Edition 2012

In somewhat less refined language, we would
really love to say: what the f***, thirty years!
Who could have thought that, in 1983 during
the very first edition of the B.I.F.F.T S.F.F. – the
Brussels International Festival of Fantasy,
Thriller & Science Fiction Film ( luckily we could
switch to B.I.F.F.F. a bit later ) at the projection
of Valeri Rubinchik’s The Savage Hunt of King
Stakh – this adventure would continue to the next
millennium ?
And here we are then in 2012: 15.000 reviewed
films ( which could be translated into four entire
years of our life watching the silver screen or
17.500 successive viewings of The Exorcist ),
2.000 guests and 2 million spectators later!
So what the f***, indeed !
And to think that fantastic film was then
considered to be almost dead, slowly
extinguishing between the burning embers of the
Hammer horror heritage, Roger Corman, Lucio
Fulci, Mario Bava and company… All we were
good for was to give the last rites and accompany
Fantastic Film to its grave. But the most
tenacious critics oversaw one tiny detail. The
genre is simply timeless, because it is inherent to
mankind: the monster in the closet, nightmares,
fairytales, dreams… What’s more natural than
the supernatural ?
So we persisted. We fought tooth, nail and claw
to get from there to here. We survived the end
of the Cold War with Anthony Perkins, Ringo
Starr, James Coburn and Christopher Lee. We
negotiated with flourishing companies such as
Sabena that now no longer exist. We helped
young and promising directors into the saddle,
who are now at the summit of their career
( Peter Jackson, David Cronenberg and Shinya
Tsukamoto, to name just a few ). We exhausted
ourselves to give you world premières. And all
these years of endurance and passion have paid
off. The BIFFF is now recognized as one of the
most important genre film festivals in the world.
Our prestigious guests do not stop proclaiming
that we’re “often imitated, but rarely equaled”,
just like the image of our surrealist Belgium. And
the spearhead of the Festival, the magic which
gives us the strength and the courage to keep on
Biff fing year after year… is YOU : our loyal and
loudly enthusiast audience, famous throughout
the entire galaxy. We take advantage of this
opportunity to say it out loud: a thousand Thank
You’s to you all… Damn, we had promised not to
become sentimental. Must be old age.

In somewhat less refined language, we would really love to say: what the f***, thirty years! Who could have thought that, in 1983 during the very first edition of the B.I.F.F.T S.F.F. – the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy, Thriller & Science Fiction Film ( luckily we could switch to B.I.F.F.F. a bit later ) at the projection of Valeri Rubinchik’s The Savage Hunt of King Stakh – this adventure would continue to the next millennium ? And here we are then in 2012: 15.000 reviewed films ( which could be translated into four entire years of our life watching the silver screen or 17.500 successive viewings of The Exorcist ), 2.000 guests and 2 million spectators later! So what the f***, indeed ! And to think that fantastic film was then considered to be almost dead, slowly extinguishing between the burning embers of the Hammer horror heritage, Roger Corman, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava and company… All we were good for was to give the last rites and accompany Fantastic Film to its grave. But the most tenacious critics oversaw one tiny detail. The genre is simply timeless, because it is inherent to mankind: the monster in the closet, nightmares, fairytales, dreams… What’s more natural than the supernatural ? So we persisted. We fought tooth, nail and claw to get from there to here. We survived the end of the Cold War with Anthony Perkins, Ringo Starr, James Coburn and Christopher Lee. We negotiated with flourishing companies such as Sabena that now no longer exist. We helped young and promising directors into the saddle, who are now at the summit of their career ( Peter Jackson, David Cronenberg and Shinya Tsukamoto, to name just a few ). We exhausted ourselves to give you world premières. And all these years of endurance and passion have paid off. The BIFFF is now recognized as one of the most important genre film festivals in the world. Our prestigious guests do not stop proclaiming that we’re “often imitated, but rarely equaled”, just like the image of our surrealist Belgium. And the spearhead of the Festival, the magic which gives us the strength and the courage to keep on Biff fing year after year… is YOU : our loyal and loudly enthusiast audience, famous throughout the entire galaxy. We take advantage of this opportunity to say it out loud: a thousand Thank You’s to you all… Damn, we had promised not to become sentimental. Must be old age.