Programma Film Fest Gent 2022 announced
For almost 50 years, Film Fest Gent has been kicking off the new film season in October. In 2022, the festival is again strongly committed to bringing together and inspiring all actors in the film industry.
"The past few COVID years have been tough. The festival had to be creative to navigate what was and was not possible. With the upcoming edition, we want to get rid of the ballast of those difficult times, and return to the essence of the festival, which is our passion for film and for the industry. Among other things, we are highlighting a number of Creative Partnerships by giving a stage to some exceptional filmmakers and composers who deliver their best work together," says general director Marijke Vandebuerie.
Film can once again become a shared experience. For example, during FFG2022, on the occasion of Generations On Tour, young people will watch Phyllis Nagy's Call Jane together with over-65s from the Plus Parcours. Afterwards, the two generations will discuss the film together at the Film Fest Café.
Programme director Wim De Witte and his extensive selection committee selected 116 feature films, three television series and 40 short films from an overwhelming range of more than 1,200 submitted films and from more than 150 films from the selections of Berlin, Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, San Sebastian, Toronto, Telluride and a number of other festivals. From Venice the following films were selected: The March on Rome by über-cinephile Mark Cousins, Saint Omer by Alice Diop who won the Grand Jury Prize, The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh, Trenque Lauquen by Laura Citarella, Music for Black Pigeons by Danes Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed, in which we follow guitar player and composer Jakob Bro for fourteen years, and To the North by Mihai Mincan whose short film Cometa went into premiere in 2017 in Ghent and thus proves that a progression from short-film competition to Official Competition is possible.
As announced, the 49th Film Fest Gent opens with the moving Belgian film Close by Lukas Dhont from Gent, which won the Grand Prix in Cannes. Tengo sueños eléctricos, the opening film of the Official Competition which is dedicated to the impact of sound and music on film, also has a Belgian touch. The Costa Rican-born Valentina Maurel, recently awarded the prize for Best Director in Locarno, studied film at INSAS in Brussels where she now lives. For her incendiary double portrait of a daughter and her father, she returned to her country of birth. Eva, the sixteen-year-old main character, has been living with her mother since the divorce of her parents, but ultimately chooses her somewhat whimsical father. Life thus becomes a delicate balancing act.
Official Competition Film Fest Gent 2022
Un beau matin by Mia Hansen-Løve is not only a unique slice of life, but also a treasured favourite by programme director Wim De Witte, who was very moved in Cannes by the newest tranche de vie by the director. In this emotive film, star actress Léa Seydoux takes on the role of a young widow who meets an old friend and starts an affair with him. Meanwhile, she takes care of her father who suffers a rare form of dementia. Wim De Witte also highlights the deliciously ironic and surreal Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Pierre Földes, an animated film inspired by the work of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Klondike by Maryna Er Gorbach features not only the war in Ukraine, but also the taking down of flight MH17, and has been selected as the Ukrainian submission for the Oscars. The filmmaker paints an excellent picture of the situations and human relationships in the now self-proclaimed Donetsk Republiek. Among the more ‘challenging’ competition films are Pacifiction by Albert Serra and Trenque Lauquen by Laura Citarella, in which two friends go in search of the missing Laura. The intriguing search is divided into two parts which are being shown consecutively at the festival. The Chinese crime thriller and film noir Are You Lonesome Tonight, about the culprit of a hit and run who puzzles together the consequences of his encounter with fate, is a promising debut with intoxicating cinematography about guilt and memory. The gender balance in the total selection competition is fifty-fifty: six female filmmakers, six male.
This year's International Jury consists of American composer Daniel Hart who will elaborate on his long-standing collaboration with David Lowery (A Ghost Story, The Green Knight) thanks to a Creative Partnership talk during the festival, Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze who came to present What Do We See When We Look At The Sky in person at FFG2021 just last year, and British filmmaker Clio Barnard who received the Explore Award for The Tribe in 2014. Still on the jury are Belgium's most in-demand editor Nico Leunen (Ad Astra, Beautiful Boy, The Broken Circle Breakdown), Guinea-Bissau-born multi-talented Welket Bungué who broke through with his role in Berlin Alexanderplatz, and Nathalie Álvarez-Mesén who won the Georges Delerue Award for her debut film Clara Sola at Film Fest Gent 2021.
