Tribute to the Maysles brothers

The Millenium Festival, in collaboration with the CINEMATEK, presents for the first time in Belgium a retrospective devoted to the Maysles Brothers, David and Albert. They draw the paint the other side of the American Dream by taking a look at a traveling bible salesman as well as at the Rolling Stones. With their film Salesman, they launched an important theme, which is becoming ever more important: the pervasive of the market in human relationships.

The two brothers, Albert and David Maysles, considered the American pioneers “direct cinema”, better known in France as cinéma-vérité, with particularity of plunging into the area of intimacy. It was in this spirit that they made Salesman (1968), Gimme Shelter (1969) about the Stones concert at Altamont, marked with blood (of a black person murdered by Hells Angels members of the security forces), the end of the 60's, or Grey Garden (1973), which could very well be their masterpiece, about two women, the aunt and the cousin of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, living in an abandoned mansion. Albert Maysles is one of the last representatives of the American documentary golden age, along with Fred Wiseman and William Klein (whose methods and visions differ from his). David died in 1987. Albert, now 82, is still shooting, but abandoned his 16mm camera to take on more miniaturized, digital ones.

Find all the films in retrospective here