© Pascal Ito

Cédric Sire is the author of two successful novels: VINDICTA and LA SAIGNÉE. Sire earned many prestigious distinctions, such as the Prix du festival de Cognac, Prix des Libraires, Prix Méditerranée and the Prix des Lecteurs du Livre de Poche. He has established himself as a singular and essential voice in contemporary thrillers.

With his new thriller, SURVIVANTES, Cédric reinvents the slasher genre with remarkable skill, immersing the reader into a troubling exploration of the ties that bind victims and executioners.

An art historian, author, and lecturer, Martine Cadière writes contemporary crime novels featuring mythical figures engaged in vital struggles and driven by powerful ideas. A recipient of several literary awards, she also leads artistic and cultural travel programs.

Winner of the 2024 Emerging Artist of the Year Award at the Golden Afro Artistic Awards, Edaya, whose real name is Eden, is a Belgian singer of Angolan origin making her debut in Neo Soul. From a very young age, she has been immersed in R&B music. She quickly developed a passion for singing, dancing, and songwriting. In 2022, she was discovered by Multistude Music. In 2023, she released her first single High, followed by other singles and an EP titled Crayon. A new single and an EP are set to be released this year.

© Lennert Madou

Mustii is a versatile artist who has landed roles in theater (Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, etc.), television, and film. In 2019, he won the Magritte Award for Best Male Newcomer for L’ÉCHANGE DES PRINCESSES. The singer has released two acclaimed albums, winning the Revelation of the Year award at the D6bels Music Awards. After the Eurovision song contest, Mustii released his third album THE MAZE and gave a memorable concert at Forest National. He also excels in cinema LA NUIT SE TRAÎNE and television as a judge in Drag Race Belgique.

Nicolas Rumpl est un chef monteur image, diplômé de l’IAD.
Après un stage chez Agnès Varda sur les Plages d’Agnès, il monte ses premiers films à l’AJC, lieu de partage et de production “no budget” à Bruxelles. De ces expériences, il confirme son plaisir à travailler sur des fictions autant que des documentaires. Il a notamment monté Parasol de Valery Rosier, Un Monde de Laura Wandel, Rien à Foutre de Julie Lecoustre et Emmanuel Marre, Le Bleu de du Caftan de Maryam Touzani et Natural Light de Denes Nagy. Il remporte deux Magrittes.

© Little Rmann

Winner of the 2024 Emerging Artist of the Year Award at the Golden Afro Artistic Awards, Edaya, whose real name is Eden, is a Belgian singer of Angolan origin making her debut in Neo Soul. From a very young age, she has been immersed in R&B music. She quickly developed a passion for singing, dancing, and songwriting. In 2022, she was discovered by Multistude Music. In 2023, she released her first single High, followed by other singles and an EP titled Crayon. A new single and an EP are set to be released this year.

Caruso runs a website dedicated to European cinema (www.cineuropa.org). He has provided support to several international organizations, directing, for example, the Euromed Audiovisual programme between Europe and the countries of the southern Mediterranean. He has also worked on the ACPCultures+ program, and was the project manager for a study on European youth in 8 countries of the southern Mediterranean (“Generation What ?”). Since 2018, he has been responsible for assisting EU-delegations during film festivals all over the world.

Aline Magrez is a Belgian filmmaker whose work explores the frictions between the intimate and the political, memory and imagination, moving between fiction and documentary. She has directed several acclaimed short films (NO’I, PARALLAXE, LIGIE), as well as three music videos for Macgray, and has delivered two documentaries: QUEERYING NATURE and PREMIÈRES DANSES. She is currently in post-production on a body‑horror short film, EAU NOIRE. Her first fiction feature, SOUS SILENCE, a horror thriller, is scheduled to shoot at the end of 2026.

Belgian producer Gregory Zalcman works across both animation and live-action. At Take Five, he develops and produces a wide range of projects. Among them is FLOW by Gints Zilbalodis, selected at major festivals such as Cannes, Annecy, and Toronto, and awarded the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2025. He also co-produced SIROCCO AND THE KINGDOM OF THE WINDS by Benoît Chieux, winner of the Audience Award at the 2023 Annecy Festival, as well as the series BOYS BOYS BOYS (Arte).

