THE BELGIAN WAVE (2024)

The truth is out there… and Karen is determined to bring it out in the open. All her life she’s been called “the daughter of the nutcase” because her dad, a former soundman, claimed journalist Marc Vaerenbergh was abducted by aliens while investigating what was coined ‘the Belgian Wave’, a series of alleged UFO sightings that occurred in Belgium between 1989 and 1991. After the Pentagon releases recently declassified footage of unidentified flying objects, she teams up with Elzo, Vaerenbergh’s junkie godson, whom she met while dropping acid in Charleroi’s legendary Rockerill techno club, to dig up the past. In what looks like GHOSTBUSTERS’ iconic Ecto-1 Cadillac painted in pink, they embark on a roadtrip on the trail of truth which leads them down a rabbit hole that is stranger than their wildest LSD-fueled dreams…
The truth may be out there, but according to Jérôme Vanwattyne it’s boring! So, much like in his first feature SPIT’N’SPLIT (BIFFF 2017), he gleefully mixes facts – including real archive images – and fiction. Reality slips ever further away the deeper Karen and Elzo sink into the hazy, fluorescent swamp of their investigation, rife with lurid conspiracy theories, drug-addled sects and some of the zaniest characters this side of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. The zaniest of all? Our own personal Jesus, Freddy Bozzo! A psychedelic mindfuck that, to recite Depeche Mode again, will make you a believer!