Bénédicte
Philippon
What does comedy mean to you?
Comedy is first and foremost a gift. People who have it aren’t always aware of it; they discover it along the way. It’s not something you can learn; you can acquire the basics, to improve a technique, but it’s truly a gift, and a passion: those who possess it are often fans of the genre.
It seems to me that people have been saying every year for centuries that they really need to laugh. It may even be something that was said as far back as the Middle Ages, even if we don’t necessarily laugh in the same way any more. But I think that, as long as there’s a second degree, you can laugh at anything. With the emergence of social networks, there’s a greater risk of being attacked – I wonder how Rabbi Jacob would be received today… But few directors put up that barrier, and that’s a good thing! Because laughter is essential. I know a comedy director who says he’s not in the business to get better, but to get better. And it’s true that the funniest people are often prone to depression, so they need to laugh, and make people laugh. And, in doing so, they also help others to feel better. Laughter heals!
What do you expect from the Festival program?
I’m looking forward to new encounters, new talents, new worlds! Every year, we discover at least one gem, and we wonder: “What’s this UFO? It’s brilliant! So, for the 2025 edition, I’d like to see UFOs that are understood and appreciated by as many people as possible. At the Festival, we meet well-known people with incredible careers, as well as lesser-known people just starting out. And the Festival creates links between these people, while promoting Belgian cinema. Because there’s talent here! France usually picks them up, but fortunately the Festival reveals them! They go away, but they come back regularly. That’s what the FIFCL is (also) here for.
© Bertrand Noël / FIFCL
© Bertrand Noël / FIFCL
Constant
Carbonnelle
Passionate about theater and cinema, Constant began by studying modern languages before attending the Cours Florent in Paris and Brussels. After a series of small theater-related jobs, he moved into film as a blogger, before becoming a film critic for L’Avenir in 2018. He joins several professional unions and participates in festival juries in Belgium and abroad, including at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. After serving on two FIFCL juries, he joined the festival’s Selection Committee in 2023.
What does comedy mean to you?
When we hear the word “comedy”, we obviously think of laughter, smiles and films that make us happy. But I think its spectrum is much broader. Comedy is undoubtedly the film genre that blends best with the others: that’s why there are sentimental, dramatic, horrific, social, absurd and adventure comedies. Animated films themselves often contain an element of comedy.
Above all, I’d say that comedy brings people together, in a positive, collective mood. Its unifying spirit seems essential to me, now more than ever.
What do you expect from the Festival program?
Over the years, the Festival has demonstrated the quality of its eclectic and demanding programming, bringing together short and feature-length films from a wide range of countries and genres. I hope that this year’s edition will continue along this path, reaching out to as many people as possible, offering intelligent films with a strong, universal message, but also lighter fare, the kind that makes you leave the theater with a feeling of joy. I also expect comedy films to inculcate strong values, tackle sensitive subjects and move audiences with humor. I want a Festival that brings all these emotions together.
Manuel
Houssais
Manuel Houssais has accompanied Radio France listeners for over 30 years. A cinema enthusiast from an early age, he has also attended numerous festivals in France and Navarre. A “Companion of the FIFCL since its beginnings”, he excels at hosting TV shows and meetings with the public. In 2023, he joins the Festival Selection Committee. In 2022, he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by Roselyne Bachelot, Minister of Culture.
What does comedy mean to you?
Comedy is a genre that immediately evokes the register of humor. And indeed, its primary aim is to make people laugh, or smile. But when you take a closer look at the genre, you realize that its spectrum is much broader. And when you try, as the FIFCL does, to cover it all, you discover that Italian comedy is often dramatic, with tears never far away, while American comedy, for example, knows how to give pride of place to road movies, bittersweet symbols of a quest, a journey. There’s also an occasional visual slapstick aspect, as in the work of Blake Edwards, in the tradition of the French comedies of Tati. The FIFCL, open to the world, teaches us that reducing comedy to humor alone is a bit reductive.
What do you expect from the Festival program?
What I love about the FIFCL, and what I look forward to, is above all the opportunity to meet people, at the precise moment when everything crystallizes: for a few intense days, industry professionals rub shoulders with spectators discovering their works. Evenings, broadcasts, photocalls and press conferences are all part of the excitement.
I hope that the 2025 edition will be a must-attend rendezvous for the new season of Belgian cinema, with its guests, previews, prizes and surprises. It has acquired all the virtues of a major festival in the eyes of professionals, but it has never failed to remain what it is: an event on a human scale, where contacts remain spontaneous and informal. It has grown without losing these precious ingredients, thanks to the quartet who run it and the formidable teams of volunteers who keep its flame burning.
Today, in the small world of the 7th art, Liège’s expertise in providing a warm welcome is in full bloom: those who’ve already been come back, you know, and those who haven’t been able to go yet are delighted to be invited, having heard all about it. They already know they’ll have unforgettable memories.
