{
  "license": "CC0-1.0",
  "source": "https://www.robrombout.com",
  "generated": "2026-10-10",
  "films": [
    {
      "no": 1,
      "slug": "1978-denken-denken-denken",
      "year": 1978,
      "title": "Denken, denken, denken",
      "runtime": "11′",
      "kind": "Student film",
      "chapter": "origins",
      "themes": [
        "early"
      ],
      "production": "RITCS film school, Brussels",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "logline": "Rob Rombout's student film at the RITCS film school in Brussels.",
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Brussels",
          "country": "Belgium",
          "lat": 50.85,
          "lon": 4.35
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "q0BrePwnXWM",
        "label": "Full film",
        "duration": "10′47″"
      },
      "availability": "Online on Rob Rombout's YouTube channel",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1978-denken-denken-denken/"
    },
    {
      "no": 2,
      "slug": "1983-le-pouvoir-dachat-des-chomeurs",
      "year": 1983,
      "title": "Le pouvoir d'achat des chômeurs",
      "runtime": "21′",
      "kind": "Television documentary",
      "chapter": "canal-emploi",
      "themes": [
        "early",
        "social"
      ],
      "production": "Canal Emploi, Liège",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "French",
      "logline": "An early film for Canal Emploi, the Liège community television made with and for unemployed workers.",
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Liège",
          "country": "Belgium",
          "lat": 50.63,
          "lon": 5.57
        }
      ],
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction and editing",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ]
      ],
      "availability": "Archive",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1983-le-pouvoir-dachat-des-chomeurs/"
    },
    {
      "no": 3,
      "slug": "1985-lhomme-qui-en-disait-trop",
      "year": 1985,
      "title": "L'Homme qui en disait trop",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "The Man Who Talked Too Much"
      },
      "runtime": "22′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "canal-emploi",
      "themes": [
        "early",
        "social"
      ],
      "production": "Canal Emploi, Liège",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "French, Dutch",
      "logline": "One union delegate against a multinational: an unequal duel at the factory gate.",
      "synopsis": "In 1985 Monsanto dismisses Roger Vandermeiren, a union delegate at its plant near Antwerp, for defending a colleague. A seven-week strike and six months in court follow, and Vandermeiren keeps representing his co-workers from a caravan parked outside the gates. Rob Rombout's early video turns a labour dispute into the portrait of a proud man who refuses to leave.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction, script, editing",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "André Leplat"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Jean-Marc Geuns"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Canal Emploi"
        ]
      ],
      "with": [
        "Roger Vandermeiren"
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "1994",
          "event": "Videobrasil, São Paulo",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Antwerp",
          "country": "Belgium",
          "lat": 51.22,
          "lon": 4.4
        }
      ],
      "availability": "Archive",
      "status": "released",
      "note": "Runtime is given as 22′ or 26′ depending on the source.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1985-lhomme-qui-en-disait-trop/"
    },
    {
      "no": 4,
      "slug": "1986-pas-de-cadeau-pour-noel",
      "year": 1986,
      "title": "Pas de cadeau pour Noël",
      "runtime": "25′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "canal-emploi",
      "themes": [
        "early",
        "social"
      ],
      "production": "Canal Emploi, Liège",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "French",
      "logline": "A Rwandan immigrant in Liège, far from home at Christmas.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction, script, editing",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Canal Emploi"
        ]
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Liège",
          "country": "Belgium",
          "lat": 50.63,
          "lon": 5.57
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "8zJzST6vi6A",
        "label": "Full film",
        "duration": "24′34″"
      },
      "availability": "Online on Rob Rombout's YouTube channel",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1986-pas-de-cadeau-pour-noel/"
    },
    {
      "no": 5,
      "slug": "1987-entre-deux-tours",
      "year": 1987,
      "title": "Entre deux tours",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "Between Two Towers"
      },
      "runtime": "16′",
      "kind": "Video essay",
      "chapter": "form",
      "themes": [
        "borders",
        "video"
      ],
      "production": "GSARA, with Wallonie Image Production and RTBF",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "French",
      "logline": "On the Belgian–Dutch border, a prophet's tower and a NATO tower talk past each other.",
