In today's world, we live with a continuous stream of images from all over the world. Through news, social media, and other online platforms, we are daily witnesses to war, disasters, political conflicts, inequality, and climate crises via the screens of our phones, televisions… We watch the suffering and violence of others, almost in real time, as it happens. But because the confrontation with these images is so constant, these events remain distant and almost abstract. We watch, but we do not experience it.

This distance creates a bizarre paradox. More than ever before, we are aware of what is happening all over the world, yet that constant access to violence leaves us emotionally numb. Images of conflicts, the refugee crisis, ecological disasters, and political unrest can be seen in the same spaces where we seek relaxation. Just as we are spectators of relaxing videos, films, and series, we become spectators of real events happening right now.

We can therefore compare the position of spectators to how we experience cinema. In the cinema, we sit in the dark and witness stories of people who suffer, fight, lose, and die. We feel the tension and we feel empathy, but our position remains outside the frame, without participating. The story unfolds, whether we are truly watching or not.

But film also has the power to challenge the distance between the viewer and the one being watched. Film confronts the spectator with unseen, ignored realities, and motivates us to look closer at lives that are marginalized and experiences that remain hidden.

In this series of films, we want to start precisely from that paradoxical position: the spectator as witness, but also as voyeur. Within this theme, we want to play with what it means for the viewer to watch violence and conflict without the possibility, or the will, to intervene.

Through uncomfortable questions, this film series turns the spectator into an accomplice: when does watching become a form of distance, and when does it transform into a form of involvement? And what does it mean when we remain seated, just like in the cinema, while the story continues?

What does it mean to watch violence? And why do we keep watching?

A family arrives at their lakeside house to start a peaceful holiday. When two seemingly polite young men arrive, the story takes a disturbing turn. The everyday normality transforms into something far more disturbing.

The writer and director Michael Haneke plays with the typical horror or thriller conventions by building up tension through silence, repetition and psychological manipulation. The result is a film that constantly keep the viewer on edge. But more than that Funny Games challenges the viewer to reflect on their role as spectators. Why are we drawn to scenes of violence? What does it mean to watch, and even expect, certain outcomes? By breaking those usual conventions of storytelling, Haneke makes the audience part of the experience, forcing us to be confronted with not only what we see on the screen, but how we engage with it.

Trix Van Pelt (2004) studies Art and Archaeology at the VUB and is passionate about art in every medium. She’s interested in the interaction between artforms and the public, and how this opens conversations about meaning and representation. For her internship, she helped with curating the (current) exhibition Picture Perfect in Bozar.

Nora Oscé (2005), is currently in her third bachelor's degree studying
communication sciences at the VUB. I’ve always had a keen interest for films, her mom is a cinephile and made sure to pass down that trait to Nora. This motivated her to help curate the film program for Pilar. In her free time Nora enjoys spending time with her friends after class and going on walks with her dog Luis when she's back from university on weekends.

Louise Vanneste (born 2002) studies Archeological Sciences at the VUB and is currently specializing in osteoarchaeology and she's especially interested in the study of bones and funerary practices. Besides that Louise loves studying different art forms from different perspectives and discussing about it.