Belgian director Henri Storck presents a tribute to one of the most well-known spots in Belgium: the Ostende beach. Filming from everyone and everything, gathering a small collection of eight short films made in the 1920's, Storck invites the audience to feel the beach, the port, the surf, the wind and the dunes, giving us more than what the real images can really evoke, reaching a surreal level.

Histoire du soldat inconnu (1932) is made up of footage from 1928, when an anti-war treaty had been signed. The filmmaker uses intellectual montage to make the point that militarism and the institutions that support it are clearly going to make mincemeat of the treaty’s ideals. The approach is pretty simple, juxtaposing marching soldiers with religious processions. At that point in film history, it was probably still a pretty novel idea that one could cut from a pompous politician speaking to a small dog yapping.

Histoire du soldat inconnu (1932) is made up of footage from 1928, when an anti-war treaty had been signed. The filmmaker uses intellectual montage to make the point that militarism and the institutions that support it are clearly going to make mincemeat of the treaty’s ideals. The approach is pretty simple, juxtaposing marching soldiers with religious processions. At that point in film history, it was probably still a pretty novel idea that one could cut from a pompous politician speaking to a small dog yapping.

Smuggler's Ball is the English-language title for this French-Belgian seriocomedy. The action takes place along the borders separating Belgium, Holland and France. It is here that the worldly Pierre (J. P. Kieran) carries on a profitable smuggling operation, all the while romancing Siska (Christian Lenier), the daughter of a local customs official. Various subplots and secondary characters weave in and out as the plotline guides the viewer through the WW II years. Towards the end, the story shifts gears when the Benelux Frontier Agreement eliminates all government regulations. The film's screenplay is by Charles Spaak, himself the descendant of a Belgian political family, and thus well-versed in bureaucracy and red tape.