Rob Munday

Thankfully, the majority of us will never know what’s it’s like to experience the maelstrom of a terrorist attack firsthand. The fear, the shock, the confusion…it must be one of the most traumatic incidents a human can encounter and that’s without even considering the impact it must have on your life in the longterm. In his 16-minute short Maalbeek, director Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis immerses us in the survivor’s perspective as he tells the story of Sabine, a woman who lived through the 2016 Brussels explosions, despite being on the train that carried the bomb.

Opening with an ominous rumble, Chandoutis’ film begins by placing us within the carriage of a metro train, but this isn’t live-action, it’s animation and it’s not aiming for photo-realism, but more of a disintegrating, grainy version of reality. This fragmented reconstruction is vital to the storytelling of Maalbeek, this isn’t a typical survivor’s tale, as Sabine explains, just 90-seconds into the short.

“I’m trying to fill the emptiness with images”

“I don’t remember the explosion”, she states. “I don’t remember my coma either. And for this reason, I always get the feeling that someone else went through this rather than me. That’s why I’m trying to fill the emptiness with images.” From this point, it’s clear that Chandoutis’ film isn’t just interested in replaying events from that fateful day, but providing a new perspective. One that reflects on memory and the role it plays in our identity.

“Maalbeek is a journey into amnesiac territory”, Chandoutis states in the film’s press kit and this feels like an apt description of his film. Although his is a short focused on the specific events of those March attacks on Belgium’s capital, it seems just as intent on immersing his viewers into, what he describes as, “the emotional experience of amnesia”. By adding this exploration of memory into the story, the director never dilutes the impact of such a devastating terrorism incident, but helps us look at things from a different point-of-view.

While that perspective was obviously inspired by Sabine, who he met through Life4Brussels – an association dedicated to the victims of the attacks – Chandoutis had his own connection to the events.

Waking-up on the morning of the 22nd March 2016, the filmmaker found his phone full of messages like the ones above. You see, he could have well been on that train. He’d ridden it every day for four years and could have been present that morning if he hadn’t rearranged a post-production session from 9:30am to 11:30am. With non-stop news coverage, confusion from fake news and media sensationalism circulating, Chandoutis admits that he was stricken by fear. A fear of taking that same metro line to go to work. A fear of crowded spaces. A fear of not being able to live like before.

Despite his own links with the Brussels attacks, this isn’t Chandoutis’ story, it’s Sabine’s and it’s her unique situation that inspires the distinct and appropriate aesthetic of Maalbeek. Combining archival footage with his “point cloud” animation style helps focus the film on her mental state and her memories (or lack of) of the explosion and the aftermath. “The film’s animation is composed of live footage, modified to create a mental landscape of fragmented views of the metro station”, the director reveals. Adding that he wanted it to feel “as if the image of these memories had also suffered the physical shock of the explosion”.

“The visual concept is based on a hybrid montage of archival images and 3D animation. This tandem develops the motif of fragmentation” – Chandoutis on the aesthetic.

Just like the focus on Sabine’s amnesia, the style never distracts from the impression these recollections of events leave on the film’s audience. If anything, it feels vital in the immersive nature of the film. If Maalbeek was told solely through live-action footage – talking heads + archival footage – would we begin to understand Sabine’s predicament? I certainly don’t think so. Chandoutis’ short is a great example of aesthetic and narrative working in perfect harmony to bring a unique story to the screen.

Not that this should come as any surprise, Chandoutis had already impressed with a similar approach on his previous short Swatted – a personal favourite of mine. With Maalbeek winning awards at Annecy, Uppsala and Zagreb on its festival tour, before scooping the 2022 César Award for Best Documentary Short Film, it is now embarking on its For your Consideration campaign for the upcoming Academy Awards. With a series of shorts to his name, it’s exciting to hear that Chandoutis is now working on his debut feature, which will feature on the rising trend of Deepfakes on the internet. We’re fascinated to see how his unique filmmaking voice translates to the longer format.