© Christophe Toffolo
Martin Godefroid
Nicolas
Ceuppens
Nicolas Ceuppens is a Belgian film director, best known for his work on the popular RTBF TV show Le Grand Cactus, an entertainment program presented by Adrien Devyver and Jérôme de Warzée.
What does comedy mean to you?
Comedy is the art of revealing life’s absurdities with a wry smile. It’s about playing with words, situations and expectations to provoke laughter, but also, sometimes, to make people think.
Comedy is a distorting mirror that magnifies our foibles, our contradictions and our little cowardice, the better to expose them without cruelty. It’s also an elegant, hard-hitting way of telling uncomfortable truths.
Through the comedy of words, gestures or situations, she plays with our expectations, twists them, explodes them, revealing the irony of existence. I love humor in many forms, but to really move me, good comedy must do more than just make people laugh; it must also explore the depths of the human soul.
Under the mask of humor, it often slips in disturbing truths, social criticism or bitter reflections on our illusions. Comedy has the unique ability to make you swallow bitterness with the sugar of laughter. And for me… it’s the best therapy of all.
What do you expect from the Festival program?
I can’t wait to discover this 2025 vintage, and above all I hope to see films that will surprise me and really make me laugh. Not just easy jokes, but funny situations with that little something extra. Whether they’re absurd, dark or ironic, the most important thing is that they tell a story and manage to unsettle me. I expect to get caught up in the different directors’ worlds, to be plunged without resistance into their stories and atmospheres, and to travel wherever they want to take me, without knowing in advance what awaits me, and above all without guessing the gag that will follow.
Anaël
Snoek
Anaël Snoek is a Belgian actress, acting coach and casting director, working in Belgium, France and Spain. Her role in Les Garçons sauvages earned her a 2019 Magritte nomination. She has also appeared in Son épouse (2014), Bonne Pomme (2017), Adoration (2019), Arthur Rambo (2021) and Inexorable (2021), as well as in Septième Ciel Belgique (2007) and Baraki (2021). Behind the scenes, she was also involved in the casting of Le Nouveau (2015), Keeper (2015) and Even Lovers Get The Blues (2016), and coached on Le Fantôme de Canterville (2016) and Mon Ange (2016). In 2024, she was part of the short film jury, chaired by Sarah Stern, at the FIFCL, and joined the selection committee for the 10 ᵉ edition of the festival.
What does comedy mean to you?
For me, comedy is about disarming. It’s about stepping back, sideways and looking at life from a different angle. It’s about revealing our infinite clumsiness, and reminding us how absurd some things that seem essential to us really are. And perhaps, in the process, make us a little less pretentious and a little less stupid.
What do you expect from the Festival program?
May it explore new points of view, open up new paths. And above all, that it grants comedy works the recognition and legitimacy too often denied by so-called “serious” festivals.
Saul Abraham
© Bertrand Noël / FIFCL
Adrien
François
He has directed Michel Galabru, Daniel Prévost, Bruno Solo, Armelle, Jean-Pierre Castaldi, Jonas Bloquet, Isabelle de Hertogh and Sébastien Cauet in various short films. His cast includes Benoît Poelvoorde, Karin Viard, Gérard Lanvin, Carole Bouquet, Lambert Wilson and Gérard Darmon, Valérie Lemercier, Dany Boon, Nathalie Baye, Franck Dubosc, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Josiane Balasko, André Dussollier, Christian Clavier, Michèle Laroque and Thierry Lhermitte, among others, at each edition of the Liège International Comedy Film Festival, of which he is general delegate. Adrien François talks cinema, sleeps cinema, lives cinema, and judges a film “on the quality of the emotions it provokes”.
What does comedy mean to you?
A comedy is a film that people expect to make them laugh. And because we tailor the FIFCL to our own image, we don’t just show pure comedy: people come to us for laughs, yes, but also for tears, thrills and emotions! Cinema should offer a frozen moment, out of time, during which you don’t have to think about your worries or your phone. It’s when you’re totally immersed that you know a film is a success!
At the same time, FIFCL’s experience shows us that people don’t laugh in the same way, or at the same things, from one continent to another. For this reason, laughter is perhaps the most difficult genre to export, as well as being the most difficult to make. But it’s fun for us to show films that our audiences will probably never see elsewhere. To take an interest in the Other, in other cultures, by sharing moments of cinema.
What do you expect from the Festival program?
As the Festival’s programming continues to grow, so does its demands. That’s why we have a selection committee that is increasingly assertive and competent. We want the program to reflect what we’ve been saying for years: that it should offer dramatic, family, social, romantic, musical and horror comedies… The FIFCL is attracting more and more applications. Directors keep coming back, year after year, allowing us to open a window on the world through the programming, the discussion sessions, the pro areas… We select the best of comedy cinema and offer it to festival-goers. It’s up to them to get what they need from it.