Belga Films, the oldest independent distributor in Belgium, has gone bankrupt.
Belga 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 really a big loss for Belgian distribution.”
Belga’s Dutch subsidiary Independent Films will continue to keep trading.
It is understood that production activities at Belga Studios will also continue - and that 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 the Belga’s financial problems is its subsidiary White Cinema in Brussels, which is also closing. Attendances for the venue, which launched in 2017, are reported to have dropped from 175,000 in 2019 to 117,000 last year.
Belga was set to launch A24’s Oscar contender, Marty Supreme this week, with the Benelux release now being handled by Independent Films.
Upcoming releases include Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (which screened as a Berlinale Special Gala last week). It is yet to be confirmed what will happen to Belga’s other acquisitions.
The company was founded in 1937 and has released many Oscar winners, among them Crash, The Hurt Locker, La La Land, and 12 Years A Slave.
Screen has approached Vandenbosch for comment.
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