Over the course of a warm summer evening and the following night, countless encounters, separations, and reunions unfold across the streets of Brussels. Dispensing with a central protagonist, Chantal Akerman assembles a mosaic of fleeting relationships in which gestures, glances, and movement largely replace dialogue. Its episodic structure links couples, strangers, and solitary figures into a carefully orchestrated portrait of the city, where longing, desire, and loneliness coexist.

Music, ambient sound, and the rhythms of the night assume key narrative functions, while long takes and precise compositions transform everyday actions into a subtle choreography. The film occupies a central place within Akerman's exploration of space, duration, and corporeality, and is widely regarded as a defining example of her minimalist yet emotionally resonant cinema.

Valentina’s Little World holds all sorts of things: trophies, hats, spoons... And, of course, Valentina herself. The camera affectionately observes the elderly lady as she goes about her work in the second-hand shop, capturing a type of business rarely found today in cities crowded with chain stores. A  course project by Dominic Thiel, who works as a colorist and cinematographer following his time at the HfG.