Richard Blin is a photo-reporter and investigative journalist who has travelled the world for his work. He has worked for Hachette Filipacchi Médias and éditions LVA, becoming a pop‑culture and vintage‑toy expert through his collaborations with the specialized press.
He is also a cultural entrepreneur, founder of the YouTube channel Kidult Conso and the Toys Discovery Museum, an immersive toy museum in Brussels. He is also the co‑founder for the Pôle Européen de la Culture Alternative (the European Hub for Alternative Culture).

© Julián Gómez

Laurent Micheli began his career in theatre before directing several stage productions. In 2016, he made his first feature film, EVEN LOVERS GET THE BLUES, nominated for Best First Feature Film at the Magritte Awards, then joined the screenwriting workshop at La Fémis. He went on to direct LOLA VERS LA MER, acclaimed by critics, winner of two Magritte Awards, and nominated for the César for Best Foreign Film. Since 2022, he has been a member of the New Dawn Committee. His third film, NINO DANS LA NUIT, was released in theatres in March 2026.

© Sylvestre Vannoorenberghe

Clotilde Colson hails from Namur. In 2019, she graduated with a Master’s degree in Screenwriting from the Institut des Arts de Diffusion. She contributes to the writing of series and feature films. Passionate about genre cinema, she quickly moved into directing, creating several music videos and short films, including À LA LIMITE with Fantine Harduin and MINUIT FRISSONS. She is developing a feature‑length version of the latter with Alan Santi. She is currently preparing LES MONSTRES SERONT TOUS ANÉANTIS, her first feature film.

Geoffrey Claustriaux is a writer, screenwriter, and videographer. Passionate about cinema and genre literature, he has published around fifteen novels, two of which were finalists for literary awards. A contributor to the specialized website Horreur.net, an occasional collaborator for L’Écran fantastique, and a commentator for the BTLV channel, he dedicates most of his work to fantasy, thrillers, and horror. In 2023, he launched “La Maison Claus” on YouTube, a genre‑film review channel blending analysis with dark humor.

Francis de Laveleye graduated from INSAS and for ten years worked as a film editor, production manager, and assistant in both Belgium and France. He first served as a member and then vice-president of the Selection Committee of the Cinema and Audiovisual Centre of the FWB. After a 30‑year career in advertising, he became a lecturer at ULB University, teaching various subjects related to cinema and copyright law. He is currently a partner and board member of Éditions Jacques Brel, as well as a columnist on BX1.

Jessica Matthys is a film journalist, presenter and actress who has been active on the Belgian audiovisual scene for over a decade. She brings a touch of playful madness to Belgium’s take on cinema, whether through her BX1 reviews or her offbeat coverage of the Oscars and Golden Globes for Pickx+. Jessica, who creates original formats for both television and social media platforms, cheerfully embraces her one true pop‑culture weakness: an irresistible love for the most wonderfully unusual wigs…

This die-hard fan has been a BIFFF regular since the 2nd edition. He’s crazy enough to spend his holidays each year at the festival. He’s a member of our short film jury and responsible for the smooth progress of the Audience Award. His name is Alain Galand, but everybody knows him as Tom Pouce.

Sarah has been working in the film industry for over 10 years. After studying Visual Arts at the ESA Saint-Luc in Brussels, she started out in distribution and broadcasting, working for the independent VOD platform Sooner (formerly UniversCiné & Uncut), then for the Brussels Short Film Festival and the Brussels International Film Festival. In 2023, she joined the CINEMATEK team as head of press.

Born in 1954, Christian Bontinckx studied psychology, pedagogy and cinematography at the ULB in Brussels. He also finished studies in art at the art academy of Sint Josse and Anderlecht, worked as a psy and helped on papers like “does cinema make you a mean person? “ that was presented at BIFFF in 2001. He participated at at the writing of pedagogic short movies made by Fredeirc Dumont in 1994 and Vincent Lannoo in 1996. He also curates expos.

