Boris Lehman

Suiss, Boris Lehman was born in Lausanne on March 3, 1944. Born in a Jewish family, Boris Lehman creates images of his own obsessions, sometimes related to his Jewish origins. As co-scenarist, assistant or actor he has collaborated with several filmmakers in Belgium, including Chantal Akerman, Samy Szlingerbaum and Henri Storck. Retrospectives of his own work have been presented in a number of countries. However, his films are not readily separable from his life in Belgium and, of course, from the artistic and popular life of Brussels.
Not only does Boris Lehman produce and direct all his films, but he prefers to screen them himself, sometimes in the living room of his audience. He is the professional of the “home made”. He makes films about things close to him. But his approach, while poetical, absurd and ironic, is also close to the ethnological. His sometimes very intimate personal sequences can also turn towards broader issues about Western Europe and attempts to understand the Other and the meaning of life. Boris Lehman’s films show the influence of his art philosophical commitments. His attitude to time does not betray any stress: the film Babel: Letter to my friends who stayed in Belgium is six hours long (part I of a tetralogy in progress). One can say that he has turned his life into a film, as the films have become his life. This explains why his filmography amounts to hundreds of works, some of them films edited for a single screening only. He is close to Jonas Mekas’ way of considering cinema, preferring to see the cineast as an artist based in daily life. Boris Lehman is an ‘unclassifiable’ filmmaker in the landscape of Belgian independant cinematography.

2013 : Mes 7 lieux, doc, 323’
2013 : Mes Entretiens filmés, doc, 125’
2013 : Paradox (co-réalisation David Legrand, Marie Losier), 11’
2012 : Walking canal
2011 : La Marelle et les épouvantails (co-direction David Legrand), 13’
2011 : Plaisir du paradis
2010 : Histoire de mes Cheveux
2008 : Jacques Dapoz, autoportrait
2008 : Choses qui me rattachent aux êtres, 15’
2008 : Films ontologiques - chapitre 1
2008 : Une belle Croisière, 35’
2008 : Un Peintre sous surveillance, 36’
2008 : Retouches et Réparations, 50’
2007 : Sur-vie
2006 : Sept minutes de liberté (co-direction Karine de Villers)
2006 : L'Arche de Noé
2006 : Fontaine d'amour, 3’
2006 : Before the begining (co-direction Steve Dwoskin)
2006 : Red Mudh
2005 : Tentatives de se décrire, 165’
2003 : Homme portant
2002 : Théorie des caisses
2001 : Histoire de ma vie racontée par mes photographies, 210’
2000 : A comme Adrienne, 115’
1998 : L‘image et le monde, 4’
1997 : Mon voyage à Moscou
1997 : Mon voyage en Allemagne
1996 : Mes Entretiens filmés, 125’
1995 : La Dernière s(cène), 14’
1995 : Un Bruit qui rend sourd
1994 : Homme portant son film le plus lourd
1994 : La Division de mon temps
1994 : Un jour comme les autres
1994 : Check-Up (Etat de Santé)
1994 : Leçon de vie, 105’
1993 : Je suis fier d'être Belge
1983-1991 : Babel / Lettre à mes amis restés en Belgique, 160’ – 220’
1990 : La Chute des Heures
1990 : A la recherche du lieu de ma naissance, 75’
1985 : Cinématon (juif) de Gérard Courant
1989 : L'Homme de Terre, 40’
1987 : Masque
1987 : Muet comme une carpe, 38’
1985 : Portrait du peintre dans son atelier
1983 : Couple, Regards, Positions, 60’
1979 : Symphonie, 35’
1979 : Marcher ou la fin des temps modernes
1978 : Magnum Begynasium Bruxellense, 145’
1974 : Album 1, 60’
1974 : Knokke Out
1973 : Ne pas Stagner, 85’
1970 : Le Centre et la Classe, 17’
1968 : Catalogue
1967 : Histoire d'un déménagement, 10’
1966 : Marins d'eau douce
1965 : Une expérience audiovisuelle
1965 : (Le) Rendez-vous
1963 : La Clé du champ, 10’
1962 : Station-service
1959 : Les mangeurs de grotte
1959 : Les pieds
1958 : Synthèse du Nylon
1958 : La maison
1958 : Celui qui croyait au ciel