      "synopsis": "On the Belgian–Dutch border, two towers stand a few kilometres apart. A self-taught visionary built one at Eben-Emael as a monument to peace and prophecy. The other belongs to NATO's Central Europe command at Brunssum. Through a written monologue and patient framing, Rob Rombout makes them hold a conversation, though neither hears the other.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Script and direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Monologue",
          "Christian Janssens"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Kommer Klein"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Fabio Lani"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Excuse my French"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "GSARA, Wallonie Image Production, RTBF"
        ]
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "1994",
          "event": "Videobrasil, São Paulo",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2025-09-23",
          "event": "Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon",
          "type": "New digital remaster",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Eben-Emael",
          "country": "Belgium",
          "lat": 50.79,
          "lon": 5.66
        },
        {
          "name": "Brunssum",
          "country": "Netherlands",
          "lat": 50.95,
          "lon": 5.97
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "Ee5cfYDrEOs",
        "label": "Excerpt",
        "duration": "2′28″"
      },
      "availability": "Remastered 2025 · on request",
      "status": "released",
      "note": "Some older lists give 52′; the 2025 remaster runs 16′.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1987-entre-deux-tours/"
    },
    {
      "no": 6,
      "slug": "1990-nord-express",
      "year": 1990,
      "title": "Nord-Express",
      "runtime": "59′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "vessels",
      "themes": [
        "closed-worlds",
        "trains"
      ],
      "production": "Paradise Films, with Triangle 7, RTBF, CAC-CICV Montbéliard and Wallonie Image Production",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium",
        "France"
      ],
      "languages": "French, German, Polish, Russian",
      "logline": "Paris to Moscow in 47 hours, in 1990, on a train that has outlived two world wars and now the Wall.",
      "synopsis": "In 1896 the Nord Express joined Paris to St Petersburg. In 1990 Rob Rombout boards it for the 47-hour run to Moscow, just after the Berlin Wall has fallen and Paris lays new high-speed track. At the Soviet border the whole train is lifted onto new wheels. On board, a sleeping-car attendant and a student watch Europe change; in Berlin, a painter talks about speed.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Script",
          "Rob Rombout, Christian Janssens"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Louis-Philippe Capelle"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Olivier Struye, Paul Heymans"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Piotr Hertel"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Paradise Films"
        ]
      ],
      "with": [
        "Galina",
        "Theodore",
        "Ben Wargin"
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "1990",
          "event": "World Wide Video Festival, The Hague",
          "type": "Selection",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "1990",
          "event": "Videobrasil, São Paulo",
          "type": "Belgian programme",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "1994",
          "event": "Videobrasil, São Paulo",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "press": [
        {
          "quote": "No derailments, no mysterious disappearances, no strange characters.",
          "source": "Ernie Tee, Skrien",
          "date": "1991"
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Paris",
          "country": "France",
          "lat": 48.86,
          "lon": 2.35
        },
        {
          "name": "Berlin",
          "country": "Germany",
          "lat": 52.52,
          "lon": 13.4
        },
        {
          "name": "Brest",
          "country": "Belarus",
          "lat": 52.1,
          "lon": 23.69
        },
        {
          "name": "Moscow",
          "country": "Russia",
          "lat": 55.76,
          "lon": 37.62
        }
      ],
      "availability": "On request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "closed-worlds"
      ],
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1990-nord-express/"
    },
    {
      "no": 7,
      "slug": "1992-transatlantique-queen-elizabeth-2",
      "year": 1992,
      "title": "Transatlantique, Queen Elizabeth 2",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "Transatlantic: Queen Elizabeth 2"
      },
      "runtime": "57′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "vessels",
      "themes": [
        "closed-worlds",
        "ships"
      ],
      "production": "Nota Bene, with Wallonie Image Production and RTBF",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "English, French",
      "logline": "Five days, three thousand people and one ocean, on board the last of the great transatlantic liners.",
