Short film festival returns to Leuven with focus on Spain

With roughly 250 films screened in about 40 compilations, the annual Short Film Festival in Leuven remains a hotspot for local movie talent. The 21st edition offers up a handful of competitions, both Flemish and European, showcasing new shorts from debuting, rising and established filmmakers.

A record 27 fiction films were selected for the Flemish Competition this year. Most are by well-known directors, but new graduates are also hoping to win the Jury Award, granting them a nomination for the 2017 Academy Awards.

Flemish shorts feature a surprising number of top-notch actors. This year you’ll find Peter Van den Begin (D’Ardennen, Waste Land) as a quiet but tormented man who has just left his wife in Guest, directed by Moon Blaisse.

Then there’s Sam Louwyck – rewarded with the Flemish Culture Prize for Film only a month ago – brilliantly cast as the ultimate victim of romantic revenge in Vali. And Kenneth Mercken, the cyclist-turned-filmmaker, proves with the raw Feel Sad for the Bunny (pictured) that he has learned a lot from the Dardenne brothers.

Added to the festival’s competitions are trusted experimental, animation and kids sections, as well as special focuses on the 1980s, actor Wim Willaert and gangster movies. This year’s guest country is Spain, and the current affairs topic, which is brand new, is titled Arab Encounters – Visions and Realities. This section provides an inside view on migration, showcasing shorts by Middle Eastern filmmakers, and is followed by a debate.

There’s an artist talk by Black co-director Adil El Arbi (who’s on the jury of the Flemish competition), and, of course, after the awards show is a closing party featuring the (in)famous Antwerp DJ duo Discobaar A Moeder.

27 November to 5 December at Kinepolis and STUK, Leuven