Like New Zealand, Belgium and the Netherlands have small populations and consequently small film budgets that rely heavily on government funding. As a result film makers from these countries, like our own, have a reputation for innovative methods and a roll-your-sleeves-up attitude. When Dutch director Paul Verhoeven first moved to Hollywood he was stunned by the excess of the industry there; his second U.S. film, 'Robocop', contains many digs at the ultimate consumerist society that were not in the original script he was given. In 1992 three Belgian film students released their daring and controversial film, 'Man Bites Dog'; made on a shoe-string this film proves the point that it doesn't take great amounts of money to make great films - just plenty of imagination, dedication and a fair amount elbow grease. Pictured: A scene from castrato Farinelli's colourful and eventful life
A no-holds-barred portrait of an unashamedly brutal serial killer (played by co-director Benot Poelvoorde). This unique black comedy, shot in document... Read more
Sandra, a young Belgian mother, discovers that her workmates have opted for a significant pay bonus, in exchange for her dismissal. She has only one w... Read more
A.k.a. "De Tweeling". After the deaths of their parents, inseparable twin sisters Anna and Lotte Bamberg are cruelly separated at the age of six. Anna... Read more
Marleen Gorris' winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film centres on an elderly woman who recalls her life in a small Dutch village on the day... Read more
A sleek psycho-chiller with an absorbing plot about the vanishing without a trace of a young woman at a gas station, and the terrifying battle of wits... Read more
Mentally-challenged Pauline is obsessed with pretty flowers and her glamourous sister Paulette. When Martha, her caretaker sister, dies suddenly, Paul... Read more
Cyril (Thomas Doret), almost 12, has only one plan: to find the father who left him temporarily in a children's home. By chance he meets Samantha (Cec... Read more
'Rosetta' (1999, 90 mins) Winner of the 1999 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and widely hailed as a masterpiece, 'Rosetta' is an extraordinary... Read more
Stringent vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world during her first week at veterinary... Read more
When two brothers are left by their parents for the summer at their dead grandfather's house in rural Belgium, they take to the surrounding countrysid... Read more