Belga Films, the oldest independent distributor in Belgium, has gone bankrupt.
The company is reported to have filed for bankruptcy last week, with the news emerging in local press yesterday (February 17).
“Everybody is completely in shock because no one saw it coming,” said one source close to the company. “It’s a massacre. It’s a big loss for Belgian distribution.”
Belga’s Dutch subsidiary Independent Films will continue to keep trading.
Production activities at Belga Studios will also continue, and Patrick Vandenbosch, Belga’s CEO, has consolidated his partnership there with Brussels-based producer and financier Umedia. According to one source, they are now looking to run it on a 50-50 basis.
One cause of Belga’s financial problems was its subsidiary White Cinema in Brussels, which is also closing. Attendances for the venue, which launched in 2017, have dropped from 175,000 in 2019 to 117,000 last year.
Belga was founded in 1937 and has released many Oscar winners, among them Crash, The Hurt Locker, La La Land and 12 Years A Slave. Its upcoming releases include Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, which screened as a Berlinale Special Gala last week.
Next steps
Speaking to Screen, Vandenbosch said: “We liquidated the distribution activities of Belga Films in Belgium including its cinema subsidiary, White Cinema. The other companies, Independent Films, Belga Studios and [animation outfit] nWaveStudios, are now completely separate entities with a different shareholding.”
Vandenbosch said that production projects like The Yellow M, which Belga Studios is working on with Mister Smith, The Book With No Name and The Einstein Enigma remain unaffected by the distribution arm’s bankruptcy.
He also confirmed that he now fully owns Amsterdam-based distributor Independent Film Netherlands which he believes is better placed to survive. “It’s a smaller company, financially autonomous,” he commented. “We are making a fresh start.”
Although he lives in Brussels, Vandenbosch will now run his business operations out of Amsterdam. “The target is to look for the best independent content available on the market and release about 15 movies a year,” he stated.
Forthcoming Independent releases include Jo Nesbø adaptation Blood On Snow, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Vandenbosch wasn’t able to confirm what will happen to Belga’s catalogue of films as administrators wind up the business. “Some pictures will go back to the producers, others will be available on the market,” he said.
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