Inspired by jazz musician Jimmy Giuffre's statement, 'I’m not afraid to play something simple', Thierry Knauff has created a cinematic exercise in capturing beauty, observing nature and being moved by film. He translated the way jazz musicians play together into an interplay of elements he saw on the Tisza River, a tributary of the Danube: rustling willow leaves, followed by the whirring of thousands of mayfly wings and a young girl's hair blowing in the wind. The film plays with abstract patterns and focuses on emerging life and the tough battle for survival in nature. Says Knauf, ‘Vita brevis is a poem of the moment, an evocation of the fragile and fleeting dance of life.’
For months filmmaker Thierry Knauff lived with the Cameroonian tribe, the Baka. This is his document of that time.
Mental anguish is all that's present in the film Seuls / Alone (1989). Shot like a grungy medical documentary, Smolders and co-director Thierry Knauff intercut shots of several children at a Belgium psychiatric clinic. The kids are shown with forlorn expressions, twicthing their eyes, sometimes smiling, shaking, jumping, rocking their heads side to side, or smacking their heads with horrific glee against walls. It's a minimalist work that captures the intense monotony of lost and disturbed young minds, and maintains a gritty intensity. - kqek.com
