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OCTOBER 29, 2014 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2

politics \ p4

Full speed ahead

Bus manufacturer Van Hool gets the biggest order in its history: 1,000 buses for the US market at a price of €300 million \6

BUSiNESS \ p6

innovation \ p7

Belgium Remembers

education \ p9

art & living \ p10

Cubs in peril

The second of three national days of remembrance took place in Nieuwpoort and Ypres this week

Jonas Govaerts’ debut film finds a Flemish scout group battling more than mosquitoes in the deep, dark forest

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© Bart Claeys/CWF

Creatives of the world, unite

Entrepreneurs, artists and everyone in between are travelling from across the globe to Kortrijk Linda Thompson Follow Linda on Twitter \ @thompsonbxl

Flanders’ Creativity World Forum celebrates its 10th anniversary in Kortrijk next week. Little did the organisers know in the beginning that it would grow to become a coveted event uniting thousands of creative entrepreneurs and organisations from four continents

K

ris Hoet doesn’t remember how he learned about the first Creativity World Forum he attended, but he recalls seeing boldface names like British comedian John Cleese, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Wired editor Chis Anderson on the 2008 roster of speakers and coughing up €350 for his ticket without much additional thought.

He was working as a digital media communications manager at Microsoft, and the idea of waiting for his bosses to realise the value of attending this meeting of the best and brightest minds never occurred to him. “I’m not gonna wait until somebody tells me to go,” he says. “I just thought ‘I have to be there’.”

On 5 and 6 November, the Creativity World Forum, one of Europe’s biggest innovation-focused conferences, will again be held in Flanders. Some 2,000 entrepreneurs, policymakers, students, researchers and creative professionals are expected to trek to the West Flanders town of

Kortrijk to attend the festival of ideas, organised in turns by 13 regions across four continents.

Hoet, now the managing partner for digital and innovation at the award-winning Duval Guillaume creative agency in Antwerp, isn’t a particularly enthusiastic conference-goer. “Ninety percent of the time it feels like I’ve heard it all somewhere else,” he says. But he makes an exception for this gathering.

“The Creativity World Forum is one of those things that stands out. It’s going to be fresh; it’s going to be inspirational at a level that you don’t usually get just a one-hour drive from where you are,” he says. “I think it’s way more interesting for every creative professional to look at somebody who is not doing what you’re doing and see what’s interesting in how they approach things that you can take into your own game.”

Organised by Flanders DC, the organisation for entrepreneurial creativity that has a management contract with the government of Flanders, the Creativity World Forum has staked its brand on its broad focus.

In addition to the usual lecture circuit innovation gurus, motivational speakers and consultants, past editions have featured YouTube star Johnny Lee, award-winning director Oliver Stone and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales,

while talks, workshops and discussion panels have spanned fields like architecture, social design, car-sharing, urbanism, poetry, cooking and computer-generated imagery.

According to Flanders DC general manager Pascal Cools, the two-day event measures up with world-famous ideasfocused gatherings like TED and South by Southwest by virtue of its show-stopping speakers. “We don’t have the international acclaim,” he says, “but content-wise, we’re up there. Content-wise, we offer the same quality.”

So how does a non-profit with a staff of 14 in a small region pull this off ? For one, the team begins working on the forum 18 months in advance, but the roughly €900.000 event budget is what is really key.

Flanders DC spends 40% of that sum on speakers’ fees, which range from a couple of thousand euros to six-figure sums, according to Cools. In addition, he says, in negotiations with speakers they play the “sympathy card” of being both a small region and a small non-profit.

“We show them that we’re not in for this for the money,” he says. “We’re not wanting to make profit out of it; we really want to inspire a whole bunch of people who otherwise would never have the chance to listen to you or to see you.

That often does the trick.” continued on page 5

\ CURRENT AFFAIRS

Janssen working on Ebola vaccine The Flemish subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson should have new vaccine ready by May Alan Hope Follow Alan on Twitter \ @AlanHopeFT

T

he pharmaceutical division of multinational Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has put up €200 million for its Flemish subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica to speed up production of a vaccine against the Ebola virus.

Janssen, based in Beerse, Antwerp province, has been working on a preventive vaccine against Ebola with a variety of public health authorities, including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US and the World Health Organisation in Geneva.

Parent company J&J, meanwhile, has developed a vaccine together with Danish biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic, which has already been tested on monkeys. J&J told The Wall Street Journal that it would begin testing a combination of the Janssen and Bavarian Nordic vaccines on humans

in January and, should it prove safe, could have 250,000 doses ready by May. The grant would also allow Janssen to produce one million doses by the end of next year. “Our primary goal in this escalating Ebola epidemic is to help governments protect the health of care providers and populations that have increased vulnerability to infection,” said Janssen’s chief scientific officer, Paul Stoffels.

“We are working as fast as we can,” added J&J’s CEO Alex Gorsky. “As a leading pharmaceutical company, we have a huge responsibility to do everything possible to meet the urgent needs of the medical community, to rein this sickness in and to save human lives.”

Flanders not ready for self-driving car, says VAB

Two elephant babies expected next year at Planckendael

The Flemish public is not yet ready for driverless cars, according to Maarten Matienko of the motoring organisation VAB. The Netherlands last week gave the green light to tests of self-driving cars in normal traffic.

The decision puts the Dutch in the lead for the development of self-driving vehicles in Europe. While VAB warned that Flanders must not allow itself to be left behind, the current technology is not suited to Flemish traffic conditions.

“The technology has to be absolutely up to scratch for that,” Matienko said. “Right now, there are far too many uncertainties. More pertinent would be a study of traffic streaming, to look at how streaming could have a positive effect on mobility. We still have no insight into those matters.”

Driverless cars have advanced precision mapping systems that allow them to detect both immovable and movable objects. Google is one of the most prominent proponents of the driverless car, and four US states already allow the vehicles on the roads. Several other western European countires, including France and the UK, are testing the robotic vehicles.

According to VAB, these systems take too much choice and initiative away from motorists, and the technology, were it available in Flanders today, would be disengaged in most cases.

For opposition politician Joris Vandenbroucke, consumer attitudes should not be allowed to get in the way of industrial development. “We have a profile as a cutting-edge region for research and development, and we also have an enormous mobility problem,” the socialist member of the Flemish Parliament told the VRT. “The ingredients are all there to allow us to get on board and offer our unique laboratories for testing. We mustn’t jam on the brakes.”

Flemish mobility minister Ben Weyts, meanwhile, has expressed interest in the test idea and announced plans for a pilot project. \ AH

Kai-Mook, the baby elephant born in Antwerp Zoo in 2009 to the delight of the entire country, will soon become a big sister – and an aunt – animal park Planckendael announced.

One birth is expected to take place next spring, the other next summer. An elephant gestation lasts between 18 and 22 months.

The mothers are Kai-Mook’s mother, Khaing Phyo Phyo, and Khaing Phyo Phyo’s daughter (Kai-Mook’s half-sister), May Tagu, who is now nine years old. It is May Tagu’s first baby, and Phyo Phyo’s fifth. Rumour has it that May Tagu is

Zwarte Piet “not racism”, says centre for equal opportunities Sinterklaas sidekick Zwarte Piet, usually represented by a white person in blackface, is not an illegal form of racial discrimination, according to Belgium’s Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities.

Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) is supposed to be a Moorish assistant to St Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, who, according to Dutch and Belgian tradition, delivers gifts to children every 6 December, living the rest of the year in Spain. Zwarte Piet was in times past a threatening figure who put children in his sack or beat them with switches if they were bad.

Now he is seen as a jovial, though mute, assistant to Sinterklaas.

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In recent years, accusations of racism have been levelled against the characterisation of Zwarte Piet because people representing him use blackface, colour their lips bright red and wear a big afro.

Some Zwarte Piet enthusiasts claim the blackface is supposed to represent soot on Zwarte Piet’s face, and this year in Amsterdam there is a move towards having the character portrayed not in complete blackface but with more obvious soot marks.

According to the Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities, the law against racial discrimination would come into force if Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet were

€250 million

14%

of traffic in Brussels is goods transport, which accounts for 25% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to research from VUB. Goods traffic is expected to grow by 80% by 2050

in line to give birth first. Baby elephants weigh about 100 kilograms.

Kai-Mook was born at Antwerp Zoo five years ago (pictured) amid a flurry of media attention and a massive surge in visitor numbers. A webcam of the enclosure received tens of thousands of visits in the run-up to the birth.

The elephants now live in a larger habitat in Mechelen’s Planckendael park. They were recently joined by bull elephant Chang from Copenhagen, who is the father of both babies. \ AH

rental bicycles in 10 locations across Ghent by May, as the city starts its own version of the popular hire system currently running in Brussels and Antwerp

in support from the European Central Bank for renovation work to the Brussels sewer system.

Some 500km, one-quarter of the network, will be renovated by 2034 at a cost of €1.5 billion

portrayed in conjunction with racially discriminatory speech or behaviour, which is not the case. The law against discrimination on the grounds of skin colour would apply if anyone were to be concretely disadvantaged by the Sinterklaas celebrations, an idea that the centre also rejected.

The centre did take the opportunity to issue a plea for a “constructive social debate on how we give form in the future to this popular tradition”. It called on Zwarte Piet “to be portrayed other than as a stupid, subordinate or dangerous black man through whom stereotypes, albeit unintentionally, are maintained”. \ AH

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school students were expected to be absent without leave on the last day before the autumn holiday last Friday – 2,103 in primary schools and 6,202 in secondary schools

places for the homeless in the new Brussels plan for winter shelter – 29% more than last year. The winter shelter plan comes into force on 1 November

OCTOBER 29, 2014

WEEK in brief Former US ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman has received an official apology from the US State Department over false allegations that he had sexual contact with prostitutes during his appointment in Brussels. The allegations claimed that Gutman ventured into Warandepark alone after dark; the park is known for meetings for sexual contact. The State Department made it clear that the allegations had no foundation of truth.

