Nic Balthazar wins Best Director at Montreal World Film Festival
Flemish filmmaker Nic Balthazar has won the director’s prize at the Montreal World Film Festival ahead of the film’s Belgian premiere this Friday
Everybody Happy?
Everybody Happy stars Peter Van den Begin (D’Ardennen, Waste Land) as a comic in the middle of a mid-life crisis. It also features Barbara Sarafian (Aanrijding in Moscou, Rundskop) as his lover/fellow stand-up and real-life comics Kamal Kharmach and Veerle Malschaert.
In 2007, Balthazar’s first film, Ben X, won the Grand Prize for best film in Montreal as well as the Public Prize and prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Soon after that it was licensed to screen in 50 countries.
“That people – even on the other side of the ocean – have apparently understood what we want to say with our film, then you have to be happy,” said Balthazar. “Montreal was a fantastic springboard for my first film. It would be wonderful if the same miracle happened again.”
Photo: Nic Balthazar (centre) and Peter Van den Begin during shooting
©Courtesy Ostend Film Festival
About the author
Lisa Bradshaw is the editor-in-chief of Flanders Today. She worked as an editor and journalist in her homeland, the United States, before moving to the awesome city of Ghent in 2004. If she’s not in the office, she’s probably at a film festival.
