Where Things go

Synopsis

In the small Belgian town of Verviers in the mid-60s, most of the textile factories that had contributed to the town’s prosperity closed down. On witnessing the end of an epoch, the town council decided to put together a collection of old textile machines, stored in an old industrial shed. A group of retired men spend their free time repairing the machines and creating a ‘lieu de mémoire’ where they relive their former professional activity. Imitating their passion, director Baptiste Aubert creates his own collection of former industrial objects. Buying old weaving shuttles from flea market sellers, he seeks to give a sense of the fragile collective memory of the city inhabitants where memories compete with oblivion. Like the warp and weft of a fabric, these two filmic materials weave together to form the film Where Things Go.