L'Île noire

Name: L'Île noire
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1994
Duration: 52 min
Cast: Mick Pollard, Brian Spencer, Derrick, Glenn A. Musick, Terry Johnson

Black Island

Eighty men and one woman, a steel island in the North Sea, and the routines that keep them sane.

Year: 1994
Runtime: 52 min
Countries: Belgium, France
Languages: English
Production: Nota Bene
Availability: On request

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.

From the film and the shoot

Frames and crew photographs from Rob’s archive.

Screenings

4 recorded

1995Cinéma du Réel, ParisSelection

1995Netherlands Film Festival, UtrechtSelection

1995Film Fest GentSelection

2022Focus Rob Rombout, StrasbourgRetrospective

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

Elsewhere in the work

1990 · 59 minNord-ExpressParis to Moscow in 47 hours, in 1990, on a train that has outlived two world wars and now the Wall.1992 · 57 minTransatlantique, Queen Elizabeth 2Five days, three thousand people and one ocean, on board the last of the great transatlantic liners.

Cite this pageRombout, Rob. L'Île noire. 1994. https://www.robrombout.com/en/films/1994-lile-noire/. Last verified 10 October 2026.