Henri Storck

Henri Storck (5 September 1907 – 17 September 1999) was a pioneering Belgian author, filmmaker and documentarist whose career spanned more than seven decades. Born in the coastal city of Ostend, he began experimenting with the medium as a teenager, producing a series of amateur shorts that captured the rhythm of beach life and local celebrations. By the early 1930s he had mastered both narrative and experimental techniques, creating works such as Une pêche au hareng and the avant‑garde La Mort de Vénus. In 1933, together with Dutch‑born director Joris Ivens, he co‑directed Misère au Borinage, a stark portrait of the impoverished miners of the Borinage region that was banned in several countries but later celebrated as a milestone of activist cinema. The film’s raw empathy and sociopolitical urgency cemented Storck’s reputation as a filmmaker who could blend aesthetic rigor with a deep concern for social justice. He also appeared on screen, playing the priest in Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (1933) and a customer in Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quay Commercial, 1080 Brussels (1975), thereby linking his own legacy to two iconic works of French‑Belgian cinema.

Throughout his long career Storck helped institutionalize Belgian film culture, co‑founding the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique in 1938 and later serving as honorary president of the Association belge des auteurs de films et de télévision. He received numerous honors, including honorary doctorates from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (1978) and the Université libre de Bruxelles (1995), as well as the André Cavens Award for Best Film for Permeke (1985). In addition to his cinematic output, he lectured at the Institut des arts de diffusion and participated in international festivals, such as serving on the jury of the inaugural Moscow International Film Festival in 1959. Storck’s dedication to documenting everyday life—whether in the Symphonie paysanne series or his extensive surveys of Belgian folk festivals—left an indelible imprint on documentary practice, influencing generations of filmmakers across Europe and beyond.