Cinemuze / L'Affaire Dreyfus
Feel the heartbeat of historyTo mark Gaasbeek Castle's centenary as a museum and as part of the new exhibition "Rebel Echoes", you can enjoy the muse of the seventh art in the Knights' Hall; cinema. One Saturday evening every month, a film linked to the life and work of Marquise Arconati Visconti or the year 1924, when the castle officially became a museum, will be screened in the Knights' Hall of the castle.
Before each screening, Wouter Hessels, film curator of Gaasbeek Castle, will give a bilingual introduction. He studied Romanic languages and is film historian (RITCS & INSAS) with a great passion for French, Italian and Belgian cinema. This comes in handy, because the residences and properties of Marquise Arconati Visconti were in France, Italy and of course... Gaasbeek.
L'Affaire Dreyfus
Like her revolutionary father, Republican French journalist and politician Alphonse Peyrat, Marie made a substantial contribution to political life in the French Third Republic. From her apartment in Paris, she held philosophical and political salons with progressive intellectuals, including Léon Blum and Jean Jaurès, among others. In 1894, the Marquise resolutely sided with Alfred Dreyfus, who was the victim of an anti-Semitic witch hunt. He was falsely accused and convicted of spying for the German Empire. At the height of the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906), French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès produced a short film drama: L'Affaire Dreyfus (1899), in which he defended Dreyfus.
An illustrated, bilingual lecture on the French film pioneers Lumière, Méliès, Alice Guy, Pathé and Gaumont (1895-1914) will take place before the film. This silent film has a musical accompaniment at guitar by Hans Beckers.
Practical information:
» 18/05/2024, at 7:30 p.m. in the Knights' Hall.
» Introduction by Wouter Hessels (in Dutch/French).
» Film screening L'Affaire Dreyfus (1899) by Georges Méliès with accompanying live music by Hans Beckers.