Air traffic control agency Belgocontrol will introduce new flight paths for aircraft taking off and landing at Brussels Airport, following a decision by federal ministers last week to scrap the contested “Wathelet plan”. The flight paths will return to those existing before 6 February, when the Wathelet plan, named after the then minister for mobility, was introduced, which saw an increase in the number of flights passing over heavily populated areas of Brussels.

East Flanders plans to introduce four “cycle highways” by 2018 by extending the existing routes Ghent-Antwerp, Ghent-DeinzeZulte, Ghent-Wetteren and the main east-west route through Dendermonde. The province will set aside €2.5 million a year for the project. East Flanders already has a network of long-distance routes totalling 1,200 kilometres.

Two male sharks brought into the Aquatopia water attraction in Antwerp last July have had to be removed as they began eating the other inhabitants. The sicklefin lemon shark and bull shark were popular with the public, but less popular with the 10,000 other fish living in Aquatopia, which they seemed to prefer to the food given to them by staff. They have now been sent to Croatia, where they will live in their own aquarium.

face of flanders Ryanair is taking legal action against competitors Brussels Airlines, Thomas Cook and Jetairfly, over subsidies paid to those airlines by the federal government. The €19.4 million in aid, which is ostensibly a support for security at Brussels Airport, was contested earlier this month by the EU Commission. Ryanair claims the subsidy is discriminatory.

A Flemish company is taking over all air-sea rescue operations off the Dutch coast. Ostend-based Noordzee Helikopters Vlaanderen was awarded a contract for five years, with an optional renewal for two years. Rescue operations off the Flemish coast are the responsibility of the air force’s fleet of Seaking helicopters.

Police protesting the federal government’s decision to increase the retirement age for officers caused serious delays at Brussels Airport last Friday, as well as at the port of Zeebrugge. The actions involved lengthy checking of travel documents, which led to traffic chaos in Zeebrugge. Police at the airport were also checking for possible truants, on the last day of school before the autumn holiday, when many parents take their kids out of school early to benefit from cheaper holiday costs.

The number of people using a car to travel to work in Brussels has dropped below 50% for the first time, according to the federal planning office. In 2011-2013 the car accounted for 73% of journeys to work, fewer than in Flanders (75%). So far this year in Brussels, the number is 48%, while the use of public transport increased from 35% to 44%.

The Flemish Community Commission has approved €10 million in funding for infrastructure work

on Dutch-speaking schools in Brussels to cope with increasing demand. The grant covers spending on new schools in Schaarbeek and Brussels-City, as well as on-going improvements and expansions to schools in Laken, Etterbeek and Anderlecht.

A major drugs trial of a suspected organised crime family in Hasselt has fallen apart, with the court sending the case back to the chamber that originally sent it to trial, following alleged illegal procedures in collecting evidence. The 37 accused in the case, including members of the Aquino family, are free until after the completion of an investigation into the claims of illegal procedures, which will be complete in January at the earliest.

Brussels mobility minister Pascal Smet and equal opportunities minister Bianca Debaets have promised an investigation into complaints that taxi companies respect customer requests for a “white driver”. Daily newspaper Metro asked the question of four companies in Brussels and four in Flanders and received a positive response in half the cases. “This is downright discrimination and is completely unacceptable,” Smet said.

Brussels urban action group Arau has issued a statement disagreeing with the region’s plan to construct a tunnel under Meiserplein in the Schaarbeek district. “It makes no sense to break down the Reyers viaduct, only to build it up again as a tunnel a little further on,” the group said in a report. The region’s mobility ministry plans to demolish the viaduct, which is too badly damaged to repair. Last week, the region’s mobility minister told parliament that the cost of demolishing the viaduct and creating a broad avenue would be €27.2 million, more than the €21 million initially estimated.

OFFSIDE Hitting the books On the eve of Flanders’ largest book fair, Antwerp’s Boekenbeurs, publishing industry organisation boek.be has delivered its annual package of books to Flanders’ ministers.

Everyone received De hemel van de verbeelding: Zestig brieven over kunst (The Paradise of the Imagination: Sixty Letters About Art), a book of letters from a diverse array of people, including artists, politicians and scientists.

Each minister then received two books related to his or her function. For instance, one of the books received by minister-president and heritage minister Geert Bourgeois was Een walvis in de stad (A Whale in the City) by Nathalie Poot, about scientific collections.

Ben Weyts, minister for mobility

and public works, will be cracking open From Flux to Frame

by Maarten Van Acker on infrastructure and urbanisation. Sven Gatz, culture minister, shall peruse the new edition of the annual yearbook The Low Countries.

Liesbeth Homans, minister for integration and equal opportunities, has Milady! by former senator Marleen Temmerman and Tine Maenhout on women’s rights.

Philippe Muyters, minister for work and innovation, will be reading De wereld redden (Saving the World)

by Michel Bauwens on the digital economy. Annemie Turtelboom, budget and finance, has received De limieten van de markt (The Limits of

the Market) by economist Paul De Grauwe.

Het kind van onze dromen (The Child of Our Dreams) by the government’s own children’s rights commissioner Bruno Vanobbergen has fallen into the hands of welfare minister Jo Vandeurzen, while education minister Hilde Crevits has been given De becijferde school (The School Quantified) by professor Roger Standaert.

But it’s environment minister Joke Schauvliege who really lucked out: She found in her stack Gloob en Teo: Feest in het Bos (Gloob and Teo: Party in the Woods) by Gunter Segers, in which Gloob tries to organise a sustainable party for his friend Teo. \ AH

Dani Klein “Dear all, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being who you are and for having made my long and successful career possible. I am getting older now, and I would like the last part of my life to be different.

I don’t want to travel all the time anymore. … I no longer want to feel the stress I have felt before every single show, I don’t want to continue to sing songs that I no longer identify with, now that my vision on love and relationships has changed, and I don’t want to keep on going on just for the sake of being under the spotlights.”

It’s a farewell message, posted on the Vaya Con Dios website, in which Dani Klein took her leave of the world of music. The farewell concert took place last weekend at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels.

Klein was born Danielle Schoovaerts in 1953. Her mother tongue was the Brussels dialect, and in 2012 she was voted Brusselaar of the Year for her role in promoting the dialect.

Like her dialect, her early music was a hotchpotch of influences, from Jacques Brel to rock’n’roll, which she performed with the band Steellover. A succession of

© Vayacondios.com

bands followed until she formed Vaya Con Dios in 1986 with bass player Dirk Schoufs and guitarist Willy Lambregt. It was the break the singer was looking for.

The trio was tough to market because they were impossible to pigeonhole – sometimes loungy, sometimes soulful, often Latininspired. But Klein’s distinctive, deep voice, often taken as belonging to an American blueswoman, became instantly recognisable in hits like “Just a Friend of Mine”, “What’s a Woman?” and “Nah Neh Nah”.

The band eventually broke up, but Klein carried on, still under the name Vaya Con Dios. Her music became more melancholy, while her solo albums Time Flies and Roots & Wings enjoyed continued success at home and abroad.

It’s not the first time she’s decided to stop performing live, but it looks to be the last. “I’ve had enough of all my songs,” she told De Standaard at the weekend. “It’s become a routine, and I hate that. I can't relate to the lyrics any more. Take all those love songs. I am so over that love business. I’ve had too many partners to be able to idealise love anymore.” \ Alan Hope

Flanders Today, a weekly English-language newspaper, is an initiative of the Flemish Region and is financially supported by the Flemish authorities.

The logo and the name Flanders Today belong to the Flemish Region (Benelux Beeldmerk nr 815.088). The editorial team of Flanders Today has full editorial autonomy regarding the content of the newspaper and is responsible for all content, as stipulated in the agreement between Corelio Publishing and the Flemish authorities.

Editor Lisa Bradshaw DEPUTY Editor Sally Tipper CONTRIBUTING Editor Alan Hope sub Editor Linda A Thompson Agenda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentino Art director Paul Van Dooren Prepress Corelio AdPro Contributors Daan Bauwens, Rebecca Benoot, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Katy Desmond, Andy Furniere, Diana Goodwin, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Katrien Lindemans, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Débora Votquenne, Denzil Walton General manager Hans De Loore Publisher Corelio Publishing NV

Editorial address Gossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 373 99 09 editorial@flanderstoday.eu subscriptions tel 03 560 17 49 subscriptions@flanderstoday.eu or order online at www.flanderstoday.eu Advertising 02 373 83 24 advertising@flanderstoday.eu Verantwoordelijke uitgever Hans De Loore

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\ POLITICS

5TH COLUMN Social unrest

Social unrest. That is the term used to describe a climate wherein trade unions and the government confront each other head-on. And with a general strike announced on 15 December and the party headquarters of the prime minister’s MR attacked with paintball guns last week, social unrest is all around.

It set off as soon as the new federal government’s policies were announced. The unions reacted fiercely to the pension plan changes and measures such as skipping the wage index (which links pay rises to the cost of living). The ACV union even called the measures “social horror”.

That ACV would use such strong language was a portent of things to come. ACV, closely linked to the Christian-democrats (CD&V), has always been the least radical of the unions. By nature, it believes in the “social contract” by which workers, employers and the governments work closely together for economic and social progress.

ACV unionists are now disappointed in CD&V, which it feels fails in it ambition to be the government’s “social face”.

