Although countless films are made each year, a great many film scripts never make it to the big screen. 25 years ago, writer Christian Janicot collected around a hundred of these unknown stories in his book ‘Cinéma Invisible’. The screenwriters behind these unfilmed stories are often by no means unknown, including the likes of Frans Masereel, Kazimir Malevitsj and Francis Picabia to name just a few. Musicians Frederik Leroux and Heleen Van Haegenborgh take Janicot’s book as a point of departure for what seems an impossible task: creating a soundtrack for a film that never existed.

For ‘First Reading, notes’ Leroux and Van Haegenborgh composed an electro-acoustic piece for piano, electric guitar, harmonium and tape. The duo explores the influence of sound on time and space and its connection with the visible. ‘Dynamik Der Grossstadt’, a script by László Moholy-Nagy, and ‘Notes’ by Marcel Duchamp are taken as the backbone of the work. In this way the music becomes the auditive counterpart to the written and visual aspects of the source material. ‘First Reading, notes’: an abstract audio film with fragments of found footage, field recordings and adventurous improvisations.

Heleen Van Haegenborgh has previously collaborated with photographer Katrien Vermeire, dancer Femke Gyselinck and filmmaker Guillaume Vandenberghe. She formed a duo with musician Thomas Smetryns and plays with the improvisational group Tape Tum. Frederik Leroux conjures up original, sometimes alienating but always fascinating sound creations from the guitar and banjo.