      "synopsis": "Southampton to New York on the Queen Elizabeth 2, the last liner still running the Atlantic. Passengers dance, dine and drift, while a crew of a thousand keeps the floating town running below decks. In the middle of the ocean, Rob Rombout studies what privacy, work and leisure look like when nobody can leave.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Script",
          "Rob Rombout, Jean-Philippe Laroche"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Louis-Philippe Capelle"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Paul Heymans"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Jean-Christophe Renaud"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Nota Bene"
        ]
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "1993",
          "event": "Netherlands Film Festival, Utrecht",
          "type": "Selection",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "1994",
          "event": "Videobrasil, São Paulo",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Southampton",
          "country": "United Kingdom",
          "lat": 50.9,
          "lon": -1.4
        },
        {
          "name": "North Atlantic",
          "country": "",
          "lat": 45,
          "lon": -40
        },
        {
          "name": "New York",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 40.71,
          "lon": -74.01
        }
      ],
      "availability": "On request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "closed-worlds"
      ],
      "note": "Released 1992; shown at the Netherlands Film Festival in 1993.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1992-transatlantique-queen-elizabeth-2/"
    },
    {
      "no": 8,
      "slug": "1994-lile-noire",
      "year": 1994,
      "title": "L'Île noire",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "Black Island"
      },
      "runtime": "52′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "vessels",
      "themes": [
        "closed-worlds",
        "islands",
        "work"
      ],
      "format": "Super 16 mm",
      "production": "Nota Bene, with Wallonie Image Production, RTBF, BRTN and France 2",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium",
        "France"
      ],
      "languages": "English",
      "logline": "Eighty men and one woman, a steel island in the North Sea, and the routines that keep them sane.",
      "synopsis": "Far out in the North Sea, the F.G. McClintock drilling rig never stops. Eighty men and one woman eat, sleep and work in a few hundred square metres of steel, while a rescue boat circles them day and night. Rob Rombout watches the gestures, the noise and the long absences from home in a world sealed off by the sea.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Script",
          "Rob Rombout, Jean-Philippe Laroche"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Louis-Philippe Capelle"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Philippe Sellier"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Jean-Louis Daulne"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Nota Bene"
        ]
      ],
      "with": [
        "Mick Pollard",
        "Brian Spencer",
        "Derrick",
        "Glenn A. Musick",
        "Terry Johnson"
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "1995",
          "event": "Cinéma du Réel, Paris",
          "type": "Selection",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "1995",
          "event": "Netherlands Film Festival, Utrecht",
          "type": "Selection",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "1995",
          "event": "Film Fest Gent",
          "type": "Selection",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2022-11-15",
          "event": "Focus Rob Rombout, Strasbourg",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "North Sea",
          "country": "",
          "lat": 57.5,
          "lon": 1.5
        }
      ],
      "availability": "On request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "closed-worlds",
        "islands"
      ],
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1994-lile-noire/"
    },
    {
      "no": 9,
      "slug": "1995-les-acores-de-madredeus",
      "year": 1995,
      "title": "Les Açores de Madredeus",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "The Azores of Madredeus",
        "pt": "Os Açores dos Madredeus"
      },
      "runtime": "40′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "islands",
        "music",
        "lusophone"
      ],
      "production": "Mona Lisa Films, with RTBF and France Supervision",
      "countries": [
        "France",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "Portuguese, French",
      "logline": "A band at the height of its fame searches the Azores for the roots of its sound.",
      "synopsis": "On the Azores, light and weather can turn in a minute. The singer and the founder of the Portuguese band Madredeus travel the islands, listening to islanders, joining village feasts and walking volcanic landscapes, and find there the mixed origins of their own music. Rob Rombout films the archipelago as if it were one of their songs.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Jean-Paul Dezaeytijd"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Paul Heymans"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Mona Lisa Films"
