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FESTIVALS Belgium

Belgian film in all its forms at Be Fest

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The Be Belgian Film Festival will take place from December 17-20 in Brussels. The festival aims to offer viewers an enticing, condensed selection of this year’s Belgian productions, a sort of 2009 “best-of”, just ahead of the year’s close.

Although held in Brussels, an officially bilingual region, the event deserves praise for its efforts, given the extent to which linguistic divisions still seem to exist in the film sector. For example, the two current hits at the Belgian box office are struggling to push through the almost impenetrable cultural boundaries.

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Released on October 7, Felix Van Groeningen’s The Misfortunates [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felix van Groeningen
film profile
]
has had meagre exposure in Wallonia, despite the 32 prints still in circulation. By comparison, Nabil Ben Yadir’s Les Barons [+see also:
film review
trailer
Interview with director and actress of…
interview: Nabil Ben Yadir
film profile
]
is faring better, with three of its 13 prints in circulation in Flanders. However, the film remains confined to the large urban centres of Antwerp and Gand.

With its non-discriminatory (or rather militant) programme, including films from both northern and southern Belgium, Be Film Festival takes a positive approach and celebrates the tentative unity of Belgian film culture.

The festival will therefore be an opportunity to (re-)discover a few gems of domestic production that have made an impression in 2009, from Erik Van Looy’s mega-blockbuster Loft [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
to Alexis Van Stratum’s more limited-audience film A Son At Sea, from Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s animated comedy A Town Called Panic [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stéphane Aubier and Vincen…
interview: Stéphane Aubier & Vincent P…
film profile
]
to Caroline Strubbe’s ethereal Lost Persons Area [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Pieter Van Hees’s highly-charged Dirty Mind [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, and Delphine Lehericey and Eric Cardot’s highly topical documentary, Kill the Referee.

Finally, the festival will this year give pride of place to the work of Lucas Belvaux, whose much-awaited film Rapt [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lucas Belvaux
film profile
]
hits screens next week and looks set to be one of the best films of 2009. Diehard cinema fans will be able to watch back-to-back screenings of his trilogy, whilst curious viewers will be able to see Belvaux in an acting role in Olivier AssayasDisorder, and discover his debut directorial feature, Sometimes Too Much Love (1991).

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(Translated from French)

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