12e Internationaal Filmgebeuren van Vlaanderen-Gent 1985
Meanwhile, the festival has the recognition of the IFFPA (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) in its pocket. This gave distributors and sales agents guarantees to programme films in Ghent in a sharply changed cinema landscape in which cinema attendance also fell.
The festival decides to organise silent film screenings with newly conducted music that is performed live. In 1985 the audience can attend the screening of the classic film L'Hirondelle et la Mésange by the French director André Antoine accompanied with live music by Raymond Alessandrini, performed by the Ensemble Alessandrini. The music of Nino Rota comes to live in the concert 'Nino Rota', and the film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) is screened with live music.
Apart from the international and musical aspect, the Filmgebeuren remains true to its now classic image: being a forum of the latest international developments in film. The audience can discover films - recent and slightly less recent ones- from almost 40 different countries. Many avant-premières take place, such as for the opening film Cocoon by Ron Howard, Which Side Are You On? by Ken Loach and St. Elmo's Fire by Joel Schumacher.
1985 also includes a number of retrospectives and tributes dedicated to Luis Buñuel, Clint Eastwood and D.A. Pennebaker, among others. The public can also soak up film in four exhibitions, including one dedicated to François Truffaut and another to film posters from the 1930s.
