L' AMATEUR / MORT A VIGNOLE / VOYAGE AUTOUR DE MA CHAMBRE
MORT A VIGNOLE : A collage of different films encapturing the family moments of three generations. Smolders' dad holds the camera and records his childhood years in Congo. Smolders himself as a child grabs the camera and films a tragic family trip to Venice where his newborn sister passes away. Years after its his family turn to be placed between this ritualistic sequence of cinematic recording. "Mort a Vignole" is a fairytale about oblivion accompanying time passing by. A film made by images of life but dedicated to death.
VOYAGE AUTOUR DE MA CHAMBRE: journey with a room as departure and unspecified destination. A dreamy ride like those never planned but coming first to mind afterwards. An in hand camera is enough for Smolders to start an ethnographic travel to societies around the world. Faithful to his edgy aproach he creates pictures trying to command to each other in order to tell the never ending clashing game of the living. And when he's reaching the end he seems to look back at the beginning having prerformed an anatomy lesson on human body.
L'AMATEUR : The story of a complex amateur photographer and his atempt to capture frames by female, naked models fighting at the same time his will to enter the frame himself. Women of all ages climb the stairs leading to his studio everyday. For each and everyone of them the photographer tells us how he convinces them to get photographed, how do they feel during the session and how they eventually realize his weakness. A naration aiming directly at the unique model man desires but has been forever lost.