New Belgium

The electoral campaign of Paul Van Zeeland is seen here in terms of economic revival. Sad images of the economic depression, deserted work sites and ports, and unemployed workers show the slump of the thirties.

A sequence of animated graphics explains the financial mechanisms that led to this situation and what must be put in place to remedy it: devaluation. The film builds on the idea of before/after, then hands over to Paul Van Zeeland who develops his strategy for revival, which is illustrated by scenes of family, stock market and industrial prosperity. This is the only directly political film made by Henri Storck.

Director : Henri Storck

Assistants : Fernand Piette, Marcel Deflandre

Script and text : Eric de Haulleville

Camera : André Bac

Sound : Richard Eliot

Editing : Henri Storck

Music : André Souris

Voice : Ben Danou

Production : CEP

Director of production : R.G. Le Vaux

Commissioned film : The electoral campaign of Paul Van Zeeland against the Rexist leader, Léon Degrelle, commissioned by the Belgique toujours committee

Dutch version entitled Nieuw Belgie, text by Marnix Gijsen

35mm/B and W/26’/1937

To wach the film please send an email to info@fondshenristorck.be, ask the password and click here

The CEP has pulled off a record: in fifteen days it has managed to construct a film of seven hundred metres of exceptional quality… Nevertheless, in conformity to a sentiment that will be shared by all, cinema managers refuse to screen it before the elections. Why? For the best of all reasons: they do not want the cinema to be involved in politics.

News, April 9, 1937

It is the depression, black depression. We see deserted factories, abandoned trains, landscapes of misfortune inhabited by unemployed workers with distant expressions, shops without customers, industrialists without credit. The power of the cinematographic shortcuts makes us all feel anxious. An oboe expresses the despair we all feel…

Le Pourquoi pas, April 9, 1937

A quick sketch tells me more than a long report, said Napoleon. This thought of the conqueror of Austerlitz is wonderfully adapted to the film Belgique nouvelle, which lucidly displays – and the word is well chosen – much more than any copious report full of numbers could, the economic renaissance of the country over the past few months.

A.B., Le Soir