Present talent and Director’s Talks
There will be an abundance of film talent attending to present their films to the audience in Ghent - among others Marie Kreutzer, Masha Halberstad, Leonor Seraille, Theu Boermans, Eva Vitija, Michael Koch, Tarik Saleh, Lola Quivoron, Colm Bairéad, Marusya Syroechkovskaya and the Belgian creators Amélie Van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier, Kato De Boeck and Flo Van Deuren, Ruben Desiere, Astrid Mertens, and Wouter Bovijn.
The festival also scheduled three Director’s Talks in which filmmakers get a platform to talk extensively about their ‘oeuvre’ and their newest film. On 12 October, Film Fest Gent in collaboration with ‘de Unie van Regisseurs’ presents Between Directors: Céline Sciamma meets Lukas Dhont. The two pioneers of queer cinema will meet each other and after the screening of Sciamma’s most recent film, Petite maman, they will dive into deep conversation about the French filmmaker’s work. Film lovers will also be able to enjoy two other Director’s Talks during the festival. Cristian Mungiu will go into conversation about his work after the screening of R.M.N. and Catalan director Albert Serra does the same after the screening of Pacifiction.
Short film weekend
The importance of the short film form at Film Fest Gent has only increased in recent years. The short film weekend this year once again features a comprehensive programme. On Friday night, 14 October, there is a first series of short films from the International Short Film Competition. There are three series in total. Also, three Belgian short films made it to this selection. Isabelle Tollenaere returns from Venice with The Fruit Tree, Enzo Smits presents Daysleeper and Meltse van Coillie and Harm Dens introduce Nocturnus. On Sunday, it’s time for the Competition for Belgian Student Shorts.
"It is not only Lukas Dhont, who will open the 49th edition of the festival with 'Close', and Kato De Boeck and Flo Van Deuren, whose series 'Roomies' will have its world premiere with us, that were discovered in this competition in the past," says programmer Michiel Philippaerts. "Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Felix Van Groeningen, Kaat Beels, Anthony Nti, ... all passed through Ghent. Every year we look for new talent with the Competition for Belgian Student Shorts, and so it is with great pride that we present the 2022 batch, a selection of almost 3 hours." From absurdist, existential western-pastiche to sensitive coming-of-age dramas to a very moving essay film about grief, memories and bird names, every cinephile will find something to his liking. On Sunday 16 October, the international short film jury, consisting of Antwerp painter Bendt Eyckermans, French film critic Elena Lazic and Vietnamese filmmaker Diana Cam Van Nguyen, will decide who will win the Prize for Best Belgian Student Short Film. The audience favourite will win a post-production budget of €6,500, offered by THE PACK.
During the short film weekend, the launch of the renewed Kortfilm.be will be celebrated. It is the first and only magazine in Flanders specialising in short film, an art form which has unjustly received too little attention, but which, just like feature films, helps us better understand the world and society. Kortfilm.be wants to be a source of information and education, and stimulates and diversifies the short film culture in Flanders and Brussels.
Veteran Raoul Servais
Before the work of the new generation hits the screen, the world premiere of Der lange Kerl by animation pioneer and veteran director Raoul Servais will be presented on 15 October. The film is set in the trenches of World War I and, as is often the case with Servais, has a pacifist message. Raoul Servais again combines animation and live action, with Rudy Pinceel responsible for the latter. Pinceel previously shot a documentary on the life of the Ostend film magician. In addition to Der Lange Kerl, Chromophobia, Attraksion and De valse noot will also be screened. They are part of the project Chromophobia, Boshaard X Servais, which will tour several cultural centres after the film festival. Boshaard, consisting of Dominique Vantomme and Toon Bosschaert, provided Servais' fourteen short films with new music. While Servais takes the audience on a visual trip, they provide a dark audio trip through piano improvisations, haunting themes and beats that will leave a profound impression.
A Film School in Mosul
Another series of short films comes in the form of A Film School in Mosul, a project by NTGent supported by the UNESCO programme Revive the Spirit of Mosul with financial support from the European Union. NTGent's collaboration with the Institute of Fine Arts of Mosul came into existence via the initiative of artistic director Milo Rau. A Belgian-Iraqi team of film teachers started a training course for twenty students from the ravaged city of Mosul. In five stages, they learned to write a script, handle a camera, direct, edit footage and present the result. Cameraman Daniel Demoustier, actresses Marijke Pinoy and Susana AbdulMajid and actor Johan Leysen already taught at the film school. Seven short films from Mosul will have their European premiere during Film Fest Gent.