        ]
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2022-11-15",
          "event": "Focus Rob Rombout, Strasbourg",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2025-09-23",
          "event": "Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon",
          "type": "New digital remaster",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2026-03-14",
          "event": "Arsmondo Îles, BNU Strasbourg",
          "type": "Screening",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Azores",
          "country": "Portugal",
          "lat": 38.5,
          "lon": -28
        }
      ],
      "availability": "Remastered 2025 · DVD Arte Vidéo (2006)",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "islands"
      ],
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1995-les-acores-de-madredeus/"
    },
    {
      "no": 10,
      "slug": "1998-amsterdam-via-amsterdam",
      "year": 1998,
      "title": "Amsterdam via Amsterdam",
      "runtime": "80′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "amsterdam",
      "themes": [
        "amsterdam",
        "islands",
        "ships"
      ],
      "codirector": "Rogier van Eck",
      "production": "Asap, with CBA, RTBF, Image Création and Triangle",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "Dutch, French, English",
      "logline": "Two Amsterdammers sail to the Arctic and the Antarctic to look back at their city from the two islands that share its name.",
      "synopsis": "Willem Barentsz sailed north and Cornelis de Houtman sailed south, and each left an island named Amsterdam on the map. Four centuries later, two filmmakers born in the city follow them to Spitsbergen and to the southern Indian Ocean. Between polar ice and sub-Antarctic wind, the Dutch capital comes into view as a triptych.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout, Rogier van Eck"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Samuel Dravet, Willy Stassen, Louis-Philippe Capelle"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Griet van Reeth"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Rogier van Eck, Rudi Maerten"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Hughes Maréchal"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Asap"
        ]
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2005",
          "event": "The Landmark, Baku",
          "type": "Screening and debate",
          "v": false
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam",
          "country": "Netherlands",
          "lat": 52.37,
          "lon": 4.9
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdamøya, Spitsbergen",
          "country": "Norway",
          "lat": 79.77,
          "lon": 10.8
        },
        {
          "name": "Île Amsterdam",
          "country": "French Southern Lands",
          "lat": -37.83,
          "lon": 77.55
        }
      ],
      "availability": "CBA, Brussels · on request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "amsterdam",
        "islands"
      ],
      "note": "A 40′ work in progress was shown in 1997; the film exists in 54′ and 80′ versions and was reissued in 2004.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1998-amsterdam-via-amsterdam/"
    },
    {
      "no": 11,
      "slug": "1999-perm-mission",
      "year": 1999,
      "title": "Perm-mission",
      "runtime": "52′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "closed-worlds",
        "cinema"
      ],
      "production": "Nota Bene, with Good & Bad News and RTBF",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "Russian, French",
      "logline": "The only foreigner at a documentary festival in the frozen Urals listens to Russian filmmakers argue about the truth.",
      "synopsis": "In 1995 Rob Rombout was the only foreign guest at Flahertiana, a documentary festival in Perm held in honour of Robert Flaherty. Three years later he went back with a camera. At minus twenty-five, some forty Russian directors debate what a documentary owes to reality, and their own films answer between the interviews.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Script",
          "Rob Rombout, Pascal Perez"
        ],
        [
          "Image and sound",
          "Pascal Perez"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Rachel Lamisse"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Nota Bene"
        ]
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Perm",
          "country": "Russia",
          "lat": 58.01,
          "lon": 56.25
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "u51JGHcLJQk",
        "label": "Excerpt",
        "duration": "6′06″"
      },
      "availability": "On request",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1999-perm-mission/"
    },
    {
      "no": 12,
      "slug": "2000-le-piege-de-kerguelen",
      "year": 2000,
      "title": "Le Piège de Kerguelen",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "The Kerguelen Trap"
      },
      "runtime": "40′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "islands"
      ],
      "format": "35 mm",
      "production": "Asap",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium",
