Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will host their weekly screening in the University Theatre! This week's film is Pink Ulysses (Erik de Kuyper, 1990), in collaboration with Avila.

Avila is a Brussels-based non-profit organisation which distributes Belgian auteur cinema in theaters and online. Founded by filmmakers, the platform offers both contemporary and classical, experimental, documentary, and fiction films. The catalogue is a carefully curated selection of films that resonate aesthetically and socially, and contribute to (film) history. Its range consists mainly of films with a unique worldview by directors with a bold cinematic signature who resolutely approach cinema as an art form. 

Belgium produces many exceptional and valuable films that often fail to fully reach their intended audience. Avila seeks to bridge the gap between a film and its public and contributes to a sustainable Belgian film culture on several levels. As a distributor, Avila brings unreleased films to the big screen with care and organises contextualised screenings in Belgium. After their release, the films are published on the streaming platform where they are accessible worldwide alongside 100 other titles.

Homer tells us how Ulysses’ wife Penelope used to weave Laertes’ shroud. The work she did by day she unravelled by night. That process was not dissimilar to the creation and production of Pink Ulysses. Gradually images (collected here and there, also from film classics) and well and lesser known music created a texture of sight and sound, resulting in a variation on Ulysses. Perhaps Penelope began to love her son more than her distant, absent husband? And possibly Ulysses began to love the “ideal Penelope” he recognized in magical Circe more than his wife, who would be waiting for him in Ithaca? Perhaps… and the imagination lingers on… How this materializes in a film, a fabric, is Pink Ulysses’ secret. An exploration, an adventurous wandering.’