| Misère au Borinage | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Henri Storck Joris Ivens |
| Written by | Henri Storck Joris Ivens |
| Editing by | Helen van Dongen |
| Release date(s) | 1933 |
| Running time | 36 minutes |
| Country | Belgium |
| Language | French, Dutch |
Misère au Borinage ("Poverty in Borinage") is a 1933 Belgian documentary film directed by Henri Storck and Joris Ivens.
The film opens with these words: Crisis in the Capitalist World. Factories are closed down, abandoned. Millions of proletarians are hungry!
The Borinage is one of the most famous industrial region of Wallonia (and of the classic industrial revolution in general) because of its history of hard and long social strikes. For instance, in 1932 with a long strike (two months) in this region but also in Liège and Charleroi is quoted as one of the most important work of the Political cinema cinema [1]."It is one of the most important references in the documentary genre." [2]
"The stridency of the work is exemplified by a short film Ivens made with Belgian cinema club leader Henri Storck (1933) portraiting the cruelty plunged into poverty as result of a classic capitalist crisis of over production." [3]
For Philipp Mosley this film is linked to the History of Wallonia. He speaks about other events after the long strike of 1932: "Matters worsened in 1956 with the Marcinelle disaster, whose victims included many immigrants, and then with release of initial closure plans for Walloon mines. In scene reminiscent of Storck's Borinage film of 1933, social unrest in the area near Mons escalated into general strike of 1960 and 1961." [4]. Robert Stallaerts wrote about Storck one of the directors of Misère au Borinage: "Although a Fleming, he can be called the father of the Walloon cinema." [5]
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