        "France"
      ],
      "languages": "French, English",
      "logline": "On the islands of desolation, scientists trap the descendants of an explorer's cats, and the cats look back.",
      "synopsis": "In 1772 Yves de Kerguelen reached a sub-Antarctic archipelago, called it a trap and left behind only a few ship's cats. Two centuries on, a scientific mission comes ashore to catch their feral descendants and study how they survive the ice. Shot on 35 mm, the film keeps asking who, on these islands, is watching whom.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Assistant director",
          "Rogier van Eck"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Samuel Dravet"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Griet van Reeth"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Hughes Maréchal"
        ],
        [
          "Voices",
          "Pascal Perez, Rob Rombout, Christian Janssens"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Asap"
        ]
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2022-11-17",
          "event": "Focus Rob Rombout, Strasbourg",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2026-03-14",
          "event": "Arsmondo Îles, BNU Strasbourg",
          "type": "Screening",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Kerguelen Islands",
          "country": "French Southern Lands",
          "lat": -49.35,
          "lon": 70.22
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "Id0LHD0VZZ4",
        "label": "Excerpt",
        "duration": "4′15″"
      },
      "availability": "DVD Heure Exquise! · on request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "islands"
      ],
      "note": "Some sources date the film 1998, the year of the shoot.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2000-le-piege-de-kerguelen/"
    },
    {
      "no": 13,
      "slug": "2001-canton-la-chinoise",
      "year": 2001,
      "title": "Canton la Chinoise",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "Canton, the Chinese City"
      },
      "runtime": "52′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "china",
        "video"
      ],
      "codirector": "Robert Cahen",
      "production": "CICV Pierre Schaeffer and others, with RTBF and ARTE",
      "countries": [
        "France",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "Cantonese, Mandarin, French",
      "logline": "Five people in Guangzhou watch their city disappear and rebuild itself, always through a pane of glass.",
      "synopsis": "Guangzhou, the most Chinese of cities, is erasing its past under concrete. Rob Rombout and the video artist Robert Cahen follow five residents who watch the change through a window, a photograph, a painting or a foreign language. Neither travelogue nor reportage, the film asks how a city in upheaval shows itself to those who cross it.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout, Robert Cahen"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Maureen Mazurek"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Gilles Marchesi"
        ]
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2022-11-17",
          "event": "Focus Rob Rombout, Strasbourg, with both directors",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Guangzhou",
          "country": "China",
          "lat": 23.13,
          "lon": 113.26
        }
      ],
      "availability": "On request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "east-west"
      ],
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2001-canton-la-chinoise/"
    },
    {
      "no": 14,
      "slug": "2002-les-passagers-de-lalsace",
      "year": 2002,
      "title": "Les Passagers de l'Alsace",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "The Passengers of Alsace"
      },
      "runtime": "52′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "closed-worlds",
        "trains"
      ],
      "production": "Good & Bad News and Le Meilleur des Mondes, with CBA and RTBF, for France 3 Alsace",
      "countries": [
        "France",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "French",
      "logline": "Ten Alsatians, one train, and three questions about looking, listening and speed.",
      "synopsis": "A foreigner rides the regional trains of Alsace and puts three questions to the strangers in his compartment: what a look means, how to listen to someone else, and how the land relates to speed. An ophthalmologist, a psychoanalyst, a winegrower and seven others answer. In passing, a region describes itself without saying the word identity.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Samuel Dravet"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Philippe Poirier"
        ]
      ],
      "with": [
        "Christine Collin",
        "Henri Dreyfus",
        "Jean-Richard Freymann",
        "Aurore Humbert",
        "Sylvie Levy",
        "Ibtissam Mellouki",
        "André Ohrel",
        "André Osterdag",
        "Philippe Poirier",
        "Daniel Ziegler"
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2022-11-18",
          "event": "Focus Rob Rombout, Strasbourg",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Strasbourg and Alsace",
          "country": "France",
          "lat": 48.57,
          "lon": 7.75
