Télé Réalité

Hilde drives through a forest with her aunt’s ashes on the passenger seat, about to have an accident. She is a costume designer working for a reality TV show about Belgian carnival. The show is the brainchild of three Congolese women who sent Hawaly, a Burundian show-runner, to Belgium for the preparations. The two women spend weeks traveling around Belgium by car. Hilde seems to have her life under control, yet little by little, the events draw her into a cosmos populated by the false spirits and ghosts of Western Europe while the very real ghost of her aunt accompanies her. Hawaly observes Hilde’s encounters with the supernatural and reports them to her colleagues in Kinshasa. Hardened to the pressures of the audience, the three savvy businesswomen are betting on the future of their TV station and on the revolutionary concept of their show, which would allow them to reposition themselves in the fast-changing market of horror and sensationalism. (Berlinale)