18-film Belgian summer film festival chooses Taiwan as featured country

Brussels, June 26 (CNA) Taipei has been selected as the thematic destination of the 15th edition of the annual "L'Heure d'Été" film festival, which runs from June 30 to Aug. 11 in Brussels, Belgium.

Festival co-curator Levon Kirakosian told CNA that the event has centered around Asian films for a long time, using the name of the nation's capital city to indicate the destination of choice for that year.

For 2026, Taipei has been announced as the latest destination, with Taiwan-based Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang's (蔡明亮) "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" (不散) chosen as the opening film of the festival.

Kirakosian himself explained that the movie interested him greatly for how "meta" it is, as the audience will be watching a story about what transpires in a cinema while they are in a cinema.

The picture will premiere at Cinema Galeries, located in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels.

"We previously focused on cities like Tokyo and Seoul," Kirakosian explained. "More recently, in 2024, we focused on Hong Kong cinema. So what it means is that our audience is very much used to seeing Asian cinema."

Kirakosian said Taiwanese film was selected as this year's destination since films from the country have never been featured at the annual festival.

"And also, unfortunately, as you can see in the news a lot, China is coming more and more threatening towards Taiwan," Kirakosian explained, adding, "and we want to highlight their culture, their [Taiwan's] history through a selection of masterpieces of their cinema."

The festival worked with Berlin Taiwan Film Festival curators Benson Chiu (邱昇達) and Wu Ho-ping (吳浩平) to select the films for this year's edition.

On the selection of the Taiwanese movies, Kirakosian said the main lineup was chosen from the works of four masters representative of Taiwan, which, alongside Tsai, also include Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), Edward Yang (楊德昌) and Lee Ang (李安).

Other pictures, such as animated films "On Happiness Road" (幸福路上) and "Grandma and Her Ghosts" (魔法阿嬤), as well as director Tsou Shih-ching's (鄒時擎) "Left-Handed Girl" (左撇子女孩), will be screened to shine a light on Taiwan's current diversity in productions, the curator said.

As the festival takes place in the summer, "Left-Handed Girl" will be receiving a special outdoor screening, according to Kirakosian.

He said after the festival concludes on Aug. 11, Cinema Galeries will hold a subsequent "retrospective" festival in mid-August just on the works of Yang, where the late director's movies like "A Brighter Summer Day" (牯嶺街少年殺人事件), "Taipei Story" (青梅竹馬) and "Yi Yi" (一一) are expected to be screened.