Thierry Vandersanden (Brussels, 1968°) studied editing at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion. After some jobs and a short period at the RTBF, he takes over “Le Moniteur du Film” in 1994. This is a magazine specializing in the distribution and the exploitation of films in Belgium. For five years, he’s the only editor, courier, typist, encoder and stamp gluer. In 1999, he joins the team of the Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Nowadays he’s head of the promotion and distribution services, responsible for supporting distributors, theater owners, workshops and festivals.

Ellen J. Babeliowsky (15/05/1986) is a Belgian filmdirector and cinematographer. From a very young age she was a natural storyteller and encouraged by her grandfather, she fell in love with cinema. In 2015 she graduated cum laude at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound – Brussels (RITCS). Her most known shortfilm ‘Motel Motel’ was nominated at several Film Festivals abroad and won some very nice awards like ‘Best Cinematography’ at the Wildsound Film Festival Toronto. Ellen has a special interest for genre-cinema and the surreal. As it seems, all her films have certain surreal elements and turn out to be a complete mindfuck. She finds her inspiration with Lynch and Buñuel. For now, Ellen is mostly writing scripts. She has a feature film and a documentary going in pre-production very soon and she’s selling her script for a tv-series to a big production company.

Salomé Richard became an actress somewhat by accident. As a child, she rather saw herself as a designer or an architect. As a teenager, the Brussels native went to work at an advertising agency, more to earn some extra money than that she harbored film ambitions. In the end, Salomé never made a commercial. At the age of 19, she was spotted during a casting for a short film. Her first role was that of a…. corpse! Despite this “deadly” start, she did not give up and went on to play a series of small and then larger roles. She was the revelation of PANDORA as Ludivine. The militant character, whose values and beliefs she shared, seemed to have been written for her.

Filmed interviews : fascinating meetings with talents of Belgian cinema.
The Cinergie Jury, made up of dedicated critics, awards a prize to a short film in the BIFFF’s national short film competition. It offers an exclusive showcase with a film critic, as well as a filmed interview session.
Our goal is to support, promote and celebrate Belgian cinema in all its diversity!

After working for 5 years as marketing manager at the Cinéart movie distribution company, Gilles Reunis now is head of acquisitions at Betv-VOO and is in charge of broadcasting, selecting and buying feature films, movies made for TV and short films for PayTV and VOD. He’s also in charge of coproducing Belgian full length and short films.

François Stassens is the head of the SABAM’s audiovisual department. His mission is to be the go-to person between the SABAM and the French-speaking members of the audiovisual business.
His main role is to be present on the field, handle communication, operating files as well as the requests for sponsorship in the audiovisual business. He’s also very active at the Pro Spere federation, which is consisted of many authors’ associations specialized in audiovisual, as well at the movie department’s Consultation Committee of the Wallonia- Brussels Federation.

From 2006 to 2024, Bénédicte Bourgois was responsible for the acquisition and programming of fiction short films at the RTBF, while also serving on the script assessment committee. She regularly presented awards on behalf of the RTBF and took part in numerous juries. She was also a member of the preselection committee for fiction short films for the André Delvaux Academy (Magritte/René Awards). In 2025, she joined the Sabam‑Mediarte jury for the allocation of grants supporting the development of short and feature film projects.

Studied literature and cinema at the University of Paris VIII. Since 2006, head of Sales and Acquisitions at the short films Agency, Broadcast service: “I’ve had the pleasure of discovering many short films masterpieces, all by working in collaboration with producers, directors and buyers to put forward and valorize a thousands short films filled catalog made for all types of broadcasters around the world.”

Gökhan’s early fascination with movies was encouraged by his father, who took him to Sunday Matinées, where he saw his first sword-and- sandal film as well as lots of martial arts movies. He was performing as an extra in several short films and TV series. Gökhan is responsible for the selection of the short films for the Fantasy Film Fest which takes place in the late summer in several cities in Germany.