Felix Van Groeningen
Belgian director, born in Ghent in 1977.
Educated at KASK (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Ghent), Felix Van Groeningen is one of the main representatives of the new Flemish cinema, alongside filmmakers like Lukas Dhont or Michaël R. Roskam. His intense and insolent tales, often based on true stories, follow characters as imperfect as they are moving. Humour is combined with empathy in films that overflow with energy. Like the team, arriving naked on bicycles to Cannes 2009 to present The Misfortunates, the bodies engage in partying, drinking, sex, and movement. Everything is set to music: from the bluegrass of The Broken Circle Breakdown (César 2014 for Best Foreign Film) to the punk-electro signed Soulwax of Belgica (award-winner at Sundance – 2016). While he leads us into the “Belgiumness” of things, his cinema also opens onto an elsewhere, from the United States of Beautiful Boy to the Italy of The Eight Mountains (codirected with Charlotte Vandermeersch and Jury Prize at Cannes 2022).
50CC (2000, short movie) - Steve + Sky (2004) - With Friends Like These (2007) - The Misfortunates (2009) - The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) - Belgica (2016) - Beautiful Boy (2018) - Le otto montagne (2022, co-directed with Charlotte Vandermeersch)