Director’s statement – The Wings of Liberty
To enter into Bernard and Solange’s everyday life is to enter a world you rarely get to experience: a space where every gesture needs courage, delicacy and patience.
During the first days, I couldn’t really find my place. I was discovering all about tetraplegia, its weight on a person’s life, its restrictions… and, in the middle of it, a surprising lightness when facing the handicap. Bernard and Solange chose to lead a normal life despite it all!
A unique force emanates from them, transforming their hardship. The words “resilience” and “love” gain a deeper meaning through their relationship.
Day after day, their support towards each other lets them defy the laws of physics and of medicine.
To film Bernard and Solange is filming a soundless battle, a quiet revolt. We follow a couple that pushes on despite the difficulties, refusing each day to fall into resignation. It’s about showing a love that heals, that bonds, and breaks open new ways where everything seemed shut off.
Their presence made me discover a different way to look at fragility: to shape a challenge into momentum and to turn your daily life into a land of rebirth.
I hope this film will offer a spark of hope to those who, like Bernard and Solange, go on despite the hardships, because “The Wings of Freedom” is a tribute to dignity, to the power of love, and to the ability to reinvent oneself anew.
Sébastien Pins
The genesis of the film
Bernard and Solange have been dreaming for several years about a film that would show their struggles on the big screen, beyond the walls of their daily lives.
Following the suggestion of journalist and writer Alain Lallemand, they invited director Sébastien Pins to dinner with them, so he could advise them on the best way – both technically and humanely – to shape such a project.
Moved by the director’s advice and empathy, Bernard gifted him a collection of poems called “Blanchir nos misères” (“Whitewashing/Bleaching our misery”), which he wrote himself. In these pages, Sébastien discovered texts of great beauty, transcribing Bernard’s daily combat against tetraplegia. Sébastien was profoundly shaken by that reading experience. He came quickly to the conclusion that if Bernard and Solange have to lead their project by themselves, their film would have only a slim chance to ever be made. Their story deserves more than that. So Sébastien decided to get in touch with them again.
Aware of the human and symbolic reach of their idea, he proposed to the couple to let him be the director of their film. Bernard et Solange, already moved by Sébastien’s last short film “When the swallows fly away”, accepted the proposal enthusiastically. This gesture marks the beginning of a common adventure where art, resilience and the quest for freedom get tied together.
Thus begins “The Wings of Freedom”: through an encounter, a book of poetry, and a profound conviction that a film can be the spark for the creators as well as for an audience.
Distinctions
In 2026, “The Wings of Freedom” will start its festival run.
The film follows the editorial line of Sébastien Pins’ work. His previous short films got remarkable international recognition, cumulating hundreds of awards and honors in festivals all over the world.
His work had most notably been directly awarded an accolade by the United Nations, during the “Forum on Forests” in Istanbul, as well as at the “World Wildlife Day Film Showcase”.
As part of a program putting the spotlight on films advocating for a better dialogue between humanity and living beings, one of Sébastien Pins’ films has also been selected by UNESCO for its artistic and social reach.
This acknowledgment, largely established abroad and documented on the main platforms of cinematic reference, gives the director a unique place within the Belgian documentary film scene in Wallonia.
As both a human portrait and a story of resilience, “The Wings of Freedom” falls within the same artistic and human direction as Sébastien’s previous films.
Follow the film’s trajectory on Facebook
An original Musical Creation by David Reyes
David Reyes is a talented composer known for his musical creations in numerous films like “Le Renard et l’Enfant” by Luc Jacquet”, “Une Chanson pour ma mère” directed by Joël Franka and series like “The Crimson Rivers” created by Jean-Christophe Grangé.
David’s sensitivity perfectly matches Sebastien’s, and “The Wings of Freedom” is already their third collaboration !
Through his composing talents, David perfectly sublimes the depth and the emotional nuances that every spectator feels in the film.
