24/05/2005

For the second time after Rosetta in 1998, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne were awarded the Palme d'Or on Sunday evening for L'Enfant. On the public RTBF channel, they immediately reminded the profession to be careful: "public powers must not lose their sense of responsibility by this international award", they "must help the European cinema in a better way ", Luc Dardenne insisted on the fact that: "the Commission of film selection's budget must be absolutely increased" because "we don't have enough money in Belgium to make films".

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Since the Film and Audiovisual Centre of the French Community of Belgium was created, subsidies nearly doubled. From 13 million euros they reached 21 million, as underlined in a press release the French Community Minister of Culture, Fadila Laanan, and the Minister –President of the region, Marie Arena: "The subsidies granted to production workshops, from which the Dardenne Brothers come from as well as production, promotion and broadcasting have constantly been growing since 20 years." The Film centre can pride itself on backing many quality films and recognized authors in 2004, including the Dradenne Brothers (who were granted 620 000 euros) as well as Lucas Belvaux, Alain Berliner, Marion Hänsel or still young promising authors such as Vincent Lannoo or Guillaume Malandrin.
Still, if Belgium is a small country, it proved itself so dynamic in the Film field that the Commission of film selection's aids are still trailing behind (33 short-length films for 1 135 875 euros and above all, 38 feature films for 6 182 500 euros - any kind of subsidies for essentialy belgian productions and other coproductions) with restrictive screenings on the top of it.

(Translated from French)