Monsieur le Directeur
“Mr. Director...” This is how letters addressed to the Director of Belgian public radio between 1958 and 1968 began. Any excuse was good enough to put pen to paper: a listener complained about the broadcast of a song with lyrics deemed too risqué, a young girl wondered how to become an announcer, factory workers wanted to hear more operettas during their lunch break, and so on. During this decade, for political, societal, and technical reasons, radio underwent a transformation. It became less and less a vehicle for official discourse, turning instead to entertaining programming adapted to the customs of a new generation, and gradually becoming a place for the emancipation of voices now gathered from the field. Through a selection of letters interwoven with radio archives from the time, this documentary explores the ways in which radio is made and listened to, and questions the place it occupies in our lives today.
| Director | Corinne Dubien |
| Actor | Jenny Cartwright |
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In 1958, television sets were becoming increasingly common in people’s homes. For radio, it was the end of an era—its golden age. But as the director of the public radio service at the time remarked: “If one million Belgians out of nine and a half million are still listening to the radio, isn’t that the equivalent of 1,500 theatres across Belgium, all playing to full houses of 700 people each?”
1958 is also the starting point of Monsieur le Directeur. Through listeners’ letters—the true “heart correspondence” of public radio—along with archival material and meticulous sound design, this documentary intertwines the mundane (which pavilion at the World’s Fair serves those hot dogs someone mentioned last week?) with history (Congo’s independence from its Belgian colonizer, the arrival of women in journalism—a change not welcomed by everyone). Together, these elements open a privileged window into a bygone world. In doing so, Corinne Dubien weaves a touching love letter to radio and conjures up a time when people wrote letters—courteous ones!—and public-service employees took the time to answer them.
Jenny Cartwright
Documentarian and audio artist
-
Français
56 mn
Language: Français
- Année 2017
- Pays Belgium
- Durée 56
- Producteur ACSR, RTBF - Radio Télévision Belge Francophone, Toposonie
- Langue French
- Résumé court From the 1958 World’s Fair to the movements of 1968, Belgian radio underwent a transformation driven by political, social, and technological factors.
- Ordre 4
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2025-12-12
In 1958, television sets were becoming increasingly common in people’s homes. For radio, it was the end of an era—its golden age. But as the director of the public radio service at the time remarked: “If one million Belgians out of nine and a half million are still listening to the radio, isn’t that the equivalent of 1,500 theatres across Belgium, all playing to full houses of 700 people each?”
1958 is also the starting point of Monsieur le Directeur. Through listeners’ letters—the true “heart correspondence” of public radio—along with archival material and meticulous sound design, this documentary intertwines the mundane (which pavilion at the World’s Fair serves those hot dogs someone mentioned last week?) with history (Congo’s independence from its Belgian colonizer, the arrival of women in journalism—a change not welcomed by everyone). Together, these elements open a privileged window into a bygone world. In doing so, Corinne Dubien weaves a touching love letter to radio and conjures up a time when people wrote letters—courteous ones!—and public-service employees took the time to answer them.
Jenny Cartwright
Documentarian and audio artist
-
Français
Duration: 56 minutesLanguage: Français56 mn
- Année 2017
- Pays Belgium
- Durée 56
- Producteur ACSR, RTBF - Radio Télévision Belge Francophone, Toposonie
- Langue French
- Résumé court From the 1958 World’s Fair to the movements of 1968, Belgian radio underwent a transformation driven by political, social, and technological factors.
- Ordre 4
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2025-12-12
