month stay.
Contact
+31 6 45 14 56 23
Instagram @mischaapje
#8 | Penelope Gratacos
Maybe the Movement of the Earth Starts in a Heartbeat
Maybe the Movement of the Earth Starts in a Heartbeat is a compilation of three shorts: Caresser les pourquoi (2020), Above Your Body (2021) and Where is a Smile Coming From (2022). The short films are three essays which have emerged from footage shot over two years of chaotic wanders.
Penelope Gratacos has blossomed as a filmmaker in Brussels and aims to get as close as possible to the gestures of her surroundings in all their aspects, of the other, and of her own. In doing so, Gratacos tries to find signs of love in the everyday.
Contact
+33 6 65 18 62 42
#9 | Vince De Leenheer
Mr Free and Mr Noble go Places
Two mysterious half-human-like creatures with glowing eyes enter the Brussels ground. They call themselves Mr Free and Mr Noble and they go around places to observe them, trying to understand them. In the film we see them traversing Brussels. Mr Free loves and has an immediate appreciation for the city whilst Mr Noble is a bit more wary; Mr Noble slowly loses control, in the attempt to grasp the city as it is. She (yes, she) gets lost in the contradictions and harshness that Brussels has to offer.
Born in Dendermonde, Vince De Leenheer graduated from secondary school in 2017, immediately going to film school at Sint-Lukas Brussels afterwards. In his school years he specialized in sound and editing, however, he also has a passion for making films of his own. Next to filmmaking, De Leenheer also operates in the music industry. He performs in a band called “Karavan” and occasionally does DJ gigs.
Contact
Instagram @potvisvince
#10| Yüksel Çilingir
Sultan’s Crown
Oğuz, a felt making artist, visits his childhood home, and follows the traces of his memories. It is a ritual to say goodbye to his deceased mother, a way to free her soul and to face reality. He collects material that has meaning to him and uses them to create a new work. Will this transformation be a new beginning for him?
In addition to his quality management experience, Çilingir has attended cinema and acting workshops and has worked in the field of journalism and audio-visual arts. These include column writing, interviews, film and video production. His preparatory graduation film Salah was selected by a number of film festivals in different countries.
Contact
Instagram @cilingiry
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