The latest film and festival news
A hundred or so days prior to the opening, Film Fest Gent 2019 will reveale some new names for VIDEODROOM, in collaboration with the Vooruit cultural centre.
We will once again join forces for ten days of film and music with Vooruit during Film Fest Gent 2019. After a first succesful edition of Videodroom in 2018 we will again present a series of concert evenings where top musicians, representing a diversity of genres, come and play new compositions live to accompany films and projections. These new pieces may be new interpretations of existing scores or completely new, unique improvisations. Exclusive, one-off crossovers that you’ll only find at Vooruit.
Brussels Philharmonic will bring the best symphonic scores from iconic horror films such as 'Dracula', 'Bride of Frankenstein' and 'Psycho' back to life under the guidance of Dirk Brossé.
Held on October 18th, the World Soundtrack Awards will welcome Marco Beltrami, two-time Oscar nominated composer and one of the most brilliant film composers of his generation, known for his unique collaborations with some of the world’s most respected and iconic filmmakers such as Kathryn Bigelow, James Mangold, Guillermo Del Toro, Wes Craven, Bertrand Tavernier, Tommy Lee Jones and Jean-François Richet.
Young international film music talent will have the chance to win the highly sought after SABAM Award for the Most Original Composition by a Young International Composer. This award was created by the World Soundtrack Academy and is worth € 2.500. The compositions of the three finalists will be performed by Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by maestro Dirk Brossé, during the 19th World Soundtrack Awards on 18 October 2019.
Film Fest Gent presented the 45th edition of the festival in October 2018. It offered a program with a fine selection of high-quality films, including the opening film 'Girl' and the winner of the international jury 'Cold War' (now in theatres), but also with a lot of 'smaller' films ('First Reformed', 'Hotel by the River', 'Long Day's Journey Into Night') and a series of rediscoverable classics (with a Tribute to the Hungarian director Miklos Jancso). The music section which, in addition to the World Soundtrack Awards Gala, also presented the first edition of Videodroom in collaboration with Vooruitand a series of film music industry events for an international group of young composers, was very well received. The program received a lot of attention of press and public, both nationally and internationally. The festival welcomed 106.013 visitors in its 2018 edition.
After winning the Grand Prix earlier this week, 'Cold War' also received the Canvas Audience Award. The TV channel had selected five films out of the entire programme, out of which Paweł Pawlikowski's internationally acclaimed drama scored the most audience votes.
You have decided: 'Capharnaüm', the Lebanese Oscar submission by director Nadine Labaki, wins the North Sea Port Audience Award. After eleven festival days, during which around 150 movies were screened, the emotionally convincing film received the highest praise of the audience.
The youth jury awarded the Explore Zone Award to Philip Grönings drama 'Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot' for "his audacity, absurdism and unusual way to tackle certain themes". This award is presented to the best film out of the Explore Zone. This trail concentrates on films aimed at young people between 18 and 26 years old.
'Cold War' by Oscar winner Paweł Pawlikowski ('Ida' and 'The Summer of Love') received the Grand Prix for Best Film at the closing night of Film Fest Gent. The Georges Delerue Award for Best Music was given to Claire Denis' space drama 'High Life'. Sonam Larcins ‘Après le silence’ won the Award vor Best Belgian Student Short, while Ottó Bánovits' 'Dark Chamber' won Best European Short.
Slaps precede sweet talk and lovers’ tussles are primal and sexually charged in Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘The Favourite’ (2018). Sex and power prove to be interconnected forces at play and feed off of each other, often in destructive ways. The film is an irreverent spin on a cliché-ridden genre that in Lanthimos’ capable hands transforms into a hilarious lesbian love and sex story involving a battle of wits coupled with a mud-caked, spittle-flecked take on physical comedy.