Resilience & OverKop
A remarkable number of filmmakers address mental health among young people. That is why Film Fest Gent grouped films on this subject under the tag ‘Veerkracht’ (=resilience).
Examples include Coma by Bertrand Bonello set during lockdown, the Norwegian film Sick of Myself by Kristoffer Borgli about a woman who buys sickening pills and turns out to be the real worst person in the world. In Kurdwin Ayub's Sonne, the popularity of TikTok clips has a harmful impact on four girls. In July Jung's South Korean Next Sohee, a female student working in a call centre cannot stand up to the pressure from her employer. And in the strident How to Save a Dead Friend, Marusya Syroechkovskaya documents what went wrong with her drug- and booze-addicted boyfriend. The film is a jaw-dropper for Russian society. Both July Jung and Marusya Syroechkovskaya descend on Ghent to present their films to the public.
UGent's annual Science café, which takes place during Film Fest Gent, also deals with mental health among young people. On 18 October, festival goers can visit the Film Fest Café for the Science Café: Teenage brains under pressure.
Connecting to the theme of mental health and resilience, Film Fest Gent is supporting OverKop this year. People can choose to pay a little extra when purchasing an online ticket. The money raised will go to OverKop. In an OverKop house - there is one in every Flemish province - young people aged 12 to 25 can simply walk in and out and do all kinds of fun things. It is a safe place where you can find a listening ear and seek professional therapeutic help without being labelled. There is also an online OverKop platform ready for those who feel down from time to time.
Topical & merciless
To make choosing easier, Film Fest Gent divides its programme into sections and tags. These tags give the film a label which makes it easier to situate the film both formally and content-wise. Tags do not relate to sections and a film can be tagged more than once. Examples of tags include Belgian Cinema Today, Masters, New Voices, Docs and Plus Parcours.
The distinction between the sections Gala & Specials and Official Selection is rather subtle, says Wim De Witte, but the second category contains mainly films that do not yet have a Belgian distributor and can therefore be discovered on the big screen exclusively at the festival. Among the Gala & Specials this year, we find films like Carla Simón's Alcarràs, which won the Golden Bear at the latest Berlinale. Phyllis Nagy's Call Jane has become particularly topical even though the film is set in the 1970s. Phyllis Nagy, the screenwriter of Carol, talks about a group of women who made sure pregnant women still got help with abortion. Joy, played by Elizabeth Banks, is pregnant and, as a result, her life is in danger. Abortion is forbidden but one day, in a somewhat grubby neighbourhood, she sees a note: "Call Jane". That is the name of a collective led by Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) that offers a safe solution. How more topical can a film be after the reversal of Roe vs Wade, the ruling that secured the right to abortion in the US Constitution in 1973?
Even more female talent can be spotted in Sophie Hyde's Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. She portrays a widow seeking sexual pleasure from a sex worker. The dialogue between the two is sharp, to the point and often hilarious. But at the Berlinale, Emma Thompson's nude scene in particular was the subject of debate. Emma Thompson also plays a role in What's Love Gotta Do With It? by Shekar Kapur, former jury member of Film Fest Gent. Romanian Golden Palm winner Cristian Mungiu is a highly regarded film auteur and comes to Ghent to present his R.M.N (the Romanian term for an MRI). His scan of Romanian society is merciless. Ulrich Seidl's take on popular singers and their followers in Rimini is similarly ruthless. Alexander Sokurov's Fairytale is among the most original films of this festival edition. Sokurov has Churchill, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini appear in deep-fake form in an immense setting. They talk past each other and are visited by Napoleon and Jesus Christ. The whole thing is a technical tour de force supported by great sound design.
Images speak
Documentary filmmaker and film historian Mark Cousins is once again on top of his game in his The March on Rome. With a scalpel, he dissects the film A Noi, a documentary shot about the march of fascists from Naples to Rome; a march that helped bring Benito Mussolini to power in 1926. Rise and fall of Mussolini could be the film's subtitle. In a drawling voice, Cousins extends the significance of that march to today, so that you sometimes get the impression that the march on Rome was the most important event of the last century.
A good portion of the selected films are documentaries. Highlights from Sound & Vision - an annual selection of music documentaries - include Rewind & Play by Alain Gomis with footage of how jazz maestro Thelonious Monk was treated in Paris in the 1960s. The condescending attitude towards this legendary jazz musician is shocking. Astrid Mertens followed Walter Hus's Musical Journey and in Sirens you will be introduced to Lebanon's first female metal band.
