"Nomination Golden Bear"
59th Berlin International Film Festival
CASTMurderer: Kevin Plet
Victim: Bart Desloovere TECHNICAL INFO17'
Cinemascope 1: 2.35 Color Stereo 35mm No dialogue Shooting days: 3 Shot in Heuvelland (Flanders) |
CREWDirector: Kristof Hoornaert
Writer: Kristof Hoornaert Producer: Tomas Leyers DOP: Richard van Oosterhout NSC Sound: Raf Enckels Editor: Stijn Deconinck Assistant to Director: Alexander Van Waes Production Manager: Xavier Rombaut Produced by Minds Meet with the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund Belgium 2009 Release date: January 2009 |
“Kaïn has an unbelievable energy. The film – a debut, by the way – kept going around in my head long after I saw it, and that’s exactly what I want from the cinema. If someone has to be killed on screen, if life has to be wasted, then let it at least not be for the sake of sensationalism or in the form of a casual, supposedly cool act. Show me the effects of murder and guilt. Kaïn does precisely that, in a rich green landscape of forests and fields, a setting that resonates with the theme of several of the films: nature and the outdoors. The focus on the body is also underscored by the heavy labour the main character has to perform. A way of working with the camera that is directly concerned with the body and physicality."
Curator Maike Mia Höhne about the 2009 Berlinale Shorts Programme.
"Kristof Hoornaert settles this story in an idyllic landscape of early spring. Crawling animals such as beetles and ants populate the forgotten forest. Kain splatters the head of Abel and drags the body through meadows, fields and forests. Many moments of meditation where the murderer remembers his cruel act. An effective film." infomedia-sh.de
"The skill of the short film is completely his own. The filmmaker has developed his own language." Deutschlandradio Kultur
“The film situates itself near the family of Kieslowski, Tarkovsky and Zvyagintsev. A very simple, clear and at the same time metaphysical reflection on the human condition.” cinematography.nl
"Homicide, concealment and escape in the Belgian landscape in Kain (the title does not mislead) to the contemplation of nature. This stirs the drama of murder." filmagazine.it
"A lot of nature and physicality, few words and a lead atmosphere. Nevertheless, a short film with a certain allure." deredactie.be
"Films with a grim look on actuality. That theme is a common thread throughout the Berlinale program. Not in the least in KAIN, the poetic Belgian short film (in competition) in which self-taught filmmaker Kristof Hoornaert shows us, only with images, the whole inner process of an anonymous young murderer, left to himself after a deadly struggle in a forest." Filmmagie
"KAIN stuck the whole day in my head and on my retina. It’s a rough diamond with sparkling beauty and sharp edges." Corridor Films
"KAIN situates itself in a strong film tradition: the spiritual or transcendental film. The film takes the viewer into a mental world that is relevant. The overwhelming presence of the forest in images and sounds in contrast with the futility of human crime and cruelty, followed by the human need for cleansing and redemption, which the murderer cannot give himself. The film has a tension between the title and the wordless images that creates an authenticity and it shows the open-minded viewer that someone is inventing himself here as cinematographer." Men(S)tis
"The critics of most significant festivals highly noted also this, screened in Cannes and Berlin, "KAIN” by Belgian Kristof Hoornaert. This first Belgian film in Tofifest competitions was noticed as a work which is close in its climate to works of Kieślowski and Tarkovski, especially in their metaphysical reflection about man and human kind." tofifest.pl
"Any psychological explanation is avoided, an approach that was originally introduced by French filmmaker Robert Bresson. Kristof Hoornaert goes very far in his cinematography. By using only images shot from the back of the character and showing no faces. The human body dominates the scene. Here there is no motive or background for the murder. The director writes his images in the spiritual tradition of painter Caspar David Friedrich. The images take man out of the center of his own existence and places him in his original home: nature, the earth, the landscape, which reduced man to its true proportions. It is nature itself that bears witness to what happens to mankind." Extract Leren Leven Met Beelden 2010 (Gids voor filmprogrammatie in onderwijs en vorming)
Curator Maike Mia Höhne about the 2009 Berlinale Shorts Programme.
"Kristof Hoornaert settles this story in an idyllic landscape of early spring. Crawling animals such as beetles and ants populate the forgotten forest. Kain splatters the head of Abel and drags the body through meadows, fields and forests. Many moments of meditation where the murderer remembers his cruel act. An effective film." infomedia-sh.de
"The skill of the short film is completely his own. The filmmaker has developed his own language." Deutschlandradio Kultur
“The film situates itself near the family of Kieslowski, Tarkovsky and Zvyagintsev. A very simple, clear and at the same time metaphysical reflection on the human condition.” cinematography.nl
"Homicide, concealment and escape in the Belgian landscape in Kain (the title does not mislead) to the contemplation of nature. This stirs the drama of murder." filmagazine.it
"A lot of nature and physicality, few words and a lead atmosphere. Nevertheless, a short film with a certain allure." deredactie.be
"Films with a grim look on actuality. That theme is a common thread throughout the Berlinale program. Not in the least in KAIN, the poetic Belgian short film (in competition) in which self-taught filmmaker Kristof Hoornaert shows us, only with images, the whole inner process of an anonymous young murderer, left to himself after a deadly struggle in a forest." Filmmagie
"KAIN stuck the whole day in my head and on my retina. It’s a rough diamond with sparkling beauty and sharp edges." Corridor Films
"KAIN situates itself in a strong film tradition: the spiritual or transcendental film. The film takes the viewer into a mental world that is relevant. The overwhelming presence of the forest in images and sounds in contrast with the futility of human crime and cruelty, followed by the human need for cleansing and redemption, which the murderer cannot give himself. The film has a tension between the title and the wordless images that creates an authenticity and it shows the open-minded viewer that someone is inventing himself here as cinematographer." Men(S)tis
"The critics of most significant festivals highly noted also this, screened in Cannes and Berlin, "KAIN” by Belgian Kristof Hoornaert. This first Belgian film in Tofifest competitions was noticed as a work which is close in its climate to works of Kieślowski and Tarkovski, especially in their metaphysical reflection about man and human kind." tofifest.pl
"Any psychological explanation is avoided, an approach that was originally introduced by French filmmaker Robert Bresson. Kristof Hoornaert goes very far in his cinematography. By using only images shot from the back of the character and showing no faces. The human body dominates the scene. Here there is no motive or background for the murder. The director writes his images in the spiritual tradition of painter Caspar David Friedrich. The images take man out of the center of his own existence and places him in his original home: nature, the earth, the landscape, which reduced man to its true proportions. It is nature itself that bears witness to what happens to mankind." Extract Leren Leven Met Beelden 2010 (Gids voor filmprogrammatie in onderwijs en vorming)