Olivier Magis
Olivier Magis (born 28 February 1978) is a Belgian director. Biography. Magis was born in Brussels. He graduated in directing at the lnstitut des Arts de Diffusion after directing his final film Le Secret des Dieux, in 2004. This short film, a mockumentary, uses the mad cow scandal as a pretext for an investigative narrative, in order to question the critical relationship between viewers and the media. According to Muriel Andrin, Professor of Writing and Film Analysis at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, "Magis kidnaps television images in favour of another story, a fake documentary, a docu-fiction , following in the footsteps of Peter Watkins or William Karel, on the thin line where reality meets imagination.". Between 2005 and 2006, he worked as a director at Alterface Projects and wrote and directed films for the interactive educational game "Future Dome " for the scientific center Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. Between 2007 and 2010, he worked as a director on the RTBF news. At the same time, he works as an assistant stage director. In 2007, he assisted Nele Paxinou in the travelling troupe of the Baladins du Miroir, during the creation of the adaptation of Tristan and Iseult , written by Paul Emond. In 2011, he goes on to assist Olivier Antoine on the graduation show "Aphasia" at the École supérieure des arts du cirque, in Brussels. In 2011, he assists director Sofia Betz in the creation of the play "De la nécessité des grenouilles", written by Virginie Thirion, at Atelier 210. In 2013, he directed his first creative documentary, "Ion", produced by Dérives (Dardenne brothers and Julie Frères). This film tells the story of Ion Beleaua, a visually impaired former political refugee, who works as a police auxiliary in Liège. Broadcast on Belgian television and awarded in numerous  international festivals, the documentary also received the Special Mention at the SCAM Discovery Prizes, audiovisual section In 2014 he directed Les Fleurs de l'Ombre, a documentary diving into Romania, in a Miss competition for visually impaired women. This competition organized by the Romanian Association of the Blind is not ordinary, however: it rewards the inner beauty of the participants. In 2015, the film won the Best Documentary (ex-aequo) Award at the South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles. In 2015, he directed two episodes of the Babel Express television documentary collection, broadcast on ARTE and RTBF. The following  year, he collaborated on the documentary trilogy "Archibelge!," a television serie questioning the ugliness of architecture in Belgium. Drawing up "an absurd and surreal panorama of Belgian architecture", this trilogy was broadcast on the Belgian national channels RTBF and CANVAS "tells our country through its architecture, its urban planning and through the eyes of those who live there". Magis directed the first episode, entitled "Brussels, or the quest for identity", and questioned the complex roots of the urban and architectural problems in Brussels. His first short fiction film, May Day, co-directed with Fedrik De Beul, was released in 2017 . This film plunges the viewer into the heart of a job strangely put up for auction. Broadcast on RTBF, BeTV, CANVAS, Canal+, TV5 Monde, May Day is rewarded at many international festivals. It is also shortlisted for the Oscars 2019. In addition to directing, Magis teaches comparative directing at the Ecole Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle (ESRA) in Brussels, documentary cinema at the SAE Institute in Brussels and also to teachers from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation via the Institut de la Formation en cours de carrière (IFC).