Godard lives on
With the death of Jean-Luc Godard, two films in Artists on Film unexpectedly take on much greater significance. A vendredi, Robinson by Mitra Farahani and Godard seul le cinéma by Cyril Leuthy are both dedicated to the revolutionary filmmaking genius. On 18 October, both films will be screened consecutively at KASKcinema, followed by a talk with Patrick Duynslaegher and Anke Brouwers (among others) on the life and work of Jean-Luc Godard.
Also in the Artists on Film section is Jane Campion, la femme cinéma by Julie Bertuccelli, a touching portrait of the New Zealand director. Exposing Muybridge is about the famous photographer who experimented with capturing movement on film. Some of his experiments from the early years of film are revisited and in Twee Mannen by Suzanne Raes, you can see how Ivo van Hove collaborates with his partner-scenographer Jan Versweyveld in staging their Age of Rage.
"Sometimes a documentary just hits you so that you can't ignore it," says Wim De Witte, programme director, referring to Austrian Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Matter Out of Place. There is only dialogue in the film's opening and closing scenes. For the rest of the film, the images speak for themselves. And how. Some of the images are among the most beautiful to be seen at the festival. The ‘most beautiful’ is relative as it involves trash. The images are certainly impressive and haunting. Geyrhalter placed his camera on a field built on a rubbish dump, travelled to Nepal and the Maldives and, after a few detours past rubbish crushers, ended up at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. There, the desert is literally swept clean.
In these MeToo times, it is also hard to ignore Body Parts by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan. She reconstructs a film set where a sex scene will be shot. In between, she has actresses talk about their experiences with such scenes. The role of intimacy coaches is discussed and so-called body doubles, who take the place of actresses, reveal some film secrets. For instance, Janet Leigh's claim that it was indeed her who was in the shower in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is no longer tenable. Jane Fonda, with her Barbarella history, forms something of a common thread throughout. As the role of the intimacy coach gains importance, Mediarte has created a toolbox that will be presented after the screening on 17 October.
Focus on South-Korea
For its Focus, Film Fest Gent chose South Korean cinema this year. Not only responding to its popularity but especially to its quality. Curiously enough, says our programme director, "there are no genre films in the first South Korean section dedicated to recent film production. Instead of action films, gangster films, film noirs and other thrillers, we mostly see films that pay attention to everyday life on the peninsula." And even if we are not always so familiar with the subjects, we are nevertheless with the directors who tackle these topics. Two new films by the über-productive Hong Sang-soo, The Novelist's Film and Walk Up, are on the programme. Hong Sang-soo celebrates life and the former film involves a female writer trying to escape writer's block by shooting a film. In Walk up, a director and his daughter are given a tour of an apartment building. Squid Game actor Lee Jung-jae was in the director's chair for the first time and made an over-the-top feature film full of intrigue with Hunt.
The celebrated Im Sang-soo comes to Ghent to present his witty buddy movie Heaven: To the Land of Happiness in person. We get a critical look at the capitalism that keeps the education system in a stranglehold in July Jung's Next Sohee. We are served more of that in Hot in Day, Cold at Night by Park Song-yeol. It is about a couple desperately trying to make ends meet. Challenging film on duty is The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra in which director Park Sye-young follows a vengeful fungus that resides in a mattress.
Curator and former artistic director Patrick Duynslaegher put together the retrospective South Korean section. The Classics section consists of films shot over the past 22 years but with Kim Ki-young's The Housemaid, he returns to 1960 because of its influence on generations of filmmakers. Among them Bong Joon-ho with his global hit Parasite. From him we also see his monster film The Host. For Hong Sang-soo, three is the golden number, because in addition to his two recent films, you can watch Woman is the Future of Man in the Classics. And those who have not yet seen Lee Chang-dong's delightful and mysterious Burning will get a new chance in Ghent that is not to be missed.
As happened last year for Greek cinema, this year Patrick Duynslaegher dives into the history of Korean cinema. Among other things, he points to the simultaneous run of film successes and the country's political and economic boom. Korea is a country that was attacked and occupied by Japan as early as the beginning of the last century. In 1948, the country even fell apart and ended up in a civil war. In North Korea, film continued to serve power while in South Korea, dozens of film studios were established. The first golden years began and now we are well into the second. You can read what happened in between in Film Fest Gent's unique, handy Korean cinema brochure. A collector's item.
