Poetic realist masterpiece beautifully shot on the canals and waterways of Flanders and northern France.

Barge-owner Pieter van Groot, his wife and sister-in-law, work and live peacefully on two barges: the Hirondelle (Swallow) and the Mésange (Titmouse), navigating the channels between Belgium and France. But when a new hand joins the crew, tensions build, and illicit secrets emerge that Groot would rather keep hidden. 

Commanding a naturalistic acting style, palpable sense of place, and authentic depictions of working life anticipating the Italian Neorealist movement by two decades, director Antoine offsets the drama, and diverts our view to behold the canal and its banks, tracking the landscape which passes as a silent witness to the barge peoples’ lives.

Dir. André Antoine | France | 1920 | N/C PG | b&w | French intertitles with English surtitles | 1h 19m

With: Maguy Deliac, Jane Maylianes, Pierre Alcover, Louis Ravet, Georges Denola
Original title: L'hirondelle et la mésange

Performing live: Stephen Horne (piano, flute, accordion), Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp)

Screening material courtesy of la Cinémathèque française