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "2x5MGy4IHw0",
        "label": "Excerpt",
        "duration": "4′42″"
      },
      "availability": "CBA, Brussels · Heure Exquise! (non-commercial)",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "closed-worlds"
      ],
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2002-les-passagers-de-lalsace/"
    },
    {
      "no": 15,
      "slug": "2003-kaleidoscope-overloon",
      "year": 2003,
      "title": "Kaléidoscope: Overloon",
      "runtime": "26′",
      "kind": "Television series episode (ARTE)",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "closed-worlds"
      ],
      "production": "ARTE series Kaléidoscope",
      "countries": [
        "France",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "logline": "An episode of ARTE's Kaléidoscope series, set in the penitentiary centre of Overloon in the Netherlands.",
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Overloon",
          "country": "Netherlands",
          "lat": 51.57,
          "lon": 5.95
        }
      ],
      "availability": "Archive",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2003-kaleidoscope-overloon/"
    },
    {
      "no": 16,
      "slug": "2004-kaleidoscope-jagiellonian-university",
      "year": 2004,
      "title": "Kaléidoscope: The Jagiellonian University",
      "runtime": "26′",
      "kind": "Television series episode (ARTE)",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [],
      "production": "ARTE series Kaléidoscope",
      "countries": [
        "France",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "logline": "An episode of ARTE's Kaléidoscope series, set in the Jagiellonian University of Kraków.",
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Kraków",
          "country": "Poland",
          "lat": 50.06,
          "lon": 19.94
        }
      ],
      "availability": "Archive",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2004-kaleidoscope-jagiellonian-university/"
    },
    {
      "no": 17,
      "slug": "2004-queen-mary-2",
      "year": 2004,
      "title": "Queen Mary 2, naissance d'une légende",
      "altTitles": {
        "en": "Queen Mary 2: Birth of a Legend"
      },
      "runtime": "72′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "islands",
      "themes": [
        "ships"
      ],
      "format": "Digital Betacam, 16:9",
      "production": "Ardent, with ARTE, RTBF, VRT and Sophimages",
      "countries": [
        "France",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "English, French, Dutch",
      "logline": "How the biggest ocean liner ever built went from a shipowner's bet to a ship at sea.",
      "synopsis": "In 1998 Carnival bought Cunard and decided to build the longest, largest and most expensive liner in history. At the Saint-Nazaire shipyard, architects, engineers and designers turn a balance sheet into the Queen Mary 2. Twelve years after his QE2 crossing, Rob Rombout returns to the Atlantic to watch a liner being built from scratch.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Script",
          "Rob Rombout, Louis-Philippe Capelle"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Louis-Philippe Capelle"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Griet van Reeth"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Hughes Maréchal"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Ardent"
        ]
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Saint-Nazaire",
          "country": "France",
          "lat": 47.27,
          "lon": -2.21
        },
        {
          "name": "North Atlantic",
          "country": "",
          "lat": 45,
          "lon": -40
        }
      ],
      "availability": "On request",
      "status": "released",
      "note": "Also exists in a 24′ television version.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2004-queen-mary-2/"
    },
    {
      "no": 18,
      "slug": "2010-panamerica",
      "year": 2010,
      "title": "Panamerica",
      "runtime": "40′",
      "kind": "Research film (road movie)",
      "chapter": "amsterdam",
      "themes": [
        "road"
      ],
      "countries": [
        "Chile",
        "Bolivia"
      ],
      "logline": "A research film on the road movie as a genre, shot along the roads of Chile and Bolivia.",
      "places": [],
      "availability": "Archive",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2010-panamerica/"
    },
    {
      "no": 19,
      "slug": "2012-amsterdam-stories-usa",
      "year": 2012,
      "title": "Amsterdam Stories USA",
      "runtime": "4 × 90′",
      "kind": "Documentary in four parts",
      "chapter": "amsterdam",
      "themes": [
        "amsterdam",
        "road"
      ],
      "codirector": "Rogier van Eck",
      "format": "HD, 16:9",
      "production": "Saga Film, with Wallonie Image Production and RTBF; co-production Pieter van Huystee Film",
      "countries": [
        "Belgium",
        "Netherlands"
      ],
      "languages": "English, Dutch",
      "parts": [
        "East",
        "South",
        "Midwest",
        "West"
      ],
      "logline": "Two Dutch filmmakers cross the United States through fifteen towns called Amsterdam, collecting the America that lives between the coasts.",