Adherent to the Focus on South Korea, Film Fest Gent will highlight the best of Korean film music at the Korean Composers concert on 20 October. Parasite composer Jung Jae-il graces the campaign image of the 49th Film Fest Gent. His music, including the score for Squid Game, will be performed live at the Muziekcentrum De Bijloke by Brussels Philharmonic conducted by maestro Dirk Brossé. There will also be the music of Cho Young-wuk, Park Chan-wook's in-house composer, and Lee Byeong-woo, who collaborated with Bong Joon-ho for The Host and Mother, among others.
Kidsproof: children's gala and family Sunday
Together with youth film organisation JEF, Film Fest Gent ensures a kidsproof 49th edition. The festivities start the day after the opening night with a Kidsproof Gala where children are welcome to shine on the red carpet for the gala premiere of Knor, Mascha Halberstad's debut film based on Tosca Menten's children's book. Everything revolves around the question of who will become King Sausage of the century. Nine-year-old Babs, who received the piglet Knor as a gift, must save her pet animal from the death of sausages. The makers of the film, which was made in a converted garage, will come to introduce Knor in person. At the Film Fest Café, children can discover the wonderful world of special effects with the XL Greenkey Installation before and after the screening. After the film, there will be a chic children's reception with vegetarian sausages.
16 October is Kidsproof Sunday. That is the premiere of Yuku en de Himalayabloem , the first feature film by Belgian Arnaud Demuynck, which he made together with Rémi Durin. Yuku is a playful mouse who would rather listen to grandmother's stories than keep the cat far away from the food supply. In search of the Himalayan flower for her grandmother, Yuku meets other colourful animals. The film is an ode to the stories that connect us, and the songs are performed by Tine Embrechts, Gloria Monserez, Bent Van Looy, Lotte Villays, Lucas Van den Eynde, among others. After the screening, everyone can immerse themselves in the world of Yuku at the Film Fest Café and listen to a concert with Lotte Villays, Bent Van Looy and Tine Embrechts, among others.
Birta is a film about parents struggling financially and Falcon Lake by Charlotte Le Bon is an enchanting youth film with a poetic and mysterious exploration of sexuality and falling in love.
The Kidsproof section also includes a fun interactive booklet for young film fans and their parents. It contains not only information about all the films but also numerous games featuring our favourite characters from the films.
World Soundtrack Awards
The 22nd edition of the World Soundtrack Awards closes Film Fest Gent on 22 October. The venue this year is the thoroughly renovated concert hall in Music centre De Bijloke. This year, the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to film music will be presented to French composer Bruno Coulais. He is no stranger to the festival, having already won the Georges Delerue Award in 1996 for his score for the nature documentary Microcosmos: Le peuple de l'herbe by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou. It marked his big breakthrough. His film music has been described as imaginative and lyrical, and this year alone, three new films will be released for which he wrote the music: Patrice Leconte's Maigret, Volker Schlondorff's The Forestmaker and Henry Selick's Wendell & Wild.
Besides Bruno Coulais, the World Soundtrack Academy also welcomes Mark Isham and Nainita Desai as guests of honour. Versatile American film composer and jazz artist Mark Isham has collaborated on some four hundred films and TV series, including Judas and the Black Messiah, Crash, Nell and Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It. As the previous Discovery of the Year, Nainita Desai returns this year once again. Works by Bruno Coulais, Mark Isham and Nainita Desai will be played by Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Maestro and Film Fest Gent music director Dirk Brossé. On top of that, the annual Music for Film album is dedicated to the work of Mark Isham. For this, FFG and Brussels Philharmonic (led by Maestro Dirk Brossé) dove into the studio to make brand new recordings of Isham's music. Mark Isham plays the trumpet himself on some tracks and will also perform live on trumpet during the WSA.
WSA Film Music Days (20 tot 22 oktober)
The WSA ceremony is not only the closing event of the 49th edition of Film Fest Gent but is also the high point of three full WSA Film Music Days. During those days, film music professionals, students and lovers of film music meet at panel discussions, seminars, lectures and concerts. The aim is to bring as many young people as possible into contact with professionals and find answers to the questions that concern and affect them. These are about concluding contracts or balancing a budget. A highlight is undoubtedly the Composer's Talk with Mark Isham. And those wanting to compose music for a nature documentary will be able to learn a thing or two at a seminar on the subject with experts in the field Bruno Coulais, Nainita Desai and Dirk Brossé.
