Tag

Although the armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, for the Belgian people the true end of the War was marked by the return of the Royal Family in the capital of Brussels on 22 November. A military parade by over 6000 Belgian and allied soldiers and a series of ten temporary monuments scattered around the city along the route of the cortege, added luster to the grand tour taken by King Albert I, Queen Elisabeth an

La Libre Belgique et l’héroqiue Gabrielle Petit (La Libre Belgique and the heroic Gabrielle Petit, Armand du Plessy, 1921) is a quintessential example of how Belgian film makers were inspired by the Great War in the early twenties. Their interest lead to a more or less coherent cycle of films, following the scheme of the patriotic war film.

French director Alfred Machin (1877-1929) was sent to Belgium by the French firm Pathé in 1912 to start up a film studio, Belge-Cinéma-Film. Next to his magnum opus, Maudite soit la guerre (1913), he made over twenty short and medium length films. In order to cater for local audiences, he gave his films a certain couleur locale. This is obvious in his short films Saïda a enlevé Manneken Pis (Saïda stole Manneken Pis,