In Brussels, in a unique multi-confessional cemetery, care is taken to respect the plurality for the dead and their living relatives. Muslims, Jews, Orthodox are buried in their host country along with marginalised and homeless people. ‘Those Who Watch Over’ stands both for those who have passed away far from their homeland and for their loved ones who set up a new relationship with them in the afterlife.
An immigrant ceases to be a traveller when they decide to be buried in their host land. In the south of Brussels, on a patch of virgin ground that used to be a military airport, a new story is being written—that of our ancestors. By completing the cycle of life, by choosing or being forced, because of Covid, to complete it here in Belgium, many immigrants of Arab and African origin have anchored us, their children and families, in their host land. These traces tell us stories that are extended or reinvented when we, the living, find ourselves confronted with our dead, our rituals, and our imaginations in our search to maintain a bond with them. How do we communicate with our dead? What do they tell us? How do they protect us? How do they watch over us? And how do we watch over them? The film speaks of these private encounters. From a standpoint that is at once intimate and polyphonic, I seek to put these stories into dialogue. I look at others; I look at 'Those Who Watch Over' gathered in this place where care is taken to respect plurality for the dead and their living relatives.