Storyline

Essentieel (1964) is a short experimental film made by Belgian abstract painter Jef Verheyen in collaboration with poet Paul De Vree. A cinematic equivalent of Verheyen’s attempts in representing the warmth and vibrations of light in his monochrome or ‘essentialist’ paintings of the late 1950s and 1960s, the film plays on the tensions between abstract color surfaces and natural elements.