ACV’s reaction is even more remarkable given the general feeling in Flanders towards the rather drastic changes.

Many people believe the changes are inevitable to save the welfare state and not burden younger generations with massive government debt.

Also, there is something of a “strike fatigue”, particularly when it comes to train service.

Among commuters, there is little empathy for railway staff who leave them stranded on platforms across the country.

In Wallonia, there has always been more readiness to strike.

This is reinforced now that there is only one Frenchspeaking party in the federal government coalition – the liberals MR – and the socialists PS are in opposition.

With French speakers, PS is traditionally the guardian of the “social contract”. Now, the party of former prime minister Elio Di Rupo is doing everything it can to fire up the debate about measures it believes to be unfair not just towards workers, but also towards French speakers.

When the new federal coalition came to power, it decided not to occupy itself with matters such as federalism and the many differences between language groups.

However, with the social and economic measures, issues between language groups are back – as is social unrest. \ Anja Otte

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Flemish students protest against increased tuition fees Fees at universities across the region will increase to €890 Andy Furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.eu

A

fter months of debate, Flemish education minister Hilde Crevits has announced the amount that fees for higher education will increase. For students without a scholarship, the enrolment fee will increase from €620 to €890. For those with a bursary, the enrolment fee is €105, which is practically the same as now. For students in the category in between, the fee increases by €60, to €470.

Students in the middle category are not eligible for a bursary because their family’s income is higher than the referential amount. If the family’s income is less than €1,500 above the referential income, they still do not pay the full fee.

This limit of €1,500 has now been raised to €3,000, which means the number of students in the middle category will nearly double, from

© Frederik Sadones/Demotix/Corbis

around 2,000 now to 4,000. The government raised the figure to help those on the edge to be tipped into the middle category and pay less of a fee.

“It’s not just that enrolment fees have been

raised; budget cuts also affect services for financially vulnerable students,” Bram Roelant, the president of the Flemish Association of Students (VVS), told VRT Radio. “The measures will decrease the accessibility of higher education.” Roelant said the student protest would continue and announced a new demonstration on 5 November.

Rik Torfs, rector of the University of Leuven, told deredactie.be: “The increases are not too bad, since they are compensated for by the social corrections.” At Antwerp University, rector Alain Verschoren agreed but added that it was still too bad that budget cuts should be introduced at the expense of students. “The majority of students will have to pay the highest fee, which is unfortunate,” he said.

Flanders to invest in improved swimming facilities Flemish sports minister Philippe Muyters has announced that he wants to invest a large percentage of his sports budget in swimming pools. “The previous government invested in sport halls, Finnish walking trails, stadiums and infrastructure for leading sports,” he said at a congress organised by the sporting federation Sporta. “The swimming pools were left a little behind and so now they have become my priority.”

Flanders’ sports ministry receives €10 million a year to invest in new projects aimed at developing sports infrastructure. Muyters wants to use most of this to renovate swimming pools across

the region.

Muyters was criticised during his last term as sports minister for failing to invest in swimming pools. Six pools had to close down last year because the local municipality could not afford the upkeep.

In related news, Muyters – also minister of work and the economy – said that young people should take up sport to improve their chances of getting a job. Some young people do not have the work ethic required to enter the workforce, and would benefit from the discipline of sport, he said.

Some 57,400 young people under 25 are currently

Government ends agreement to rent Dutch prison cells The federal government is cancelling an agreement to rent cells in a Dutch prison in Tilburg to house Belgian criminals. The agreement will not be renewed when it ends in two years’ time, the cabinet said in a statement.

The government was forced in 2010 to rent unused prison cells in Tilburg’s Willem II Prison because of overcrowding in Belgian prisons. But the prison population has now dropped to 11,276, while the country has created 700 more cells.

The Dutch prison was holding 650 Belgians earlier this year, but 100 were repatriated to Belgium in July, saving the government €3 million out of a total annual bill of €42 million. \ DB

Homans launches six urban renewal projects Flemish minister of urban policy Liesbeth Homans has set aside €360,000 to finance six urban development projects in Aalst, Antwerp, Genk, Ghent, Lokeren and Ostend. Each town is to receive €60,000 to draw up plans for “innovative and ambitious” city projects.

Aalst will use the money to develop ideas for converting an abandoned police barracks into a creative hub for small businesses and cultural organisations. Ostend plans to use its budget to work on a strategy to cut noise from the A10 by converting the motorway route into an avenue.

The port of Antwerp will use the grant to look into ways of converting the old railway marshalling yard Spoor Oost into a

site for the annual Sinksenfoor fair, which was forced to move from the Zuid district because of complaints about noise. The site would also be redeveloped as a city park as well as a car park.

The former mining town of Genk plans to look into the possibility of developing an old mining railway as an axis that would bring together scattered urban districts, including the Ford factory site, which will close at the end of the year.

Ghent wants to bring together interest groups to improve the Muide-Meulestede district for residents, while Lokeren wants to involve residents, shopkeepers and commuters in a project to upgrade the neighbourhood around the station. \ DB

© Courtesy b2ai.com

out of work in Flanders. According to Muyters, many fail to get a job because of their attitude towards work. He plans to launch a pilot project next year to pay the fees associated with joining an official sport organisation for the young unemployed. \ Derek Blyth

Police threaten “tough action” after talks with new minister Police unions have warned the government to expect “tough action” in the coming weeks, after the failure of talks with federal interior minister Jan Jambon.

Police are protesting against a ruling by the Constitutional Court that declared an agreement made with the last federal government – and ratified by the new government – unlawful. The measure concerned early retirement for police officers.

The court said the agreement was discriminatory, a decision that placed police officers back on a par with other government employees, who may not retire before the age of 62.

In a meeting with Jambon, unions heard how the government is considering a plan that would allow older officers to take up jobs more suitable to their age in order to more easily bridge the time until they reach 62. Alternatively, a system could be worked out that would reduce the minimum retirement age to 58.

Both unions and government described this week’s meeting as “constructive”, and talks will continue on 12 November. However, unions said they had not yet received sufficient assurances from the minister, so protest action would continue.

“The government has recognised that this is a difficult job, but we are still waiting to see exactly what the new framework will look like and which conditions can still be changed,” said Vincent Houssin of the VSOA union.

“We still don’t know what mandate the minister has been given.” \ Alan Hope

\ COVER STORY

OCTOBER 29, 2014

Creatives of the world, unite

Creativity World Forum broke new ground when it hit the conference scene 10 years ago continued from page 1

First organised in 2004 in Leuven under the name Districts of Creativity Meet @Flanders, the forum was conceived as a onetime event that brought together nine other powerhouse economic regions to think about ways to promote entrepreneurial activity – a first.

“You had these regions rearing their heads and saying: ‘Listen, we have something to offer, something to show as a region, let’s come together and start collaborating as regions’,” explains Lorin Parys, the founding director of Flanders DC. With some 700 delegates, policymakers and entrepreneurs from places such as Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec, the atmosphere of that first meeting at the then brand-new Provinciehuis in Leuven was electric.

It’s hard to imagine now, but the conference broke ground both in the way it focused on innovation at large and took the concept out of the academic and laboratory context and into the real world.

So, declarations of intentions were signed, the international Districts of Creativity network was born, and the 10 regions agreed they would again organise the forum in Maryland in the US the next year.

Over the next few years, the gathering grew both in scope and prestige. For Parys, the scope of that evolution came in the form of a heated discussion with a group of Chinese officials in a conference room in Qingdao, China, in the run-up to the 2007 edition there. They had been quarrelling over the intellectual property rights for the forum and the conditions the Shanghai District of Creativity would have to meet to host it.

“I thought: ‘Wow, we’ve created something

WWW.CREATIVITYWORLDFORUM.BE

© Courtesy CWF

up rules about how we were going to select who could be the next host.”

Lofty ambitions and noble intentions aside, the first two editions of the forum were a pretty static affair, with policymakers touting their achievements and academics presenting their research findings. There were few entrepreneurs in the audience or among the speakers.

So for the 2006 gathering in Ghent, the Flanders DC team went back to the drawing

We want storytellers on stage who are able to really ignite enthusiasm in the audience that has value to the people who attend but also to the regions that organise this’,” says Parys, who left the organisation three years ago and is today an entrepreneur and Flemish MP (N-VA). “That, I think, is something that I’m maybe most proud of – that we initiated something in Flanders that was so coveted by other regions that we had to set

© Courtesy CWF

Not in it for the money: CWF’s Pascal Cools

© Pieter Baert

Dynamic speakers such as digital consultant Catherine Van Holder (pictured left) and performance art between sessions keep things lively at the Creativity World Forum

board, embraced a more TED-like approach and began interspersing the talks with live music and performance art.

“We want storytelling on stage, people who are able to tell a story that really ignites enthusiasm in the audience,” cays Cools, adding that their overriding ambition was to lure people who were not the conference-going kind. “We really wanted to be the conference where you got inspiration from various angles – quickly, not through one-hour lectures by professors.”

Of course, there was no guarantee that their revised approach would work, and that leap in the dark made for a nerve-racking two days for the team. “Sometimes I thought: ‘What are we doing? Is this going to work?’”

Parys says. “Oh my God, we have an audience made up of both suits and sneakers, and the suits are going to be watching a weird modern dance performance after some business talk.”

It did in fact work. In evaluation forms, three out of four attendees indicated they would attend the subsequent edition, a figure that rose to 92% with the 2008 gathering in Antwerp. By 2011, attendance figures had increased by 66% compared to 2006.

But at the end of the day, Cools warns,

it’s important not to “overexperiment” as conference organisers. He gives the example of an event he attended where members of the audience were tied to each other by the wrist for networking purposes. “People don’t want that,” he says, matter of factly.

“What they want is that you create the right atmosphere – a very loose, open, transparent atmosphere, where a student can talk to a CEO, or where a minister is approachable.”

Flemish digital consultant Catherine Van Holder got a taste of that casual vibe when she gave a seven-minute talk on digital nomadism at the 2011 forum. She remembers how easy it was to mingle as she crisscrossed Hasselt’s giant Ethias Arena. “For me, it was a very intuitive flow of network-

5-6 November

ing,” she says. “It just happened.”

That spontaneity might be explained by the event’s functioning as a sort of homecoming for the creative and entrepreneurial community in Flanders, she says. “Most people who work in creativity, entrepreneurial or innovation, I think they are there – so you always know someone, and you get introduced to other people.”

In addition, she says, the cross-section of corporate and creative worlds helped everyone feel at ease. “You have this great mixture of both worlds, and it works,” she says. “It didn’t matter what their background was and it didn’t matter whether they were more formally dressed or working in a more formal job or a creative one; I think all of them felt at home.”

Kortrijk Xpo

Doorniksesteenweg 216

CWF 2014: the highlights Following a last-minute cancellation by American musician and entrepreneur will.i.am, the keynote speaker at this year’s Creativity World Forum is star economist Steven D Levitt, a professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of the popular Freakonomics series of books and podcasts.

Other speakers to look out for include Guy Kawasaki, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author, who will give a talk on the art of innovation, while London star architect Zaha Hadid will explore the strategies to build bridges between architecture and innovation.

A Creativity World Forum favourite, the American Tom Kelley, general manager of the IDEO design firm, hopes to help attendees unleash their creative potential. Kelley was chosen as “the most inspiring speaker” during the 2008 edition of the event and was invited back at the occasion of the publication of Creative Confidence, his third book.

Freakonomics master Steven D Levitt

\5

\ BUSINESS

week in business Air Jetairfly Low-cost airline Jetairfly will begin three flight a week from Antwerp Airport to Berlin, Milan and Barcelona, and from Ostend Airport to Barcelona, on 17 April. The airline said it was aiming at city-break tourists as well as business travellers.

Bakery Puratos The Groot-Bijgaarden producer of additives for the bakery, pastry and chocolate industries inaugurated its €15 million “Inspirience” research centre last week.

Up to 210 workers in six state-of-the-art laboratories will develop new products for the company’s customers worldwide.

Brewing AB InBev AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, is investing up to €20 million in its Leuven headquarters on the construction of a new production line, its seventh, to increase capacity by 800,000 hectolitres. AB InBev produces about one in three litres of beer manufactured in Belgium.

Dredging Deme The GeoSea affiliate of the Antwerp-based dredging group has acquired the Innovation ship from the German Hochtief construction group. The ship is specialised in the building of offshore wind farms and oil and gas platforms.

Supermarkets Delhaize The supermarket chain is preparing an amended version of its restructuring plan, after industrial action this month that saw more than half its stores close, while others were deprived of stock by pickets at distribution centres. The existing plan foresees the closure of 14 stores, the loss of 2,500 jobs and fewer benefits for staff. The amended version will “take account of the concerns of workers and the challenges facing the business,” management said.

Telecoms • Telenet The Mechelen-based telecommunications giant ended the third quarter having signed up its onemillionth customer for its triple play package, which consists of fixed-line telephone, digital TV and broadband internet. The company had 1,025,000 triple play customers at the end of September, 11% more than the same time one year ago, and 49% of all domestic clients.

\6

Biggest order ever for Lier bus manufacturer Van Hool €300 million contract for 1,000 buses from ABC Companies in the US Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

L

ier-based bus constructor Van Hool has received the biggest order in the history of the company. Van Hool will supply 1,000 buses to ABC Companies in the US, for a value of €300 million.

The factory in Lier’s Koningshooikt district will produce 300 top-of-the-range buses; an additional 700 standard buses will be made in the company’s factory in Skopje, Macedonia, which opened last year.

ABC Companies, based in Minnesota, is one of the leading suppliers to the US and Canada, employs 600 and is 38% owned by Van Hool, whom they have represented since 1987.

With the latest order, Van Hool has passed the 10,000 mark in deliveries of buses to North Amer-

© Courtesy Spielvogel/Wikimedia

ica. Earlier this year, the company became the market leader in the US for private buses. The family-owned business, set up in 1947, employs

a total of 4,750 people, working in Koningshooikt, the subsidiary Eos Coach in Bree, Limburg, and the Skopje plant.

“Now, more than ever, it is clear that the decision to build the new factory in Skopje was a good one,” commented CEO Filip Van Hool. “I am convinced that without that plant, we would never have received this order.”

Recently, the Eos factory in Bree also received a boost with an order of 106 buses from an Algerian bus company, following periods of unemployment in recent months, when there was not enough work to keep the 170 employees busy.

The new contract will provide job security for a year.

Employers demand system to combat alcohol in workplace Unizo, the organisation that represents the self-employed in Flanders, has called on the government to introduce new rules governing the consumption of alcohol in the workplace, including a points system for repeat offenders and the right to sack anyone who is caught three times.

According to an inquiry by Unizo, one in three companies have been confronted with the problem of alcohol abuse at work at some point in the past five years. Unizo director-general Karel Van Eetvelt concludes that more work is needed on prevention of the problem, but that ultimately measures need to be

available to make it possible to sack problem cases.

“At present that’s not possible unless the employee commits a severe professional offence,” he said. The organisation proposes breathalysers in the workplace, and a points system, similar to that used for driving offences in some countries.

“If you get caught three times, that would be a reason for summary dismissal,” he said.

In Unizo’s opinion, the problem requires an urgent response. “We were shocked by the results. The figures are better than in the past, but they’re still high, especially when you see that the problem

often arises in dangerous sectors such as construction, heavy industry and transport.”

Employers also have their role to play. At present only four out of 10 employers have a policy on the prevention of alcohol and drug abuse. “That has to be increased,” Van Eetvelt said. “But the problem won’t be solved by prevention alone.”

Unions reacted coldly to the proposal. “The legal framework now in place is quite sufficient,” Herman Vonck of the ACV union told De Standaard. Summary dismissal of someone with an office job is more difficult, he admitted, but that is

© Ingimage

because of the terms of the collective sectoral agreement signed in 2009, signed by among others Unizo, he said. Testing and sanctions lead to inconsistency, he said, while what is required is for each company to establish a policy in agreement with its workforce, which can then be applied consistently and fairly. \ AH

Designer shortlist for new VRT HQ revealed

New research centre to boost Flemish manufacturing

Five design teams competing for the contract to design a new headquarters for the Flemish public broadcaster VRT have been shortlisted by the office of Flanders’ official architect. One is a temporary consortium of Flemish architects called evr, Doorzon, Denis Dujardin and vylder vinck taillieu. The others include Christian Kerez Zurich, Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen working with KCAP, Robbrecht & Daem with Dierendonckblancke, Arup and VK Engineering, and Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).

The company of Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, OMA was responsible for the design of the head office of the Chinese state television service in Beijing.

The new premises will be on another part of the Reyers site in Schaarbeek currently occupied by VRT. The old buildings, in use since the 1970s, have become increasingly unsuited to a modern broadcasting service, and, with the

Flemish research centres FMTC and Flanders’ Drive have united with the five Flemish universities to establish Flanders’ Make, a strategic research centre for the manufacturing industry. The purpose is to work with high-tech companies on “pre-competitive research and innovation” in the sector.

The centre, officially founded last week in Lommel in Limburg, will receive an annual budget of €8.4 million from the government of Flanders and additional financing of €16.5 million for targeted research from programmes like the SALK recovery programme for Limburg province.

By 2018, more than 300 researchers should be working full-time at the centre. Flanders’ Make consists of branches in Lommel, Diepenbeek and Leuven and is also active at the five Flemish universities.

The centre will focus on certain specialisations in the manufacturing industries: power electronics and energy storage, mechatronics and design methods, production processes and human-targeted system development.

“To ensure a good future in Flanders, our industry will have to be more specialised, more innovation-driven and more targeted at export and international growth markets,” said Urbain Vandeurzen, chair of the board of directors, in a statement.

The research results will be available to the whole sector, since different companies are confronted with similar technological challenges.

About 60 companies have already expressed their commitment to work on one or more research programmes.

The other Flemish strategic research Centres are iMinds (digital), imec (nanotechnology), VIB (life sciences) and Vito (technology).

© Wikimedia

exception of the landmark tower, will be demolished once the new complex is completed.

According to VRT, the new building “should give users the feeling of an open campus” and should “be an example of future-orientated thinking driven by innovation and efficiency”. VRT received 66 applications for the job from firms inside and outside of Belgium. The choice of a designer and developer will take place in March. The start of the €105 million works is scheduled to start in 2017 and last for three years. \ AH

\ Andy Furniere

\ INNOVATION

OCTOBER 29, 2014

The origins of HIV

week in innovation Laser therapy to treat radiation burns

KU Leuven scientists construct a family tree of HIV infection Senne Sterckx More articles by Senne \ flanderstoday.eu

I

t doesn’t often happen that a scientific journal offers a good read for the general public.

But the 3 October issue of Science contained a blood-curdling story: an article in which the early history of the HIV virus unfolds.

The story starts somewhere around 1920, when a hunter (known as “patient zero”) in the lowland rainforest of northeast Congo, then a Belgian colony and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, shoots a chimpanzee that was infected with a dangerous virus.

