Christian Boustani (F) teaches video at the Université Paris I. He is primarily interested in the relationship between video and painting, as is especially evident in his cycle "Cites Antérieures".

Bruges, the northern and medieval city between land and sea, is exposed to the misfortunes of time. Natural and endemic calamities succeed one another, set upon the town to tarnish it. Aware of its decline, Brugges is waiting for its Renaissance...

In the heart of the city, as an inspired alchemist, the painter is searching for a new material. He mingles pigment and oil with his breath, concentrates color and light, transparency and solidity. Finding the secret of oil-painting will allow him to offer a chance of eternity to the city. The film „Cities of the Past - Brugge" shows what the Middle Ages could represent for us through the primitive Flemish paintings without being restricted to a faithful historical reconstruction. This world of fantasy combines legends, popular and religious rituals, generating a story, finding a meaning, recreating connections between fiction and reality. Some characters appear like points of reference in this ficticious world. They mingle in details from the paintings of Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Pieter Bruegel and Hieronimus Bosch. They bring to light what archives hide: the secret of oil-painting discovered more than five hundred years ago. A secret that was probably hidden behind the heavy silence of stone...