The annual World Soundtrack Awards have been given out during the 45th edition of Film Fest Gent in Belgium tonight. The winners of the 18th WSAwards include Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ramin Djawadi, Kendrick Lamar, Rutger Reinders, Tamar-kali, Laurent Eyquem, Logan Nelson and Philippe Sarde, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The title of “I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History As Barbarians” comes as part of a larger monologue about halfway through Radu Jude’s newest filmic hybrid of fiction and history, when an actor portraying Nazi collaborator Ion Antonescu quotes a speech, which was originally delivered in 1941 to justify the massacre of Romanian Jews.
Out of the several literary giants that director Nuri Bilge Ceylan namechecks in the end credits of ‘The Wild Pear Tree’, Dostoevsky seems to have the strongest presence, since what has come before has been determined by the whims and failings of an ‘underground man’ named Sinan.
Brisk honesty in long takes is the main character in actor Paul Dano’s debut feature Wildlife (2018). The anthropomorphised camera is the unnamed sibling in this 1960s American family portrait, based on a novel of the same name by Richard Ford, telling the coming-of-age story of Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal), Jean (Carey Mulligan), and their son Joe (Ed Oxenbould).
After revealing the nominees for Best Film Composer, Best TV Composer and Best Original Song, the World Soundtrack Academy announces a second wave of nominees for Best Original Score for a Belgian production, Discovery of the Year, SABAM Award for the Most Original Score by a Young International Composer and Public Choice Award.
At the 45th Film Fest Gent, Belgian cinema will be present as ever. Earlier it was announced that not only the opening night ('Girl' by Lukas Dhont), but also the closing film ('Beautiful Boy' by Felix van Groeningen) will come from a Belgian director. The festival now presents the 10 titles by or with Belgian talent, including no less than 6 world premieres.
The 45th edition of Film Fest Gent again offers film enthusiasts and loyal visitors the chance to buy a 5 or a 10 ticket pack!
The film 'Beautiful Boy' by Felix van Groeningen with Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell will be the closing film of the 45th edition of Film Fest Gent. The film will have its Belgian premiere on October 19th at the festival, preceded by the presentation of the official festival awards, in the presence of the international festival jury and director Felix van Groeningen. Buy your tickets here.
Earlier this week, Film Fest Gent announced the first nominees of the World Soundtrack Awards and now releases the poster image and new titles. No more than 10 films were revealed, from well known directors such as Jacques Audiard, Paolo Sorrentino and David Lower to up and coming names like Ali Abbasi, winner of Un Certain Regard and Belgian director Kenneth Mercken.
This first wave of the 2018 World Soundtrack Award Nominees includes multiple Academy Award® winners and nominees, the best of contemporary film and television music as well as Pulitzer prize winner Kendrick Lamar and other pop artists.
In line with tradition, a selection of the World Soundtrack Award's main guest's music will be recorded and released for the annual 'Music for Film' album. Some of Carter Burwell's most captivating scores will be recorded on August 20-22 in Flagey's legendary Studio 4, performed by Brussels Philharmonic and conducted by Dirk Brossé. The live recording will include exclusive and unpublished tracks from 'The Spanish Prisoner' and 'Olive Kitteridge'. It will be the first compilation album of Burwell's film scores ever released, licensed by Silva Screen Records and recorded, mixed & mastered by MotorMusic.
On 10 October, Vooruit and Film Fest Gent will launch the first edition of VIDEODROOM. During the upcoming Film Fest Gent (9-19 Oct 2018) and at cultural arts centre Vooruit, artists and audiences will explore a new universe at the intersection between music, films and visuals. Film scores will be reworked and well-known films and their scores will be deconstructed. Ex-Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore opens the festival with his new score for four short films by experimental filmmaker Maya Deren.
In 2018, Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking masterpiece '2001: A Space Odyssey' is exactly fifty years old and that is worth celebrating. On 18 October, Film Fest Gent will be organising a concert, under the title '2001 and Beyond: A Symphonic Odyssey' with a wide variety of scores from films taking place in space on the programme.