At some point, possibly while skinning the chimp or preparing its meat, the hunter became infected. He then infects a fellow villager, a trader who travels to Leopoldstad (now Kinshasa) to sell his goods. But work is not the only things that he takes with him to Congo’s capital. From this point on, HIV is present in one of the most lively and densely populated cities on the African continent.

© Carl Gierstorfer

There’s not much left now of the once-extensive Congolese railroad network

article, headed an international group of researchers that was able to explore the early history of HIV in detail.

The scientists reconstructed a family tree of HIV infections present in hundreds of blood samples, isolated during the past 50 years in 350 Congolese and 460

The deadly virus didn’t spread along the rivers, but along the railway lines colonisers had built In truth, the tale of the chimpanzee hunter and the trader is speculation – but of a well-founded sort. But from the moment HIV reached Kinshasa, science comes in to play. Philippe Lemey, principal investigator at the University of Leuven’s Rega Institute for Clinical and Epidemiological Virology and lead author of the Science

non-Congolese African patients.

One of these samples is a true museum piece, as it is the oldest known HIV sample in existence; it was taken from a patient in Kinshasa in 1959.

By looking at the genetic differences between the viruses (the Aids virus mutates very rapidly), Lemey and his colleagues were

able to form the family tree. And thanks to some powerful mathematical algorithms, they were able to date the first infection to 1920.

A striking result of the study is the realisation that one of the deadliest viruses in human history didn’t spread along the rivers of Congo, but along the railway lines the Belgian colonisers had built.

“The railroad network in Congo in the colonial period was quite extensive,” explains Lemey. “Of course, the railroads served one purpose: to bring precious minerals from every corner of the country to the capital, Leopoldstad, and further to the Atlantic coast.

During the first half of the 20th century, Leopoldstad was one of the best-connected capitals on the African continent.”

Lemey’s group could even pinpoint the exact year when the Aids virus reached several large cities on the Congolese railway network. By 1937, the virus had reached Lubumbashi (then Elisabethstad), the second largest city,

Q&A

WWW.VARU.BE

Karin Swiers is the spokesperson for the Flemish Independent Undertakers’ Federation (Varu) which is seeking the legalisation of organic cremation in Flanders How is this method of cremation different?

Instead of burning the deceased person in an oven, the body tissue is dissolved in a resomation machine. Through a waterand alkali-based method – also known as alkaline hydrolysis – the body is broken down chemically at a temperature of about 180 degrees Celsius. All that is left after this technique is the bone structure, which is then processed into white ashes that can be put in an urn for the relatives.

What are the advantages of this method?

It’s much more eco-friendly than

which lies in the south of country.

Two years later, it arrived in Mbuji Mayi, then the country’s “diamond capital”. In 1953, Kisangani (then Stanleystad) in the northeast of the country was reached.

Lemey: “When the corners of the country were reached, the world was HIV’s oyster. For example, from Lubumbashi, it travelled south, taken by workers to countries like Angola and Zambia.”

But the extended rail network was not the only factor that led to the spread of HIV. Another important trigger was the disastrous combination of flourishing prostitution and poor sterilisation practices.

“Because Leopoldstad was one of Africa’s most prosperous cities,” continues Lemey, “there was a massive inflow of workers from the countryside. Most of them were men, and that resulted in a ratio of two men for every woman.

In other words, it was a perfect breeding ground for prostitution.”

But it was only in the 1950s that the Aids epidemic shifted into high gear, when thousands of prostitutes were infected in one of Kinshasa’s STD clinics, due to poorly sterilised injection needles. “Essentially, they gave the virus to their customers. Soon afterwards we see the number of infections rise exponentially.”

Soon the virus would cross the Atlantic Ocean and reach the US – where in 1981 the first cases of Aids were diagnosed. During the first half of the 1960s, there were quite a few health workers from Haiti active in the just-established Republic of Zaire. When they returned home, they took the virus with them. Later American tourists would become infected while on holiday in Haiti and also transport the virus to the US.

traditional cremation. Less greenhouse gases are produced, less electricity is necessary and less fuel has to be used. The leftover fluid can be filtered and drained away without causing harm to the environment.

Are any countries already using this method?

It was invented in Scotland about a decade ago but has only been legalised in Canada and in certain US states. The UK is now also involved in the legalisation process. The Dutch funeral services company Yarden has recently put legalisation high on the political agenda again in

the Netherlands. As a result, the discussion on the topic has also come up again in Flanders.

What is the situation in Flanders?

Varu has been campaigning for the legalisation of alkaline hydrolysis for about five years, and the Commission for the Environment has already promised to examine the possibility of changing the law. We are, however, still waiting on the results of this research. The new responsible Flemish minister, Liesbeth Homans, has promised a meeting to discuss the issue. Just as traditional cremation was once a sensitive topic in society, we understand that the new technique raises questions.

In any case, Varu wants to take up its role in informing the Flemish population. \ Interview by Andy Furniere

Researchers at the University of Hasselt (UHasselt) and the city’s Jessa Hospital have shown that laser therapy is an efficient method for the treatment of radiodermatitis, or radiation burns, in breast cancer patients.

“Laser therapy has been used for some time for the treatment of mouth ulcers during chemotherapy,” said UHasselt professor Jeroen Mebis.

“The results convinced us to examine the possibilities of laser therapy for the treatment of radiodermatitis in breast cancer patients.”

According to Mebis, 90% of these patients suffer from redness of the skin, blisters or burns. A study of 62 patients at Jessa showed a clear improvement of the injuries after laser therapy.

Doctors fear damage claims Specialists carrying out treatments with a high risk of complications worry about damage claims, according to a study by researchers at Hasselt University.

Patients or relatives who feel a medical specialist has made a mistake can file a legal complaint but can also demand damages from the Fund for Medical Accidents. If the complaint is valid but no mistake on the part of the caregiver can be determined, the fund can still provide compensation. The survey of more than 500 doctors shows that about 85% are aware of the fund, and the majority say the threat of damages has a major impact on their work.

About one in seven say they treat fewer patients with a high-risk profile – a patient with diabetes who suffers a heart attack, for example – because of this fear.

Science award for UA historian Historian Herman Van Goethem of the University of Antwerp has received the career prize for science communication, awarded for the second time by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts. The jury praised Van Goethem for “the totality of his efforts to explain recent Flemish history, from a broad and social vision”. The jury also appreciated his presence in the media and his dedication to the Kazerne Dossin museum in Mechelen, which explains the Belgian history of the persecution against Jews and Gypsies. \ AF

\7

NEWS FOR EXPATS DAILY NEWSLETTER YOUR DAILY DOSE OF NEWS ON BRUSSELS AND BELGIUM

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\ EDUCATION

OCTOBER 29, 2014

week in education Teachers and directors involved in bullying

The students of Durf Ondernemen have started businesses ranging from IT support to massage centres

UGent students set up shop

Dare to Enterprise course gets students to start their own businesses Andy Furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.eu

A

t Ghent University (UGent), students who want to start up an enterprise during their studies can request a special statute, just like top athletes. This statute and Ghent’s entrepreneurship programme are convincing more and more students to take their first steps in the business world and has even, in just four years, led to the establishment of companies.

The university colleges in Ghent and PXL University College in Hasselt have also since implemented the formula.

A few weeks ago, UGent’s student entrepreneur programme, called Durf Ondernemen (Dare to Enterprise), received international recognition when it won the award for best concept at the UIIN Entrepreneurial Universities conference in Madrid.

The jury remarked on the unique character of the programme, which encourages students to launch start-up enterprises instead of focusing on business simulations. The jury felt the concept could easily be implemented abroad.

“Before they can get the statute, the students need to present a clear plan for their enterprise, looking ahead at least one year,” says Steve Stevens, who co-ordinates Durf Ondernemen.

The request is then examined by the centre. Firstyear students can’t take part, because the university feels these students need to focus completely on their studies.

If the request is approved, the statute puts the student on his or her way through a number of actions. Students receive documents that help them to postpone exams or skip classes for business reasons (although the ultimate decision remains with the lecturer). The statute also serves as a quality label that proves the professional character of the enterprise.

“We also provide coaching, bring students into

WWW.DURFONDERNEMEN.BE

contact with organisations that help them to set up shop, invite them to interesting activities via the Ghentrepreneurship programme, stimulate collaborations with fellow students and provide them with meeting rooms,” explains Stevens.

As of this year, students also receive a virtual budget, which varies between €500 and €3,000.

Students can use the budget to receive advice from experts in various fields – such as accountants – and participate in events. Thanks to the financial support of the government of Flanders, the programme has also expanded its range of activities for students, adding workshops, for instance.

Since launching in 2011, Durf Ondernemen has helped 144 students to establish 102 businesses.

“Students often collaborate, which we encourage,” says Stevens. This year, the centre has already approved 17 new requests. The statute is only valid for one year and can only be renewed if students pass half of their courses.

The main purpose of the UGent programme is to foster the entrepreneurship mentality and help students develop the necessary skills. UGent also provides four optional entrepreneurship courses in its curriculum, of which one is available to all students from all faculties.

Sometimes the start-up enterprises evolve into successful businesses, like in the case of the ICT companies Teamleader and Endare. Almost half of the students’ enterprises are related to the ICT sector, which is no coincidence; the Durf Ondernemen programme originated in the university’s Department of Electronics and Information Systems.

“Professor Koen De Bosschere first initiated the programme because he wanted to improve the reputation of computer science studies by giving students more opportunities to start up

their own concerns,” explains Stevens. De Bosschere remains one of the driving forces behind the programme. “Digital research centre iMinds provided help from the start,” adds Stevens.