      "synopsis": "Leaving New York, which was once Nieuw Amsterdam, Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck drive west through every American town that shares their city's name. Sheriffs, poets, cowboys, a Vietnam DJ and a civil-rights veteran tell their own stories, in their own time. Over four chapters and six hours, a borrowed name becomes a way into a whole country.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction",
          "Rob Rombout, Rogier van Eck"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Ben Wolf"
        ],
        [
          "Sound",
          "Colin Bannon, Matthew J. Menter, Trevor Cohen"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Fanny Roussel, Alice de Matha, Frédéric Dupont"
        ],
        [
          "Music",
          "Hughes Maréchal"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Saga Film, Wallonie Image Production, RTBF, Pieter van Huystee Film"
        ]
      ],
      "with": [
        "Russell Banks",
        "Adrian Cronauer",
        "Charles Evers",
        "Elinor Tatum",
        "Edgar Oliver",
        "Michael Botwinick",
        "Myron Mixon",
        "Robert Amsterdam"
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2012-11",
          "event": "IDFA, Amsterdam",
          "type": "World premiere",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2013-01",
          "event": "Bozar, Brussels",
          "type": "Complete screening",
          "v": false
        },
        {
          "date": "2013-04",
          "event": "IndieLisboa, Lisbon",
          "type": "Audience Award, feature film",
          "v": true,
          "award": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2017",
          "event": "John Adams Institute, Amsterdam",
          "type": "Evening with the directors",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2022-11-19",
          "event": "Focus Rob Rombout, Strasbourg (West)",
          "type": "Retrospective",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2024-11-27",
          "event": "Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris",
          "type": "Focus, Mois du doc",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2025-09-20",
          "event": "Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon",
          "type": "Complete, in two sessions",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "New York",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 40.71,
          "lon": -74.01
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, New York",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 42.94,
          "lon": -74.19
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, Ohio",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 40.47,
          "lon": -80.92
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, Georgia",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 30.83,
          "lon": -84.66
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, Texas",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 29.13,
          "lon": -95.97
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, Montana",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 45.75,
          "lon": -111.31
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, Idaho",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 42.73,
          "lon": -116.2
        },
        {
          "name": "Amsterdam, California",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 37.33,
          "lon": -120.5
        }
      ],
      "video": {
        "youtube": "lZjW5dcM5-M",
        "label": "Trailer",
        "duration": "6′45″",
        "more": [
          [
            "TLWrVGtZSe8",
            "East"
          ],
          [
            "nDSnyXK8tNM",
            "South"
          ],
          [
            "zmEctBMtfng",
            "Midwest"
          ],
          [
            "46eRvonfntI",
            "West"
          ]
        ]
      },
      "availability": "Screener on request",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "amsterdam"
      ],
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2012-amsterdam-stories-usa/"
    },
    {
      "no": 20,
      "slug": "2016-on-the-track-of-robert-van-gulik",
      "year": 2016,
      "title": "On the Track of Robert van Gulik",
      "altTitles": {
        "fr": "Sur les traces de Robert van Gulik",
        "nl": "In het spoor van Robert van Gulik",
        "zh": "追寻高罗佩的足迹"
      },
      "runtime": "87′",
      "kind": "Documentary",
      "chapter": "china",
      "themes": [
        "china"
      ],
      "production": "Zeppers Film & TV and Off World, with Mollywood",
      "countries": [
        "Netherlands",
        "Belgium"
      ],
      "languages": "English, Dutch, French, Chinese, Japanese",
      "logline": "A filmmaker follows a Dutch diplomat-sinologist across three continents and finds that the detective he invented has outlived the man.",
      "synopsis": "Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) served as a diplomat, collected Chinese lutes and invented Judge Dee, yet his own country barely remembers him. Rob Rombout travels from the Netherlands to Indonesia, Japan, the United States and China, through diaries, archives and the people van Gulik still haunts. Somewhere between biography and detective story, the man and his hero merge.",
