
Acropolis Cinema
Bringing experimental, international, and undistributed films to Los Angeles

Ghost Tropic (Dir. Bas Devos, 2019)
From August 28 - September 3, Ghost Tropic will be available to stream
via Acropolis Cinema and Cinema Guild. Acropolis will receive
50% of all revenue. Click here to rent.
If you'd like to offer additional support, you can make a tax
deductible donation to Acropolis by clicking here.
Ghost Tropic follows Khadija (Saadia Bentaïeb), a fifty-eight-year-old Maghrebi cleaning woman living in Brussels in the wake of the 2016 bombings that shook the city. After work one night, she falls asleep on the last subway train, wakes up at the end of the line and has no choice but to make her way home—all the way across the city—on foot. Along the way, she has a series of encounters: with a security guard, a convenience store clerk, a group of teenagers. She asks for help and she gives it and slowly, steadily makes her way.
Director Bas Devos’s lightness of touch combines with the richness of Grimm Vanderkerckhove’s 16mm images to create a small wonder of humanistic storytelling. Ghost Tropic is a testament to the everyday drama of immigrant life and insists on the possibility of goodness and beauty, even in the dark of night.

A film as gentle, sad and empathetic as an Edward Hopper painting.
David Perrin, MUBI Notebook
Saadia Bentaïeb’s performance is a gem of minute gradations—every look, pause and reaction matters.
Tim Grierson, Screen Daily
Gorgeous… A witching hour-and-a-half that unfurls as gradually and un-threateningly as the sky lights up during dawn.
Ben Driscoll, Sight & Sound
A compressed epic… This poetic Belgian feature manages to say a good deal about life, death, and the state of the globalized world.
Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader
Stunning... A delicate miniature that’s magnificently humanist, occasionally amusing and shot in a palette of rich, saturated nighttime hues.
Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter
