Matthias Schoenaerts, who this year wrapped shooting on the American re-make of the Flemish smash hit film Loft, has been tapped to play the lead role in French director Jacques Audiard’s new movie Un goût de rouille et d’os (Rust and Bone). The film is based on the raw, macabre group of stories by Canadian writer Craig Davidson, published in 2005. Schoenaerts will play opposite French actress Marion Cotillard (Inception). Shooting will take place in the area of Paris, in the north of France and also possibly across the border in Wallonia.

The sixth edition of Music for Life, the popular end-of-year charity event that finds Studio Brussel DJs spinning your requests from a glass house in a public space, will this year give proceeds to the Red Cross’ programme to end deaths from diarrhoea, the leading cause of death worldwide in children younger than five years old. The event, which Studio Brussel says will be the last edition, will take place in three cities this year – Leuven, Ghent and Antwerp – for three days each between 17 and 23 December (with some cross-over days).  www.stubru.be

Last weekend saw the opening of OPEK, which has nothing to do with oil, but with art. The Openbaar Entrepot voor de Kunsten, in a renovated custom’s house at the port in Leuven, lodges seven local cultural organisations, including the music theatre company Braakland/Zhebilding. It was that company that just received the annual Flemish Culture Prize for Performing Arts. The jury praised the storytelling qualities of artistic directors Stijn Devillé and Adriaan Van Aken. Luide Muziek (Loud Music), their newest play, is a collaboration with the social artistic project De Figuranten. Another Flemish Culture Prize was announced last week: Gust Van den Berghe, the young director of feature film Little Baby Jesus of Flandr, loosely based on an old Flemish play by Felix Timmermans, won the prize for film, announced at the Ostend Film Festival. It was busy days for Flemish minister for culture, Joke Schauvliege, who handed out the prizes worth €12,500 each.  www.cultuurprijzen.be