At the movies: A bluffer's guide to the Belgian film industry

Brussels is a cinephile city, with a relatively high number of cinemas and film festivals throughout the year catering for every possible interest. Venture into Flanders and Wallonia and the same is true, with cities boasting both multiplex and art-house screens, and film festivals of international standing.

But while Belgians love films, they don’t always love Belgian films. Despite this lack of enthusiasm – particularly among French-speakers – there are good reasons to delve into Belgium’s cinematic history, and to keep an eye on new releases.

The first dedicated cinema in Belgium opened in Brussels in 1904, and film production in the country began a few years later under the auspices of French companies such as Pathé.

Some of these early films told Belgian stories, but it wasn’t until after World War One that the first directors from Belgium made their mark. The best of them, Jacques Feyder, worked mainly abroad and is known for his contribution to the poetic realism of French cinema between the wars. Yet he didn’t entirely forget his roots: La Kermesse héroique (Carnival in Flanders, 1935) is a wry comedy set in 17th-century Flanders under Spanish occupation, albeit a Flanders built inside a Paris studio.

The Belgian directors who made their careers at home shot patriotic melodramas and popular comedies, often playing to local tastes. Even in the silent period, Gaston Schoukens shot distinctly Brussels comedies, using speech cards written in dialect. This early period also includes experimental films from Belgium’s artistic avant garde, including the Surrealists, and gritty documentaries such as Misère au Borinage (Borinage, 1934) about the wretched conditions in the country’s coal mining communities.

Where to begin?

The best place to explore Belgium’s film history is at the Cinematek in Brussels, which has regular programmes devoted to the country’s filmmakers. But while there are a lot of fascinating films to discover, only a few Belgian directors have had an international impact.

The first was André Delvaux (pictured above), whose debut, De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen (The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short, 1966) was a forceful study in alienation. It was followed by six other feature films, in both French and Dutch, demonstrating an ever-deepening interest in magic realism.

From the early 1970s, Chantal Akerman established a formidable reputation for her experimental films. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976) is considered a landmark in feminist filmmaking for its close scrutiny of domestic routine, while in later years she alternated relatively accessible feature films, such as the Marcel Proust adaptation La Captive (The Captive, 2000), with more ambitious documentaries.

A third name with international reach is Jaco Van Dormael. His debut film, Toto le héros (Toto the Hero, 1991), about a man who fears he is living the wrong life, mixes genres in a thoroughly postmodern way. Le Huitième jour, (The Eighth Day, 1996) was also an international hit, but then there was a long wait before the ambitious, unsuccessful Mr Nobody in 2009. Last year’s Le Tout nouveau testament (The Brand New Testament) marked something of a comeback.

The most famous Belgian filmmakers currently active are Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who established a strong international presence with social dramas such as Rosetta (1999) and L’Enfant (The Child, 2005), both winners of the illustrious Palme d’Or at Cannes. Set in the industrial cities of Wallonia, their work is concerned with the struggle for dignity in difficult social and economic situations, and the possibility of personal redemption. Their tenth film, La Fille inconnue (The Unknown Girl), was released in October.

New talent

Meanwhile, an impressive group of younger directors has emerged since 2000. In part, this is thanks to the introduction in 2003 of the Tax Shelter, an incentive for Belgian tax payers to invest in audiovisual productions.

Felix Van Groeningen is the most impressive of this new wave, telling raw stories about family and friendship under the strains of addiction, grief or ambition. His best film is De Helaasheid der dingen (The Misfortunates, 2009) while The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) is one of the few Belgian films to receive an Oscar nomination.

Another is the debut film of Michaël R Roskam, Rundskop (Bullhead, 2011), an intense psychological thriller that helped bring Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts to international attention. Roskam made his Hollywood debut with The Drop (2014) and is now considered one of the hottest Belgian directors.

On the French-speaking side, Joachim Lafosse has explored the struggle for power within relationships, from the extremes of a woman driven to kill her children in À perdre la raison (Our Children, 2012), to the more mundane drama of a divorce in this year’s L’Economie du couple (After Love), his seventh feature film.

Meanwhile, Bouli Lanners is a rare example of a Belgian actor-director, his reputation in both fields keeping more or less in step. As a director he takes inspiration from road movies and westerns, translating their notions of drifters into the Walloon landscape in films like Les Géants (The Giants, 2011).

Looking to the future, the directors to watch are unquestionably Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. They only graduated from film school in Brussels in 2011, but have already made two feature films and now have two more and a TV series under way in the US. Their breakthrough came with Black (2015), a tightly wound thriller about young lovers from rival Brussels gangs. Stylish and controversial, it shed a new light on the city and its subcultures. The better Belgian films tend to have their national premieres at the autumn film festivals in Ostend, Ghent and Namur.

When released to cinemas, Flemish films rarely play in Wallonia, and only the best French-language films make it to Flanders. Brussels provides a mix, but films often disappear from screens after a couple of weeks, so you have to move fast. To catch up on the best Belgian films of each year, check out the Be Film Festival in Brussels in December.

This article first appeared in The Bulletin Newcomer, autumn 2016