Interview with Belgian Filmmakers The Brothers Dardenne

Over at the web site 99%, writer Ariston Anderson interviews Belgian filmmakers the Dardenne Brothers. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne have won two Palme d'Or's at the Cannes Film Festival, for Rosetta (1999) and for L'Enfant (2005).

When asked why depictions of work and labor play a prominent part in their films, Luc notes that they were raised in an industrial city, Seraing, "a little Detroit."

He explains how this experience informed their decision to make films:

I think one of the big wishes of the human kind is to transform things, to work on things to construct, to destroy, to sometimes construct again. And not only to look at the world, let’s say, passively. I think that’s the aim of humankind, being a man, a woman, is to change things. And cinema is about showing things that are changing.

Later in the interview Luc and Jean-Pierre mention Armand Gatti, a man they refer to as their "spiritual father":

That’s what we call the spiritual father, the man that gives you the desire to discover new things. And that surprises you while also giving you confidence. So he’s someone who has played an important role in our work. Without this encounter, we wouldn’t have been doing what we’ve been doing all these years.

I wasn't familiar with Gatti before but he sounds fascinating (though apparently none of his films have been released on video in the U.S.).