      "credits": [
        [
          "Direction and script",
          "Rob Rombout"
        ],
        [
          "Image",
          "Stef Tijdink, Benjamin Wolf, Stefano Bertacchini, Tareck Raffoul"
        ],
        [
          "Editing",
          "Adriana Moreira de Oliveira, Miguel Cipriano dos Reis"
        ],
        [
          "Sound design",
          "Rainier Buidin, Guillaume Berg"
        ],
        [
          "Production",
          "Frank van den Engel (Zeppers Film & TV), Off World"
        ]
      ],
      "with": [
        "Marie-Anne Souloumiac-van Gulik",
        "Arthur Japin",
        "Wilt Idema",
        "Frédéric Lenormand",
        "Henry Wessells",
        "John Thompson"
      ],
      "screenings": [
        {
          "date": "2016-09-25",
          "event": "Netherlands Film Festival, Utrecht",
          "type": "Premiere",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2017-09",
          "event": "Leiden University",
          "type": "Screening and talk",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2018",
          "event": "SOAS, London",
          "type": "Screening",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2019",
          "event": "Mois du doc, Heure Exquise!",
          "type": "Coup de cœur",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2021-04",
          "event": "KVVAK, Amsterdam",
          "type": "Screening and Q&A",
          "v": true
        },
        {
          "date": "2026-03-13",
          "event": "Lieu d'Europe, Strasbourg",
          "type": "Screening and talk",
          "v": true
        }
      ],
      "press": [
        {
          "quote": "Far from a biopic, more a free-ranging fantasy",
          "source": "Stephen Jones",
          "date": "2018"
        },
        {
          "quote": "reality smoothly passes into fiction",
          "source": "Netherlands Film Festival",
          "date": "2016"
        }
      ],
      "places": [
        {
          "name": "Leiden",
          "country": "Netherlands",
          "lat": 52.16,
          "lon": 4.49
        },
        {
          "name": "Jakarta",
          "country": "Indonesia",
          "lat": -6.21,
          "lon": 106.85
        },
        {
          "name": "Tokyo",
          "country": "Japan",
          "lat": 35.68,
          "lon": 139.69
        },
        {
          "name": "New York",
          "country": "United States",
          "lat": 40.71,
          "lon": -74.01
        },
        {
          "name": "Guangzhou",
          "country": "China",
          "lat": 23.13,
          "lon": 113.26
        },
        {
          "name": "Taiyuan",
          "country": "China",
          "lat": 37.87,
          "lon": 112.55
        }
      ],
      "availability": "Library and non-commercial screening licence available",
      "status": "released",
      "packages": [
        "east-west"
      ],
      "note": "Runtimes between 70′ and 90′ circulate; a shorter television version probably exists.",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2016-on-the-track-of-robert-van-gulik/"
    },
    {
      "no": 21,
      "slug": "2016-joost-de-vries",
      "year": 2016,
      "title": "Joost de Vries",
      "runtime": "15′",
      "kind": "Portrait, episode of a series",
      "chapter": "now",
      "themes": [
        "portrait"
      ],
      "countries": [
        "Netherlands"
      ],
      "logline": "A portrait of the Dutch writer Joost de Vries.",
      "places": [],
      "availability": "Archive",
      "status": "released",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/2016-joost-de-vries/"
    },
    {
      "no": 22,
      "slug": "amsterdam-side-by-side",
      "year": null,
      "title": "Amsterdam Side by Side",
      "runtime": "90′",
      "kind": "Documentary, in progress",
      "chapter": "now",
      "themes": [
        "amsterdam"
      ],
      "codirector": "Rogier van Eck",
      "logline": "The third part of the Amsterdam trilogy: a double portrait of Amsterdam in Mpumalanga, South Africa, and Nieuw-Amsterdam in the Netherlands.",
      "places": [],
      "availability": "In progress",
      "status": "in-progress",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/amsterdam-side-by-side/"
    },
    {
      "no": 23,
      "slug": "video-veterans",
      "year": null,
      "title": "Video Veterans",
      "runtime": "",
      "kind": "Documentary, in progress",
      "chapter": "now",
      "themes": [
        "video"
      ],
      "logline": "Four pioneers of video art, filmed by a fellow traveller who knew them when the medium was young.",
      "places": [],
      "availability": "In progress",
      "status": "in-progress",
      "synopsis": "Terry Flaxton, Péter Forgács, Robert Cahen and Walter Verdin made video when it was still a wild medium, before curators, pitches and formats. Rob Rombout, who came out of the same scene in the 1980s, brings them back in front of the camera. A pilot was filmed in Brussels in January 2024; the feature is in development, co-written with Marlene Dirven.",
      "note": "In development",
      "url": "https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/video-veterans/"
    }
  ]
}