Exhibition «Frans van de Staak. The word in archipelago»

From 15 to 23 April, in collaboration with the Punto de Vista Festival and the Embassy of the Netherlands, Círculo de Bellas Artes presents an unprecedented, in-depth look at the cinematic universe of Frans van de Staak. This retrospective brings together eleven of his most representative films and the first monographic publication focused on his work, thus offering a unique opportunity to enter the mind of an author almost unknown to the general public, yet essential to the European avant-garde.

Van de Staak did not film to tell traditional stories. His cinema works as a laboratory of language, where the spoken word becomes poetic material and the everyday gesture reveals unexpected layers of meaning. Through repetitive formal structures and scenes steeped in ambiguity, his films question conventional ways of narrating and perceiving. In his hands, the human body, movement and voice acquire a symbolic value that challenges the logic of linear narrative.

Although he was inspired by figures such as Johan van der Keuken and Jean-Marie Straub, van de Staak developed a radically personal style that kept him away from the commercial circuit. For many critics, he is a cult filmmaker whose work, laden with philosophical reflection and subtle irony, anticipates forms of experimentation that remain current. Straub himself came to consider him the «only legitimate heir of Dziga Vertov».

This exhibition not only recovers his cinema, but also claims him as a key figure in contemporary visual thought. An essential date for those seeking new ways of looking at and understanding cinematic language.