The Philosopher's Stone

The Philosopher's Stone is a synthesis of the director's body of work, bringing together all his recurring motifs, cinematic and painterly influences, and featuring his usual collaborators alongside actors who have appeared in his films from the very beginning.

The figure of Renaissance scholar, philosopher, physician, and alchemist Zenon Ligra, also known as Sebastian Theus, embodies the essence of both a medieval thinker and a modern man - a solitary figure persecuted for his political, religious, and sexual nonconformity.

The fictional narrative unfolds during the Counter-Reformation in 16th-century Bruges, and its protagonist seems destined to end at the stake, set ablaze by the Holy Inquisition. Yet Zenon is a figure transcending time - imaginative, heretic and dissident, skeptic and humanist, an adventurer of knowledge who, as a physician, seeks understanding of the body and, as a theologian, understanding of the soul.