Click here to read the full article.
It is no wonder Belgian cinema has risen internationally in recent years. Cinema is, after all, a language, and Belgian filmmakers come from a country built on the need to understand language as a bridge—between its
regions, its people, and its idioms. The country has three official languages—Dutch, French and German—and is divided both regionally and culturally into three highly autonomous regions: Flanders, in the north; Wallonia, in the south; and the Brussels-Capital Region, right in the middle.
The Walloon region has experienced a great year in cinema, set to be crowned by the world premiere of Michaël R. Roskam’s “Le Faux Soir” at the Toronto International Film Festival—with the film then heading to San Sebastián in a prominent slot as the festival’s closing gala. The latest by the renowned “Bullhead” director chronicles the real-life story of how the Belgian resistance pulled off an almost unfathomable feat: at the height of the Nazi occupation of the country in 1943, a resistance group organized a fake edition of Le Soir, the country’s largest newspaper, appropriated by the Germans as a propaganda machine.
The film marks a homecoming for Roskam after working on Hollywood projects over the last few years. The director says the film led him to reflect how Belgians are often “too modest about their own history.”
“There is something deeply Belgian in its combination of courage, restraint, pacifism and humor: an ability to resist without losing a certain sense of irony or self-awareness,” continued the director. “That spirit is central to the people behind ‘Le Faux Soir,’ but it also feels very present in Belgian history—and, in some ways, in Belgium today. It has given me a renewed sense of pride in where I come from.”
It is extra special to have such a high-profile Toronto this year, given that 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of Wallonie-Bruxelles Images (WBImages), the agency for the international promotion of film and audiovisual works from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Speaking with Variety from a busy Venice, where the agency presented Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s “Diane in the Loop,” WBImages director Hervé Le Phuez says his team can feel “genuinely proud of the work accomplished” by the agency in the last four decades.
“What makes us particularly happy is to see how well and how widely our films travel internationally, and how many of our producers and other film professionals are now working across borders,” he adds, noting recent co-productions such as “A Man of His Time” and “Forever Your Maternal Animal.” “The number of international co-productions involving Wallonia-Brussels producers every year is probably one of the best indicators of this strong international presence.”
Le Phuez clarifies that both WBImages and the Film and Audiovisual Center of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation are responsible for supporting audiovisual production at the Communities in Belgium level. “Rather than looking at filmmakers from one particular region, we are interested in creators who contribute to what we could call a ‘Belgian attitude’ in terms of characters, storytelling, cinematographic language, and the way they look at the world.”
“Although these films are Belgian, they often carry the voices of talents coming from very different regions, countries, cultures and linguistic backgrounds,” he notes. “This openness and our ability to welcome filmmakers from different backgrounds is one of the strengths of Belgian cinema [and] one of the reasons why [it] remains so diverse, dynamic and internationally relevant.”
This is a truth evident in the Walloon presence in Toronto, spearheaded by “Le Faux Soir” and Lukas Dhont’s Cannes-winning queer war drama “Coward.” Both films were made in collaboration between Flanders and Wallonia, with “Le Faux Soir” being a majority Walloon production and “Coward” a majority Flemish one.
Ronni Shalev, whose short film “2:Love” is also world premiering in Toronto, adds to this line of thought from an immigrant perspective. “As an immigrant to Belgium, I was pretty blown away by the financial support that is offered to beginner auteurs who have a strong artistic vision,” he says.
“I was amazed by the freedom given to auteurs,” he adds. “I was encouraged to propose a compelling artistic proposal and to bring it to life, with a strong emphasis on materiality and originality. In animation, this often translates to longer and more expensive productions, but I felt that I was being encouraged.”
Shalev believes this creative freedom and encouragement ties “into a larger Walloon ethic of a do-it-yourself and can-do-istic approach to art.” “People tend to decide on a project here, however grandiose, and figure out how to make it happen as they go along. I think that this approach lends a hand to having very unique and idiosyncratic voices in cinema—both on a narrative and a visual level.”
Sameh Alaa and Robin Vouters’s short film “The Day I Smoked a Cigarette With My Father” is also world premiering at TIFF, and producer Delphine Duez of Belgium’s White Boat Pictures mirrors Shalev’s thoughts. “There is a very particular energy in Walloon and Belgian cinema today,” she says. “Young filmmakers are not necessarily trying to reproduce what has already been done. They are taking risks, blending genres, working with materiality, the body and the intimate, and inventing their own cinematic languages.”
Looking at the crop of films coming out of Wallonia and Belgium more widely, Roskam says it is “encouraging” to see the “range of voices currently at work.” “New generations are emerging, while established filmmakers continue to make ambitious work. The number and diversity of films being developed across the country is impressive.”
“Many completely independent films are made and create a strong feeling of possibility,” Shalev adds. “This is crucially made possible by the ‘statut d’artiste,’ a social status given to artists that ensures they are paid a salary by social security during the weeks in the year when they don’t have a work contract. A welfare state utopia, in effect. These benefits and opportunities are currently under threat of being dismantled and erased by Belgium’s current right-wing government. But so long as they exist, they make the local cinema scene rich with ideas and experimentation.”
Duez adds that, while Belgium is recognized for the quality of its crews, “what strikes us most is the human dimension of the industry.” “People are willing to give their time, their talent and their experience to a project—and, importantly, to the next generation.”
“Even very experienced and senior professionals are often ready to put themselves at the service of a young filmmaker when they feel that the project has that essential spark,” she adds. “There is less of a rigid industrial hierarchy. People meet each other more easily, personalities emerge, and collaboration can remain very direct.”
Le Phuez concurs, emphasizing Belgium’s “virtuous circle” of production and financing. “We have three different levels of public competence and, consequently, three different support schemes for cinema, which can be combined and allow filmmakers to put together significant financing for their films.” Still, the agency director believes the “greatest strength” of their creators is an “ability to preserve their originality despite the growing uniformization of the global world.”
“They manage to remain true to their own voices while reaching audiences internationally,” he says. “And we think that is something really valuable.”