However, many of the students are also active in other sectors. Nathalie Hamelton, for example, is in her last year of arts studies and is helping local artists to break through with her enterprise BAND IT. BAND IT is a non-profit with a commercial side, as it helps artists to develop themselves and provides them with assignments at events.

One of the about 20 artists she assists is Gloria Boateng, a talented hip-hop artist who has been gaining in popularity both at home and abroad.

Hamelton also has her own band and performs as an Amy Winehouse imitator.

“I was a member of a theatre company several years ago, and I noticed how many things went wrong, ”Hamelton says. “I thought I could do better.” Hamelton is also organising her own jazz festival next summer. “Sometimes the financial insecurity worries me, but the Durf Ondernemen centre is helping me to be confident.”

ICT student Simon Lippens, meanwhile, has opened a massage centre called Just Touch, which employs massage therapists with visual impairments. “They have special skills with touch and make clients feel more at ease since they can’t see their bodies,” explains Lippens. “There is not a surplus of jobs for the visually impaired, so this also helps decrease unemployment among this group of people.”

Lippens got the idea for the enterprise on a trip to Vietnam, where he visited a similar business. The massage centre is located near Gent-Sint-Pieters train station, and Lippens hopes to attract commuters who want a relaxing massage after work.

Q&A Frederik Cornillie is a researcher at the University of Leuven who has found that feedback in digital games can be very effective in teaching language skills What methodology did you apply to your research?

We built a number of prototype games, from state-of-the-art 3D games to mini-games, for practising English as a foreign language as taught in secondary schools.

We used questionnaires and interviews to tap into learners’ perceptions, we tracked their behaviour in the games, and we administered online tests to measure whether they had learned anything from the experience. The focus was particularly on instructional feedback: What would happen if learners used a form of English that

ing the intricacies of a foreign language go well together.

was grammatically incorrect or inappropriate? The computer gave them corrective feedback, which could help them learn from mistakes.

Were you surprised by any of the results?

Yes. What we found was that even when learners are immersed in such playful experiences, they do expect to be corrected; they find instruction very helpful, and it helps them become better and more competent language users. Results from the language tests confirmed this. Perhaps the

One of the prototype games used the Divinity Engine Toolkit, created by Flemish game developer Larian Studios

biggest surprise was that instruction does not need to get in the way of learners’ gameplay experience.

So I would say games and master-

Can other areas be better learned via games rather than through traditional methods?

Certainly. A couple of colleagues in my lab work on educational games for maths, and these are very helpful for practising and gaining automaticity in multiplication tables, for instance. But games are not going to be useful for teaching everything, nor are they going to be helpful for all learners. In the extensive array of tools available for teachers in the web-connected classroom, they definitely have to be seen as only one choice – but potentially a very effective one.

Bullying doesn’t only occur among students, according to the Flemish non-profit organisation Limits. Teachers, directors and other staff also often have similar problems. New statistics from Limits, the contact point for unwanted behaviour at work and schools, show that 103 complaints related to bullying among colleagues were filed during the 2013-2014 school year in Flanders. During that year, Limits received 230 notifications of unwanted behaviour. Almost half concerned cases of bullying between adults. “Most conflicts take place between staff and directors, and school policy often causes problems,” Antje Ketelers of Limits told De Standaard.

Klasse magazines could be saved The editorial staff of Klasse, a family of education magazines and multimedia platforms funded by the Flemish education department, are working on a plan for the future, following an agreement with education minister Hilde Crevits.

Earlier this month, Klasse announced that budget cuts would make it impossible to keep producing the print versions of Klasse for Teachers, Klasse for Parents, Maks! and Yeti. The announcement that Klasse would be available only online met with much protest. Klasse has now said there is a possibility for continued print magazines on a smaller scale. A proposal should be ready by December.

School computer networks insecure Every week, the computer networks of at least two schools in Flanders are hacked, according to nonprofit organisation Edubit.

With the consent of school directors, TV programme Telefacts on the VTM channel asked a computer specialist and hacker to test the ICT networks of a few schools in Flanders. In one school, within half an hour they were able to obtain teachers’ passwords, find tests, delete absence lists and empty one school’s whole server. “Schools are totally not secured,” said a hacker in the programme. “They are becoming more and more digitalised, but the security measures are not developed accordingly.”

\ interview by Samantha Clark

\9

\ LIVING

week in activities Samhain ’14 Biennial cultural community festival with professional and amateur groups presenting music, visual arts, sound installations, performances and workshops on the theme of Remembrance and Transformation. The full programme is available at the church or entrance desk at the park. 31 October to 2 November, Sint-Niklaas Church, Kerkstraat 9, Neerpelt (Limburg); free \ www.samhain.be

Night of the University Museums Eight University of Ghent museums, including the Museum of Zoology and the Archaeological Museum, along with the Armand Pien Observatory, open their doors to the public for a night of workshops, guided tours, children’s activities, lectures and film. Free shuttle between the museums. 31 October, 18.0023.00; free \ www.tinyurl.com/o5kjyqr

Big Bang Festival International music festival with a variety of genres and styles, including installations and workshops for kids.

Reservations recommended.

1 November, deSingel, Desguinlei 25, Antwerp; 2 November, Bozar, Ravensteinstraat 23, Brussels; free to €7 \ www.bigbangfestival.eu

Children’s Film Festival Dozens of films for the young and young-at-heart from all over the world, including features, animation, classics and shorts. 26 October to 2 November, across Brussels; prices vary \ www.filemon.be

Underground Treasure Hunt Search for the Golden Fleece in the underground ruins of Coudenberg Palace. Children receive a backpack to help them on their quest, with a puzzle to solve, a costume to wear, a flashlight and a map.

Until 2 November, BELvue Museum, Paleizenplein 7, Brussels; €4 \ www.coudenberg.com

Arrival of Sinterklaas Every year, the former commander’s palace of Alden-Biesen is transformed into Sintpaleis, the palace of Sinterklaas. On 2 November, the Sint arrives with his retinue of helpers to greet the children and kick off the holiday season. 2 November, 15.0018.00, Kasteelstraat 6, Bilzen (Limburg); free \ www.sintpaleis.com

\ 10

One thousand voices

Festival of Flanders gathers 1,000 singers for war centenary event Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.1000VOICES.BE

I

t must be the dream of every choral composer to create a work requiring extraordinary forces. The sound of a symphonic choir of, say, 100 is about as close as this mortal realm will ever come to the sound of the Heavenly Host. So imagine what the effect would be like if you could bring together 10 times as many.

That’s the experiment that will be realised in the basilica in Brussels’ Koekelberg district next week, when more than 1,000 singers, professional and amateur, gather for a performance of Dies Illa, a work by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki.

The singers will be joined by soloists Agnieszka Rehlis, Johanna Rusanen, Nikolay Didenko and the Brussels Philharmonic, conducted

by Andres Mustonen. The concert will also feature contemporary works by Tan Dun, Ola Gjeilo, Sofie

© Courtesy Thousand Voices for Peace

The Villanella youth choir is one of 22 local choirs participating in Thousand Voices for Peace

Gubaidulina and Andre Devaere.

The Thousand Voices for Peace project was born when the government of Flanders said it was looking for projects in connection with the commemoration of the First World War, explains Sonja Peters, marketing manager of the Brussels leg of the Festival of Flanders.

“We decided not to go for a museum-type project,” she

explains. “We organise the Klara Festival, which is always very eclectic and always interested in what is happening now, as well as what happened in the past, so we decided to do something in that tradition.”

9 November, 17.00

The job of organising the event was a massive one, she says. From a small group of three people, the team expanded to more than 20, simply to deal with the logistics of bringing together an orchestra, 22 choirs from Belgium and 17 from other countries, including Thailand, the Netherlands, Australia, Slovakia, Canada and India.

In the run-up to the Basilica concert, many of the choirs will perform in cities across Flanders, including Hasselt, Ypres, Ghent, Leuven and Bruges. In those concerts, a local choir will team with a visitor: the choir Makeblijde from Zele will, for example, perform with the Senior Chamber Choir of Hereford Cathedral School.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart Basiliekvoorplein 1, Brussels

Ceremonies commemorate battle of IJzer and first battle of Ypres WWW.TINYURL.COM/BELGIUMREMEMBERS

This week, two ceremonies of remembrance took place in two Flemish towns that played a key role in the First World War. The ceremonies in Ypres and Nieuwpoort were two of the national commemorations known as België Herdenkt, or Belgium Remembers, programmed for the war centennial.

The first took place in Liège on 4 August, the centenary of the German invasion of Belgian soil.

The commemorations started on 28 October in Nieuwpoort at the monument to Albert I, which also serves as a war memorial (Albert was on the throne at the time) and now houses the Westfront visitors’ centre. Dignitaries from 83 countries were invited to join King Filip and Queen Mathilde in remembering the battle of the IJzer, which started on 18 October 1914. The public was able to watch the proceedings on TV screens installed on Kaaiplein in Nieuwpoort.

Four days before, on 14 October 1914, British troops had occupied Ypres, just hours after the German army had raised the flag over the city hall in Ghent. By 16 October, the Germans were at Diksmuide, and the attack began.

The Belgians were pushed out of their defensive line, and by 20 October the Germans were at the IJzer river. Diksmuide remained in Allied hands, but the defenders were facing eventual defeat. So in Nieuwpoort the decision was taken to flood the entire river plain by opening up the town sluices, forcing the Germans to withdraw and fixing the IJzer as the front for the duration of the war.

Later in the day, a special ceremony in memory of the first battle of Ypres took place in that city under the Menin Gate, where the Last Post has sounded nightly since 1929. Here, too, the royal couple and visiting dignitaries were present. The

© Milo-profi

general public could follow the event on giant screens in the nearby Grote Markt.

