Mentors

Jean-Pierre Mels

Director of the Mirano Continental · event-maker

Mirano Continental, 1984-1994

Some encounters decide an entire life. Jean-Pierre Mels, director of the Mirano Continental from 1984 to 1994, opened the doors of Belgium's most talked-about club to Carl De Moncharline, then did the rarest thing of all: he made a place for him. His trust, his contact book, his patience with a young man in a hurry and sure of himself shaped everything that followed. Thirty-five years on, Carl De Moncharline says it plainly: without Jean-Pierre Mels, none of it would have happened.

Eric Vauthier

Co-founder of La Rétine de Plateau · pioneer of independent cultural events in Brussels

Brussels, from the 1980s to the Impérial

In 1980s Brussels, large public events belonged to the public authorities: municipalities and the federal state. The Brussels Region did not yet exist; it would be created in 1989. Eric Vauthier was among the first to prove that a large public event could come from somewhere else entirely: a passion and a non-profit, La Rétine de Plateau, which he co-founded with Michel Culot. His passion was cinema. So was Carl De Moncharline's.

Patrick Chaboud

Founder and artistic director of the Magic Land Théâtre · actor, author, travelling performer

Brussels, from the Fêtes Romanes to Who's Who's Land

Patrick Chaboud passed on to Carl De Moncharline a taste for performance that leaves the theatre, takes to the street and goes to meet its audience. That encounter as a teenager at the Fêtes Romanes in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert awakened a heritage of collective creations, human adventures and every form of artistic expression. Founder of the Magic Land Théâtre and creator of the puppet Malvira, he showed that a creation could be popular without being simplistic, and that the sharing of a collective emotion often begins on a street corner.

Aldo Gigli

Co-founder of the Mirano Continental · set designer and graphic artist

Mirano Continental, 1981-1998

Aldo Gigli is the man who discovered the Mirano. He found the old cinema on the Chaussée de Louvain, the one from his childhood neighbourhood. Paul Sterck and Marco Rolland came together with him around this venue to turn it into the most inventive club in Brussels. Set designer of every Mirano world, including those of Carl De Moncharline's own nights, designer of its posters at a time when everything was made by hand, and a great collector of film scores, he was one of those who taught Carl the trade, over countless coffees at the snack bar next door. His imagination needed no machine: everything came straight out of his head, and everything was always ready on time. While this portrait is devoted to him, it is because he set the Mirano adventure in motion. Paul Sterck and Marco Rolland were its other founding pillars, and the technical, lighting and production teams, often unseen, gave the club its soul. Not all of them appear in this Wall of Fame, yet their work is part of what Carl De Moncharline received and now passes on.