Looking for Alfred
Project description
Looking for Alfred is a film and installation by Belgian artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, whose genre-defying practice explores media, memory, identity and the politics of representation. His work moves between documentary, fiction and archival material, often examining the ways cinema and mass media shape collective memory and cultural narratives.
The work centres on Alfred Hitchcock and his recurring cameo appearances across his fifty-year career. Using Hitchcock impersonators and fragmented narratives, Grimonprez constructs a surreal meditation on identity, doubles and cinematic memory, questioning the relationship between authorship, mythology and representation.
Shot in the atmospheric interiors of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Looking for Alfred draws on the architecture of the building to create a cinematic world of pursuit and repetition. Hitchcock is followed by a series of shadowy doubles, while the film’s twists and visual references evoke the suspense of Hitchcock alongside the surrealism associated with René Magritte.
The project extends beyond the film itself to include storyboard drawings, casting photographs and behind-the-scenes footage documenting Grimonprez’s search for Hitchcock look-alikes. Screen tests filmed in New York, London and Los Angeles become part of the work, blurring the boundaries between production, documentation and fiction.
Looking for Alfred continues Grimonprez’s longstanding engagement with film history and the cultural power of images. As with his earlier work, the film combines archival and newly produced material to examine how media constructs identity, memory and historical narrative.
Bio
Johan Grimonprez is a Belgian artist and filmmaker whose work blends documentary, fiction, archival footage and experimental cinema to examine media, memory, political violence and the construction of reality. He gained international recognition with dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, which premiered at documenta X in 1997, exploring the relationship between airplane hijackings, terrorism and mass media. His subsequent films include Double Take (2009), Shadow World (2016) and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (2024), which received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation at Sundance and an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, SFMOMA, Pinakothek der Moderne and Tate Modern.
Recent exhibitions include Paradoxes of Internationalism at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2024); Politics of Love at Kunsthaus Hamburg and Love Is Louder at BOZAR, Brussels (both 2024–25); and Everything Is True – Nothing Is Permitted at Brutus, Rotterdam (2025). In 2025, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe presented All Memory Is Theft, a major retrospective bringing together film installations, archival materials, photographs, drawings and earlier works, including Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat. The exhibition ran from June 2025 to February 2026. Grimonprez also presented SILVER SERIES at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, while Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat continued its international screenings at festivals and institutions including DC/DOX, the BFI London Film Festival, AFI FEST, Columbia University and MIT.
Project details
Artist: Johan Grimonprez
Work: Looking for Alfred
Co-produced by: Film and Video Umbrella; Zapomatik
In association with: Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Anna Sanders Films, Paris
Supported by: Flemish Audiovisual Fund; Arts Council England
Additional contributions: Deitch Projects; Riksutstillinger – The National Touring Exhibitions, Norway; Yvon Lambert Gallery; Media Space Inc., Victoria; Productiehuis Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Schouwburg
Format: Film and installation
Country: Belgium