Listening session with Evgueni Galparine
The listening session featuring the performance of Evgueni Galperine's album Theory of Becoming will undoubtedly be a fascinating event. Galperine, who wrote the score for Film Fest Gent Explore Award-winner Gagarine, among others, made recordings with both real and virtual instruments, distorting the results each time. He also had four filmmakers create images to accompany his music. To be heard and seen exclusively on 21 October at 19:30 at MIRY Concert Hall.
What bringing together and meeting can all lead to will become clear at the two Creative Partnerships. Filmmaker David Lowery and composer Daniel Hart (who, incidentally, also sits on the International Jury of FFG2022) will talk about their fruitful collaboration that led to such films as Pete's Dragon, A Ghost Story, The Old Man & the Gun and The Green Knight. These films will also be screened in the film programme. On 21 October at 15:00, the duo will talk. Just before that (at 13:00), composer Johnny Jewel, editor Nico Leunen and director Fien Troch will also talk about their joint projects.
Female composers
Who wins what at the World Soundtrack Awards remains a secret, of course. But we do already know that this year's WSA Industry Award goes to the Alliance for Women Film Composers, a community that strives to support the work of women composers. Catherine Joy, president of The Alliance, is coming to Ghent to accept the award and speak about Changing the Face of "The Composer".
"Film Fest Gent fully supports this Alliance," says programme director Wim De Witte. "We hope the organisation will lower the threshold for the inflow of female composers into the world of film music and the World Soundtrack Academy. As a result, the WSA nominations will also become more diverse, giving new impetus to the World Soundtrack Awards, and by extension the entire film music industry."
Dream date with VIERNULVIER
For an exciting, alternative trip through the nights of Film Fest Gent, you should descend to VIDEODROOM, where Film Fest Gent and VIERNULVIER join hands with yet another quirky mix of eclectic music and obscure cult films. Use Knife, the brand-new band of Stef Heeren, Kwinten Mordijck and Saif Al-Qaissy, presents their debut The Shedding of Skin on 12 October with the audio-visual show Jerusalem in My Heart. The same evening features Arabic music fused with analogue film. High-energy music is then back on 22 October thanks to Ghent-based jazz trio PAARD, which will provide live music to short films featuring the theme of chase. The Hungarian fantasy film Son of the White Mare by Marcell Jankovics will be given a new soundtrack by experimental pianist-composer Martin Kohlstedt, which he will perform live. He gives a new dimension to classical music. Two other films - Carnival of Souls by Herk Harvey and Le révélateur by Philippe Garrel - will also receive a new soundtrack. An omniscient spider meets artificial intelligence in the performance Spindle by Oona Libens.
Talkies in Film Fest Café
In addition to UGent's Science Café, there are the daily Talkies in the Film Fest Café with, as an opener on 12 October, a conversation between screenwriter Angelo Tijssens and producer Michiel Dhont about Close. The day after, Professor Kevin Smets will present his book Film, A History together with Stijn Coninx. There will also be Talkies dedicated to film education in Flanders (by Sabzian), the International Short Film Competition (by Kortfilm.be), the new 1985 series (with Willem Wallyn and Stijn Coninx), Ruben Desieres Echo, the documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel by Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt and music at Film Fest Gent (with Dirk Brossé, Walter Hus and Pieter Verlinden).
Geen hogere ticketprijzen
Despite rising energy costs, FFG is not implementing any price increases. It wants to be an accessible festival for as long as possible and appeal to as many people and groups of people as possible. With the schools, it has already succeeded in this as around a thousand pupils and more attend the school performances every day. The festival's audience outreach aims to spread film culture to diverse film lovers. This is accompanied by threshold-reducing offers, fees and collaborations. For example, a language café is organised in collaboration with Taalcafé Mundial, where people with different mother tongues go to the film together and talk about it at various language tables. In-Gent joins in with newcomers to the city. The intergenerational film café - Generations - where young (16-18) and not so young (65+) discuss Call Jane together - is also coming to the Film Fest Café after several successful editions at Sphinx Cinema. To those for whom a cinema visit is financially difficult, Film Fest Gent offers tickets at the UiTPAS chance rate (both for pass holders from the Ghent region and other UiTPAS regions). But through VRIJUIT and various poverty associations in Ghent, people can also come and enjoy the festival more cheaply, in groups or individually.
Meeting, connecting, sharing, and nourishing everyone's resilience.