Flanders Int'l Film Festival

Ghent (Belgium), October 10 -21, 2000



After a pre-opening on 10th October with a concert conducted
by German-American composer Hans Zimmer with music from his most
recent scores for Gladiator and Mission Impossible 2,
the 27th Flanders International Film Festival gets into full swing
in the beautiful medieval city of Ghent, which is located midway
between the Belgian coast and its capital Brussels.



The festival is largely housed in one of Europe's most congenial
multiplexes, the Dekaskoop (which now actually has 12 comfortable
cinemas, and abundant party space for the many VIP and sponsored
receptions). The festival's centre is the superb Sofitel, at a little
distance from the Dekaskoop, but the young and attentive festival
staff run an efficient shuttle service for guests and professional
visitors. Ghent focuses on the impact of music on film -- a fitting
angle for an event that is an extension of a local arts festival.

Dynamic
director Jacques Dubrulle and his astute team program a wide range
of art-house and mainstream features. The Official Selection includes
films culled from Berlin and Cannes and also Belgian premieres of
studio pictures such as Dinosaur and Woman
on Top (Penelope Cruz is a past visitor to Ghent). On Friday
the 13th, Terence Davies's The
House of Mirth kicks off the 13 feature-competition.

There
is also a showcase of Belgian cinema with a competition for French
and Flemish-language local shorts, a large selection of World Cinema
and and a Focus on Denmark that includes new and classic features,
children's films, documentaries and shorts. An intriguing sidebar
is devoted to Police films (from Touch of Evil to Chungking
Express) and a section of 70mm hits brings rare prints of Can-Can,
Funny Girl, Patton and Sweet Charity that should
look great on one of the Dekaskoop's biggest screens.



An impressive International Jury includes British playwright
and director Christopher Hampton, UK-based producer Sally Hibbin
(long associated with Ken Loach),and US Brat-pack star Molly Ringwald.
Best Film will receive a cash prize worth 24,790 euros, while the
Robert Wise Award for Best Director awards 7,437 euros with a further
12,395 euros for the Belgian distributor of the film.

Tributes
to attending guests include Morgan Freeman and Roger Corman and
the offbeat and avant-garde also are included in the "Yo!Zone" and
"Xplore" sections. The screenings are held in the university quarter
of the city, a leafy canalside area with lively bars. Other special
events include the Joseph Plateau Awards (a kind of "Oscar
Night" for the Belgian Cinema), a screening of Mike Leigh's
Topsy-Turvy aptly enough in the gorgeous Flemish Opera House,
and a presentation of the "found footage" silent film
Diva Dolorosa (by Peter Delpeut, a TV director using fragments
from Italian films of the 1910s) with a score by Loek Dikker.

The
closing ceremony and awards presentation will be held on October
21st in the Crypt of the historic St Pieters Abbey.

Phillip
Bergson