City of Antwerp culture alderman Philip Heylen is back this week from a week-long trip to US cities Philadelphia, New York and Washington to discuss plans with a number of major institutions offering support to the future Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp. The Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution and the brand new National Museum of American Jewish History will all work with Antwerp on marketing and, it is hoped, financing. The Red Star Line was a shipping company that took about two million European passengers from Antwerp to the US in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, including many Jews fleeing the Nazi regime. There is apparently much interest from the United States in the museum, set to open in 2012 at a total cost of €18 million.

The Flemish film Adem, now playing in cinemas across Brussels and Flanders, has just been accepted into its 10th international festival. The Les Arcs European Film Festival in Savoie, France, features films by emerging directors. Adem is the first feature by Flemish filmmaker Hans Van Nuffel and follows the story of two men with cystic fibrosis, a disease the director himself has.

Bruges' Groeningen Museum last week opened one of its largest and most lavish exhibitions ever, Van Eyck to Dürer, in which paintings by Flemish Primitives are shown alongside work by painters from across Central Europe who were influenced by them. Fifteenth-century art works have travelled from museums across Europe and the United States for the show, including German painter Stefan Lochner's magnificent "Birth of Christ" and Albrecht Dürer's seminal portraits. The exhibition is part of the Bruges Central Festival, which brings performances and exhibitions by Central European and Belgian artists together. Check Flanders Today later this month for a full review of Van Eyck to Dürer.