Since 1979, the Archives of the City of Brussels are situated at Rue des Tanneurs 65, 1000 Bruxelles. A beautiful building at the city center, used before from the textile business Jules Waucquez and Company.
If you have ever visited the archives, I’m sure that you remember the library situated at the ground floor of the building. In that room you can find hundreds of books, magazines and newspaper filled with the history of the city, from the middle ages up to nowadays.
On the left side of the room, there is a small door, which leads you to another tiny room. The room is full boxes and drawers as almost any place at the building but as this is tiny, it has a completely different atmosphere. In these boxes, you can find hundreds of lists with names of foreigners who had moved there until the middle of the 1960’s.
Every paper has a name, a story, a journey and probably nothing to do with most of the others around it. Only one very important common think, every single name and story, ends up with a new arrival to the city of Brussels.
The next video tells the personal and moving story of Georgios Kireccioglou and his migration to Belgium in 1964. The film illustrates the difficulties that they faced in Istanbul and how they decided to move to a new country, hoping for a better life.
Click on the following image to view the film:
The short film had been projected in more than 15 different places around Europe from 2011 to 2015 most of them with the travelling exhibition United States of Europe (more information http://www.go-use.eu).
For the presentation, we tried to imitate the ambience of the archives by adding bookselves and boxes around the main subject, a luggage full of clothes and a television in it playing the video. Along with the video you could read the Uprooting booklet with a more detailed story and many photos of the early life of the narrator.
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Filming and Animation: Apostolos Polymeris
Editing: Apostolos & Georgios Polymeris
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