Charles Dhondt

Fedor is a young locksmith in Murmansk, a frozen city in the obscurity of the Russian Arctic. Client after client, he roams through the alleys of concrete animated by a fantasy that isolates him from the city and its population. His dreams corrode his relation to reality and open the door to a phantasmagoric universe; a second sun is rising above the Russian Arctic.

'Whose Cheek Is This?' is a short experimental film larded with documentary and autobiographical elements, in the absence of lies. A love triangle between Eleonore Van Godtsenhoven (27), Stine Sampers (24) and Ezra Fieremans (23). On the projection of images and ideas – the shifting of personal borders – the representation of a past – colour, innocence, love, and sex. And everybody thought that Eleonore was innocent…

Documentary containing fictional elements. On love between a young woman (Sophia Bauer, 22) and a young filmmaker (Charles Dhondt, 22), bound together through several staged thoughts, events and actions. The film as a sexual and emotional awakening.

Somewhere between the 1930s and now, the cameras start turning and Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich gather on one film set. The floor gleams, the spotlights are burning, the narration starts. Born out of a fascination for the construction that is Hollywood, and by extension ‘the perfect Hollywood home’, the maker embodies three actresses from Hollywood’s golden era and their so-called private lives. Their smallest personality traits are performed so precise and characteristically that it becomes artificial. The home isn’t homely. It plays “house” and the inhabitants are speaking Hollywoodian. In this setting, the maker of the film recalls memories of growing up in her childhood home.

Somewhere between the 1930s and now, the cameras start turning and Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich gather on one film set. The floor gleams, the spotlights are burning, the narration starts. Born out of a fascination for the construction that is Hollywood, and by extension ‘the perfect Hollywood home’, the maker embodies three actresses from Hollywood’s golden era and their so-called private lives. Their smallest personality traits are performed so precise and characteristically that it becomes artificial. The home isn’t homely. It plays “house” and the inhabitants are speaking Hollywoodian. In this setting, the maker of the film recalls memories of growing up in her childhood home.