The day was due to end with a concert in the Saint Martin’s Cathedral in Ypres by classical composer Wim Mertens at 20.30. In Brussels, the final national ceremony takes place on 11 November, Armistice Day. \ AH

BITE HNGRY Let’s be honest: Flanders’ persistent obsession with food in the form of endless cookery programmes, foodie events, celebrity chefs and the like, has got us feeling pressured to put amazing meals on the table as well. Every evening at that.

While I may get inspired from time to time, on most days it just feels like a chore: Find a good recipe, check to see what I still need, run to the store and come back to discover I’ve forgotten a key ingredient.

That’s when HNGRY caught my attention: It takes all the stress out of the daily what’s-for-dinner dilemma. No more searching up and down the aisles with a crumpledup shopping list, no more racking your brain to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. The HNGRY motto is: “You cook, we inspire”.

WWW.HNGRY.BE

© Courtesy HNGRY

The concept, a first for Belgium, was discovered by founder Thierry Peeters while visiting Berlin.

Food at HNGRY, located in Antwerp, is arranged by meal, instead of

product. Every week, there are 10 new meals to choose from, each one illustrated with colourful photographs of the ingredients and the dish they create. All the ingredients are grouped under the images.

The price per person is also clearly indicated. If you see a meal you like, then grab the recipe and put all the ingredients into your basket. That’s it. There’s even a wine recommendation.

One of the most important advantages of this style of shopping is that it results in less waste. The products are offered in the right proportion for a meal for two. That means you can buy a sprig of parsley if that’s all the recipe calls for, and not end up with the whole bunch, destined to wilt away in the crisper drawer of your fridge.

Another advantage is that you’re exposed to new products, flavours and styles of cooking that you might otherwise not consider.

This week, shoppers are invited to make their own spicy penne with turkey and snap peas, Caesar salad with grilled chicken and little gem lettuce, Thai beef noodles, potato stuffed with North Sea shrimp and sour cream, and leek and broccoli quiche, among others. The dishes are varied, not too complicated and fairly quick to put together (about 30 minutes on average).

In addition to fresh ingredients, HNGRY also offers cooking accessories, from table settings and décor to pots, pans and cutlery. There’s also a kitchen on site for workshops, and tastings take place inside a cosy in-store dining room. \ Robyn Boyle

OCTOBER 29, 2014

Traditions of days past

Laken Cemetery is testament to a former pride in one’s final resting place Débora Votquenne More articles by Débora \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.LAEKENDECOUVERTE.BE

The Laken Cemetery has much to offer the visitor, whether you’re into famous names, sculpture or autumn atmosphere. What better time to take a tour of Brussels’ most famous graveyard than All Saints?

B

elgium’s very own Père Lachaise – that’s how the Laken Cemetery in Brussels is often described. Not just because it houses the graves of local greats or because it has an original cast of French sculptor Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” on site. No, just like its famous Parisian sister, the Brussels graveyard is the product of a time when people still wanted their final resting place to be an artwork, designed to last forever.

You can enjoy the beauty of this lost tradition against the shadows of the recently renovated Church of Our Lady of Laken during guided visits to the cemetery on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. When I arrive at the Onze Lieve Vrouw Voorplein in Laken, people are walking to and fro with buckets, cleaning products and chrysanthemums to spruce up the graves of their loved ones for the remembrance holidays. Although a couple of grey clouds and a dramatic sky might have been more fitting, I visited on a sunny day.

The Laken Cemetery is one of a kind. Not only is it the oldest graveyard in Brussels still in use, it is also the only one in the city still attached to a church. In the late 18th century, emperor Jozef II decided that people would no longer be buried in the immediate church surroundings for health reasons. But the cemetery of Laken got a free pass.

The fact that the royal family settled in Laken in 1831, when Belgium gained independence, of course had everything to do with this. The cemetery even managed to expand multiple times.

Back then, the Laken church was still a humble version of what it would eventually become. When Queen Louise Marie of Orléans died in 1850, King Leopold I didn’t feel the little church was worthy of Her Majesty, or any other member of the royal family, for that matter.

The Brussels elite treasured the prestige of having their family graves so close to the royals So he organised a contest for architects to build a new and more prestigious one, almost on the same site. Josef Poelaert entered the contest under a different name, but he still won. Poelaert oversaw the start of the works but eventually became too caught up with other assignments like the Justice Palace, so he passed the job on to a series of other architects.

The Brussels elite treasured the prestige that having their family graves so close to the Royal family afforded, and the cemetery of

© Photos by Débora Votquenne

Laken soon became the go-to graveyard for architects (such as Poelaert or Alphonse Balat), politicians (Brussels mayor Nicolas-Jean Rouppe), high-profile businessmen (supermarket founder Adolphe Delhaize) and artists (violinist Charles de Bériot and opera singer Maria Malibran). Everyone wanted his or her own eternal spot at the Laken Cemetery.

That these individuals didn’t have to worry about money while alive was often reflected in the way they wanted to be remembered posthumously. The list of funerary art at the cemetery runs long and includes little chapels, gorgeous tombs, beautiful sculptures symbolising the loss the families had to overcome, sober Art Deco tombstones and bombastic, monumental portals. Many of the monuments are also listed.

Even though the graveyard had already expanded in the past, it still found itself lacking space in the 19th century. Future Brussels’ mayor but then alderman Emile Bockstael found a solution to the problem in 1875.

Inspired by examples he had seen in Portugal, Italy and Madrid, he ordered a crypt with many galleries to be installed in which people were buried in vaults placed on top of

each other. The galleries were illuminated by the natural light from the window openings in the ceiling, while the different entrances to the crypt were marked by impressive tomb monuments. One of those monuments would eventually be erected in honour of Bockstael himself.

Unfortunately, over the course of time, the galleries became dilapidated and, eventually, they had to be closed to the public. The crypt was in such bad shape that not even the families of those resting there were allowed to enter to pay their tributes. The neglect of such a unique example of funerary architecture stirred a lot of protest, but it would last until 2012 before the necessary steps were taken to start restoring the crypt galleries.

You’ll have to be patient just a little while longer if you would like to visit the galleries.

But you can already get a taste of what the graveyard will look like once the construction workers are gone. Since they had to move the tombstones to make the concrete layer water-resistant and keep the crypt galleries dry, the workers decided to clean the tombs at the same time. The result is piles of individual tombstone pieces that have been carefully numbered so they can

easily be reconstructed afterward. Some of the graves already look brand new.

The contrast with the other, untouched part of the graveyard is huge. On this side of the cemetery, the graves seem to have sometimes been chaotically placed next to one another, wherever a little spot was left. The blue stones here have turned dark grey or become covered with weeds.

There’s one grave with a concrete cross that has tumbled down and broken into pieces; elsewhere a sepulchre is missing ornaments.

Old sepia pictures of those buried appear to offer the only indication of who they were, because their names have all faded over the years.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My tour guide tells me that when eternal concessions for graves were still awarded (which are no longer possible today), the deal was that families doubled the amount they spent on the sepulchre so that the grave monument would always be tended to.

Obviously, not all parties have stuck to their end of the deal. But walking out of the cemetery, I wonder if maybe that’s quite all right.

A graveyard with so many tales to tell should perhaps not try to hide its age too much.

\ 11

Your new guide to life in Belgium The Autumn issue of the Bulletin Newcomer is your guide to enjoying life and settling in Belgium. It mixes essential practical information with lifestyle features on ďŹ nding a job, top cultural events, dating, keeping pets, sampling Belgian wine and spirits and joining a local theatre group.

If you want to make the most of life in Belgium, this is the essential read.

E L A S N O NOW

Pick up your copy at newsstands or at www.thebulletin.be now!

START YOUR AMERICAN DREAM ON BOARD.

Fly to more than 50 destinations in the US via New York or Washington.

brusselsairlines.com or your travel agency.

\ ARTS

OCTOBER 29, 2014

A class act

Antwerp’s Night of the Proms takes its winning classical/pop formula stateside Tom Peeters More articles by Tom \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.NOTP.COM

Exactly three decades ago, the first-ever Night of the Proms concert took place in Antwerp. Since then, the organisers have won over audiences in half a dozen European countries with their classic meets pop concert series. Now they are hoping to replicate their success across the Atlantic

“E

xplain who we are and what we do.” According to Night of the Proms organiser Jan Vereecke, that’s his most important role when it comes to international expansion. Twentynine years ago, Vereecke and his business partner, Jan Van Esbroeck, introduced Flemish audiences to a new, soon to become extremely successful mass event that mixed classic pop songs and popular classical tunes with rock stars and big orchestras.

This year will mark the 30th edition of the concert series in Antwerp. Vereecke is working hard to launch the Night of the Proms concept in Poland and the US and on keeping the concert series fresh.

Today, Night of the Proms concerts are organised in half a dozen European countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. Getting a foot in the door was usually the biggest hurdle. With most of the new countries they entered, the first few years were difficult, but then word-ofmouth took over. The proof is in the organisation’s extraordinary track record, which today stands at nine million sold tickets across Europe over a period of 30 years.

“People who came to one of our shows later brought their friends, colleagues and acquaintances, and enabled us to grow steadily,” says Vereecke. In Antwerp, they started with one show and 13,500 visitors in 1985. Gradually, the number of shows increased to an astonishing 24 with 346,000 visitors by 2002.

“That year, the Swedish pop band Roxette had to cancel, and we asked Simple Minds to fill the gap. We were afraid Roxette fans would want to return their tickets, but instead Simple Minds fans started to buy extra tickets!”

That unexpected turn of events marked the start of a long-time friendship between the organisers and the Scottish band, which has since performed four times at the event and is considered one of the most popular Proms acts.

