'A city that belongs to everyone': Brussels film Our City celebrates multiculturalism

With Brussels in the news for the wrong reasons following the Paris terror attacks, it is perhaps timely that a new film released this week sets out to celebrate the city's multiculturalism and its uniqueness as a "city of foreigners".

A recent study by the International Organisation for Migration named Brussels the second most diverse city in the world behind Dubai, "a highly mobile and international population" with 62% of residents born outside Belgium.

Our City, by Italian-born filmmaker and journalist Maria Tarantino, aims to show how Brussels is a city that belongs to everyone - and that there is a "Brussels that still breathes" beyond the characterless office blocks, the building sites and bureaucracy.

Arriving in the Belgian capital 20 years ago, Tarantino says her first impression was of "a wild city that did not try to be beautiful or fashionable" - with a multiculturalism that, unlike some cities, doesn't have a predominantly English-speaking flavour.

That comes across in the film, five years in the making, which shows everything from the press pack at an EU summit to a canal-side waste-tip, the formality of a Russian ball to the chaos of the foreigners' office at Brussels city hall, where Tarantino was given special permission to film the frustration experienced by many a foreigner trying to settle in Belgium.

"It's a very tough job that they do and they are presented in a certain way by the media - they are a little bit of a target," she says of the staff at De Brouckère.

"They don't decide things - they have to carry out rules, give really bad news to people. These are just clerks. They are public servants - they are not trained to tell somebody that their lives are shattered. They are not psychologists. And the shape of their office doesn't provide any privacy. It's a very tense situation. They have days there that have been really tough, for the people that queue up and the people behind the desks."

There is not a word of narration throughout the 70-minute journey around Brussels. "There is not an obvious television-style commentary," Tarantino says. "Unfortunately most of the time when we look at mainstream films and documentaries, the simplistic meaning or message is hammered so many times that it makes no sense any more. So it's not because a film has breathing space that it has no commentary or message."

There's a college in Molenbeek - a commune at the centre of press attention this week - where young students from diverse backgrounds argue about what it means to be an immigrant. We see snapshots of a Turkish wedding, an undocumented migrant in a squalid apartment, friends chatting at a Greek cafe about how they could never return "home", the Iranian taxi driver, and the Portuguese builders working at Schuman. In fact, construction sites feature frequently. Tarantino explains: "It's a city that's still under construction."

Our City can be seen from today at:
Cinema Aventure, Rue des Fripiers 57, Brussels
Cinema Sphinx, Sint-Michielshelling 3, Ghent
www.ourcityfilm.com