Cinema of Belgium

Cinema of Belgium refers to the film industry based in Belgium. Belgium is essentially a bi-lingual country divided into the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) north and the French-speaking south. There is also a small community of German speakers in the border region with Germany. Belgium is further a federal country made up of three regions (the Flemish Region, the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region) and three language communities (the Flemish Community (Dutch-speaking), the French (i.e., French-speaking) Community and the German-speaking Community). Due to these linguistic and political divisions it is difficult to speak of a national, unified Cinema of Belgium. It would be more appropriate to talk about Flemish or Dutch-language cinema of Belgium and Walloon or French-language cinema of Belgium.

History

Early history

While the invention of the cinématographe by the French Lumière brothers is widely regarded as the birth of cinema, a number of developments in photography preceded the advent of film. Among the people pioneering work on animation devices was a Belgian professor of experimental physics Joseph Plateau. Plateau, who was active at the Ghent University invented an early stroboscopic device in 1836, the "phenakistiscope". It consisted of two disks, one with small equidistant radial windows, through which the viewer could look, and another containing a sequence of images. When the two disks rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows and the images created an animated effect. The projection of stroboscopic photographs, creating the illusion of motion, eventually led to the development of cinema.

Belgian Film Critics Association

The Belgian Film Critics Association (French: Union de la Critique de Cinéma, UCC) is an organization of film critics from publications based in Brussels, Belgium.

History

The Belgian Film Critics Association was founded in the early 1950s in Brussels. Its membership includes film reviewers from daily newspapers, weekly newspapers and magazines from Belgium.

In December of each year, the organization meets to vote on awards for films released in the previous calendar year. To determine the UCC's annual awards, ballots are sent in by the members – select knowledgeable film enthusiasts, academics, filmmakers, and students – and subsequently tabulated in order to decide the winners. Since 1954, the UCC presents its Grand Prix each year to honor the "film that contributed the most to the enrichment and influence of cinema". Since 1976, the organization also presents the André Cavens Award to recognize the best Belgian film of the year. Its name was chosen in honor of the Belgian film director André Cavens (1912–1971).