And it has begun. The 17th edition of the Filmfestival of Ostend started this Friday. This means I will be seeing a lot of films during the next week. And it also means there won’t be a new Six To See this Friday, it will be in two weeks. But no worries, because I will be taking you with me during the whole festival. The first few days were already amazing.
Everything started on Friday at the Walk of Fame at the beach where the Master of this year, Charlotte Vandermersch received a star. The directors of the opening film, the brothers Jan and Raf Roosens, also received one. The opening film of Filmfestival Ostend this year was Comeback with Veerle Beatens in the lead role alongside Zwangere Guy and her real life daughter Billie-Louise Vlegels.
It was a great first film and a great start for the filmfestival. 2.200 people saw the film Friday night and even more people will be able to see it, because Comeback is releasing in theatres in Belgium this Wednesday on February 5 and in theatres in the Netherlands later this month on February 27.
Yesterday, on Saturday, it was the first full day of the filmfestival and I saw three films: Mr. K, Motel Destino and the big favorite for the Oscars, The Brutalist.
Mr.K was a weird but good film. It stars Crispin Glover, who you may know from Back to the Future in which he plays the father of Marty McFly, in the lead role and is directed by Tallulah H. Schwab. It’s a co-production between Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway and it’s a surrealistic film that follows Mr. K, a traveling illusionist, who finds himself trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he cannot find the exit of the hotel where he has spent the night. His attempts to escape only take him deeper into the hotel, where he is confronted by its strange inhabitants.
Motel Destino is a Brazilian erotic thriller film directed and co-written by Karim Aïnouz. It stars Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha and Fábio Assunção in the lead roles. The neon-hued Motel Destino, a roadside sex hotel shimmering under the burning blue skies of the northeastern coast of Brazil, is run by hot-headed Elias and his restless younger wife Dayana. The unexpected arrival of 21-year-old Heraldo, on the run after a botched hit, disrupts the established order. As the tropical noir plays out, loyalties and desires intertwine to reveal that destiny has its own enigmatic design. The film was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or and Queer Palm at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered.
I ended the day with the amazing The Brutalist. It might be one of the best films of the festival and of the year. I understand why it’s one of the films that can win big at the Oscars this year. Despite the long runtime, it’s a film you have to see. It has an intermission of 15 minutes at the half of the film, so you don’t have to worry if you have a small bladder like me. Adrien Brody is amazing as László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States, where he struggles to achieve the American Dream until a wealthy client changes his life.
The cast also features Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola. Pearce is also great in this film from director Brady Corbet, who also co-wrote the script with Mona Fastvold. The Brutalist is a film you have to see on the big screen. It already won several prizes and has been nominated for ten Oscars, with the ceremony taking place on March 2. The film was already released in limited theatres in the United States on December 20, 2024 and was released in the UK on January 24. The film will be released in even more countries this month, including in Belgium and the Netherlands later this week.
Six To See 
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