Masterclass Genre Cinema

GENRE CINEMA IN FRENCH SPEAKING BELGIUM
The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival ( BIFFF ) and the ‘Association des Scénaristes’ ( ASA ) present a master class around the situation of genre movies in French speaking Belgium. The idea for this discussion comes from preconceptions that genre cinema is seen as a subgenre meant for niche audiences or as something purely commercial. But genre cinema has given hundreds of directors its first chance to show what they’re capable of. Without genre cinema no first movies from Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Raimi, Stanley Kubrick, Alejandro Amenabar, Rman Polanski, Nicholas Roeg, David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro… Even stranger is the fact that Belgian literature has well respected genre authors ( just think about the fantasy novels of Jean Ray or Georges Simenon’s police thrillers ), but genre film project have difficulties to find funding. • What are the causes ? • How can the public, directors, distributors, movie commissions and producers react ? Together with industry specialists, we’ll try to find new opportunities for genre cinema to thrive in Belgium. This debate will be moderated by two scriptwriters : Matthieu Braconier and Fred Castadot.