Flemish director wins top award at Sundance Film Festival
Felix Van Groeningen has been honoured at Sundance for his new film Belgica, the first Belgian film to ever win one of the major prizes at the famous American festival. A Flemish film also won best cinematography
“Unbelievably happy”
Van Groeningen, the director of several internationally acclaimed films, including De helaasheid der dingen (The Misfortunates) and the Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown, was in Utah to introduce the film but had to leave before the prizes were announced at the weekend. He told the jury via Skype that he was “unbelievably happy. Sundance was a great place to show the film. We could feel that from the professionals as well as the festival-going public.”
Belgica (pictured) is the story of two brothers who run a bar in the 1980s and grow further apart the more successful it becomes. Van Groeningen wrote the screenplay with Arne Sierens (Dagen zonder lief). The film stars Stef Aerts, Tom Vermeir, Charlotte Vandermeersch and Hélène Devos.
Belgica, which received support from the Flemish Audiovisual Fund and Screen Flanders, will open in Belgium, France and the Netherlands on 2 March.
Meanwhile, Flemish filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue’s debut The Land of the Enlightened, won the festival’s award for best cinematography. The documentary tells the story of children in Afghanistan fighting to survive in a country torn by decades of war. De Pue, also a photographer, shot everything himself on 16mm.
“I am very honoured to win this prize from one of the most important festivals in the world,” he said. “We spent five years making this film in the most inhospitable and dangerous regions of the world. This is an important recognition of what we were trying to achieve.”
The Land of the Enlightened is due to premiere in Europe at the Rotterdam festival on Tuesday before screening at Bozar in Brussels next month.
Photo: Thomas Dhanens
