Page 232 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

ONCE UPON A TIME..
Colonel Edwards: This is the most fantastic stoty I've ever heard.
Jeff Trent: And every word of it's true, too.
Colonel Edwards: That's the fantastic part of it.
- Plan 9 From Outer Space, 1959

Every year, during the month of March, the city of Brussels becomes the Capital of Fantasy. Gathering
all the arts that are related to the genre, the Festival presents, alongside an abundant film programme,
numerous exhibitions, a make-up and body-painting contest, lots of theatrical interventions, an
educational component (workshops, lectures) and the infamous 'Bal des Vampires'. During this 16-
day marathon more than 150 films in the fields of the Fantastic, Thriller, Science Fiction, Horror,
Cult and Underground are screened, of which there are approximately 80 long features as a first
screening, about 30 films in retrospective and some 30 short features. The films are projected in two
theatres, two very different places that rather adequately summarise the heterogeneity of Brussels'
landscape. At the Passage 44 - the bigger, more comfortable and more technically advanced of the
two - the Festival's prestigious guests, the films in competition and the ones intended to please a large
audience make their stand. Meanwhile, at Cinema Nova - a theatre that looks both like a bunker and
a sex shop - one could see more demanding pictures. The audience for this alternative section grows
year after year. Since 1998, the collaboration with the Nova team gives the Festival an additional
screen for a more alternative programme. This special section, called 'The 7th Orbit', explores the
borders of fantasy and the 'unusual'. The result is an eclectic but nevertheless consistent mixture of
more hybrid and radical films; including first screenings, films in retrospective and several events.
Finally, the Festival spreads through several other cultural hot spots, such as the Free University of
Brussels and the Museum of Comic Strip, to name but a few.
So, laying claim, in large red and black letters, to its macabre vocation, BIFFF has been concerned
about upgrading the public image of the supernatural ever since it was first launched. The Festival,
which has its roots in the post-punk (hard rock and heavy metal) era, today comes dressed in the most
sophisticated magic finery with an increasingly international public, and what in the early days might
have passed for a poor cousin of the famous but terminated Avoriaz Festival has since earned its stfipes.
The Festival was the brainchild of a non-profit-body, PeyMey Diffusion, set up by a small group
of cinema enthusiasts in the late 1970s. They organised a number of different film events and festivals,
and in 1982 held a retrospective of fantasy films, organised across the country in different youth
centres. It sold, to the organiser's surprise, without much publicity, more than 15,000 tickets. It gave
them enough audacity to take their chance in organising the first BIFFF in 1983. The new festival
was a huge success, pulling in over 25,000 people. Since then the numbers have more than doubled.
Freddy Bozo, one of the founders/organisers of the Festival, long black hair and a beard, appropriately
nicknamed Jesus, has this to say about the origins:

It was the public demand for a festival that gave us a boost. We were already active in the
circuit of youth houses, where we organised several activities, mostly retrospectives such as 60

218