Brussels in May 1940 provides the backdrop for The Soundman, a 2025 Belgian drama directed by Frank van Passel that follows two people whose lives intersect just as their country's certainties start to collapse.
What is The Soundman about?
Inside the Flagey building, the historic home of Belgian national radio, a young actress named Elza is making her debut in a radio drama when she meets Berre, a soundman whose ear for audio borders on uncanny. She is drawn to the craft of storytelling; he finds his own kind of comfort in the textures of sound itself. Their growing closeness plays out against the mounting pressure of a continent sliding toward war, with the Flagey building itself -- a working studio full of technicians, actors, and broadcast schedules that cannot simply stop -- standing in for the fragile, everyday normalcy both characters are trying to hold onto. The film follows their relationship as it takes shape inside that pressure rather than despite it, letting the historical moment shape small choices instead of overwhelming the story with spectacle.
About the cast
Jef Hellemans and Femke Vanhove play Elza and Berre, supported by a large ensemble that includes Koen De Bouw, Peter van den Begin, Nico Sturm, Robbie Cleiren, Els Dottermans, and Evelien Bosmans, filling out the world of the radio station around them.
Context & significance
The Soundman is a Belgian production set inside a real institution, the Flagey building, which functioned as the country's national radio headquarters and gives the film a specific, lived-in sense of place rather than a generic wartime backdrop. Setting a love story inside a working broadcast studio also lets the film treat sound and performance as subjects in their own right -- Berre's technical skill and Elza's stage debut both depend on the same institution, even as that institution's daily routines sit under the growing shadow of 1940.
Watching The Soundman on Ktime
The Soundman is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, letting Farsi-speaking audiences follow the film's period dialogue in their own language. This page can be read by anyone; watching the film itself just needs a free K-Time account, fitting alongside K-Time's wider catalogue curated with the Iranian diaspora in mind.