The history of French-speaking Belgian cinema is littered with comedies that reflect one of the country’s fundamental characteristics: humor based on self-mockery! Yet, with a few glorious exceptions, these comedies are poorly, if at all, financed.
Faced with this bittersweet observation, should we speak of a lack of ambition, or a lack of (re)knowledge of the tastes of the general public? Held in conjunction with the 6th edition of the Liège International Comedy Film Festival (FIFCL), whose selection did not include any Belgian feature films due to a lack of fighters, the first Rencontres Professionnelles du Cinéma set out to analyze the figures, make observations, ask questions and, above all, provide answers.
The 2021 panel:
Willy Borsus (Vice-President of Wallonia, Minister of Economy, Foreign Trade, Research and Innovation, Digital, Agriculture, Spatial Planning, IFAPME and Competence Centers), Fadette Drouard (Scriptwriter/CineComédies Lab), Virginie Nouvelle (General Manager of Wallimage), Vincent Roget (Producer Same Player), Bastien Sirodot (Co-CEO of Groupe Umedia), Peter Bouckaert (Producer Eyeworks), Marc Janssen (Head of Fiction at RTBF), Jean-Luc Pluymers (General Manager of GRE-Liège) and Philippe Reynaert (Audiovisual Consultant & Director – Xanadu). Director – Xanadu).