Belgium

Abstract

As Fowler (2010: 25 7) notes, the history of Belgian film is a ‘relatively ill-defined field’. This is certainly true of the history of Belgian female screenwriters who, despite being in the minority, have played a vital role in the development of scriptwriting in Belgian film and have gained a prominent place in film history by taking artistic and producer control over their work. A number of women writers-directors have put their stamp on Belgian cinema: Anna Frijters was an early pioneer, as was Edith Kiel who was important in the 1930s and continued to work into the 1950s and early 1960s, while Chantal Akerman put Belgian film on the map in the 1970s, and in the 1980s Marion Hänsel’s work has received great acclaim. In the twenty-first century a new generation of women writers-directors has emerged who have produced a corpus of highly personal and intimate films; two of these, Patrice Toye and Fien Troch, are discussed in more detail below.