© Concertpix.be

© Manu Cammaert, 2009

Organiser Jan Vereecke hopes a recent documentary about the Night of the Proms will help them penetrate the US market

our sponsor Heineken pushed us to add even more pop music to the programme.

And in 1994, that same approach meant the start of another successful run in Germany.”

A year later they approached a young, unknown Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli. He became a worldwide star while touring with Night of the Proms. “That only strengthened our reputation,” says Vereecke.

Carmina Burana was also on our set list, butthe Americans referred to it as the music from The Omen Other key moments, says Vereecke, were the addition of US singer Art Garfunkel to the 1987 bill and the first shows in the Netherlands and Germany. “With Garfunkel as a headliner, not too long after his concerts with Paul Simon in Central Park, we were able to take a step forward,” he says. “In 1991, when we first headed to Rotterdam,

A modern-day global interconnectedness is partly the reason that American concert promoters finally picked up on this European success story. American business partner Paul Emery first saw parts of Night of the Proms on YouTube.

“He had seen the 2011 TV compilation with Seal and Mick Hucknall,” Vereecke says.

“When he later came across footage of Joe Cocker, Simple Minds and other stars on YouTube, he was impressed and called the television production company to ask why this wasn’t in the compilation. They had to explain to him that it was a yearly event.”

The collaboration between PSE Belgium, Vereecke and Van Esbroeck’s company and Emery Entertainment resulted in four American shows earlier this year. In June, the usual Proms suspects – classical orchestra Il Novecento, conducted by Robert Groslot, the Fine Fleur choir, John Miles’ Electric Band and long-time presenter Carl Huybrechts – crossed the Atlantic to share the stage with homegrown artists Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Nile Rodgers and The Pointer Sisters at venues in Dallas, Omaha, Kansas City and Little Rock. Aside from Loggins, they were all seasoned Night of the Proms performers.

Before entering the American market, Vereecke tested how familiar his new

7-15 November, 20.30

audience was with the orchestra’s classical repertoire. “We always adapt to the local market. For instance, for our shows in Poland, Robert orchestrated a Chopin nocturne.”

Fortunately, he continues, “American audiences knew most of the compositions that were tested in a survey, except for the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, from Verdi’s Nabucco opera, and the Typewriter Symphony.”

The organisers programmed that last piece anyway. “Even though they didn’t know it, they seemed to like it a lot.” Smiling, Vereecke adds: “Of course, Carl Orff ’s Carmina Burana was also on our set list, but they referred to it as the music from The Omen.”

Still, the set list wasn’t the biggest obstacle in penetrating the US market. “The ticket sales were,” Vereecke admits. In a country where a “prom” is a dance at the end of the school year, it was hard to launch their distinctive formula.

“We had an internal discussion about whether we should change our name, but we decided not to. Those four concerts have proven our concept can work, but, despite the enthusiasm of the audience, ticket sales weren’t good. When we want to embark on a 40-date American tour next year, we need to start from scratch.”

Vereecke is willing to risk a profit-losing operation for the first few years. He knows people have to see and experience the Proms for themselves before they become ambassadors for the concept, like audiences did in other countries. And there is still a lot of explaining to do. Night of the Proms: Classic Meets Pop, the 13-part documentary about the event, which has been shown on four local US channels and recently won an Emmy award, might help with that. “The quality label can help us show it on a nationwide scale.”

The domestic challenges are situated on another level. A couple of years ago, Vereecke noticed that almost all the artists on the bill were in their 60s; this included Grace Jones, Barry Hay (of Golden Earring), John Miles and both Huybrechts and Groslot. “We had to attract younger artists to rejuvenate our audiences,” he says. “Last year’s edition with Amy Macdonald and Wyclef was an important step.”

The line-up of the 30th Night of the Proms edition, which kicks off in Antwerp next week, features local heroes Hooverphonic and international stars like Sam Sparro and R&B singer CeeLo Green. The younger lineup will also allow the orchestra to perform more hits from the last decade. Vereecke: “I think for some people the time is right to rediscover the Night of the Proms.”

Next of Vereecke’s to-do list is delegating.

“My personal goal is that the event survives me,” he says. “My children – I have four between the ages of 14 and 23 — are already an important sounding board. They have taught me to listen with a more open mind to today’s music, eventually finding something, often back beats, that I can use for the orchestra.”

Sportpaleis

Schijnpoortweg 119, Antwerp

\ 13

\ ARTS

week in arts & CULTURE Cuts “catastrophic” for culture Budgets for the three main federally funded cultural institutions – the Centre for Fine Arts (Bozar), De Munt and the National Orchestra of Belgium – will be severely affected by the federal government’s cuts, according to De Munt opera house director Pieter De Caluwe.

“For De Munt, that means a loss of €2.93 million starting in three months,” De Caluwe told VRT radio. “If you count that together with previously frozen and cancelled subsidies, we’re cutting by about 19%. This is a spectacle the like of which we have never seen, and potentially the end of our being able to put on any spectacle at all.”

For Bozar, the cuts will be between 30% to 40%, according to its director.

Muller Van Severen win Flemish Community award The duo known as Muller Van Severen has won this year’s Flemish Community Prize for Design. Photographer Fien Muller and sculptor Hannes Van Severen were presented with the award by the new Flemish culture minister, Sven Gatz. Founded in 2011, Muller Van Severen has quickly become recognised internationally for their innovative furniture and lighting designs. “Muller Van Severen are constantly looking for new ways to raise furniture to the level of sculpture without losing sight of its essential functionality,” said Gatz. The Flemish culture prize for design, worth €12,500, is awarded every other year.

Oostduinkerke on Lonely Planet list The Lonely Planet best travel lists for 2015 are out, and Flanders hasn’t been forgotten. The coastal town of Oostduinkerke is included this year as one of the Top 10 Fishing Spots Around the World. It raves about the small town’s shrimp fishermen on horseback. “Prawn fishermen use not shrimpers but sturdy stallions to harvest the North Sea’s fruits de mer,” writes Lonely Planet. “For the last 500 years, the fishermen have galloped into the sea on horseback, their steeds dragging nets and a wooden carriage to scare the shrimp to the surface.” We at Flanders Today have yet to see one of the shrimper horses gallop, but we do agree that the Unesco-recognised heritage is worth a trip to see.

\ 14

What lurks beneath Horror and adventure meet in Jonas Govaerts’ film debut, Welp Ian Mundell More articles by Ian \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.WELPDEFILM.BE

Shot by star cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis, Jonas Govaerts’ film debut, Welp, infuses the adventure film trope with straight-up horror. Inspired by the Antwerp director’s own time as a cub scout, the film offers a disturbing horror-adventure blend that hits all the right buttons, with winks to Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter’s early work

T

here is no shortage of darkness in Flemish cinema, but usually directors stop short of producing outright horror films. This makes Jonas Govaerts’ Welp (Cub) a tantalising prospect for fans of the genre, and an oddity for everyone else.

To be strictly accurate, the film, which opens this week, is not pure horror, but a “dark adventure” combining horror with elements of more innocent adventure films, such as The Goonies.

“The adventure aspect is pretty important, and I wanted that 1980s build-up of an hour before anything really happens,” Govaerts explains. “If a gorehound were to see Welp thinking it was a pure horror film, they would be disappointed.”

A graduate of the Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels, Govaerts, 33, developed his interest in horror through a series of short films, including the award-winning Of Cats & Women, and TV series such as Super8 and Monster!, which cross over into surreal comedy. “I’ve always been fascinated by horror because it is such a freeing genre,” he says. “You can be as wild and as crazy as you want to be.”

For his debut feature, the Antwerp-based director was inspired by his time as a cub scout and the scary stories that would be told around the camp fire. “It was just the leaders pulling your leg, but when you are 12 and have a strong imagination that can be extremely scary,” he says. “So the basic premise is: What if they have a campfire story, but there is something else going on and the two things start crossing over.”

And so the film begins with a group of cub scouts heading off for a weekend camp in Wallonia with their leaders, who are themselves only teenagers. From their campsite, they venture deeper into the woods, where someone, or rather something, is waiting for them in the undergrowth.

Casting Welp immediately presented a challenge, since it demanded a troop of child actors.

“I think we saw around 200 kids and just mixed

© Bart Dewaele/IMAGEDESK

First-time director Jonas Govaerts in the woods of Wallonia

and matched,” Govaerts recalls. “Wondrously, that worked out.”

Sam, the cub at the centre of the story, is played

by Maurice Luyten. “I saw him in a music video that hadn’t even been released. He looked like River Phoenix in Stand by Me. I didn’t know if he could act or not, but the charisma was there.

I thought maybe I could dub him if he couldn’t act, but he turned out to be at least as professional as the adult actors.”

The adult scout leaders are played by Evelien Bosmans (Germaine, Halfway), Stef Aerts (Oxygen) and Titus De Voogdt (Steve + Sky).

“They all play a bit younger than they are, but when you are 12 – and the film is told from a 12-year-old’s perspective – then those 18-yearolds look much older, and we play with that idea a little bit.”

Part of the menace comes from Flemish character actor Jan Hammenecker, as the Poacher, but mostly we see Kai, a feral child played by Gill Eeckelaert. At 14, he was a bit older than the other young performers. “He had the height of a 12-year-old, but he had the experience and could take direction like someone a bit older.”

The forest atmosphere came from shooting in the Ardennes and around Liège, as well as in

the rural Flemish neighbourhood of Kasterlee, Antwerp. Meanwhile, the Poacher’s surreal subterranean world was inspired by the Ark Two Shelter in Canada, a refuge from nuclear war built in the 1980s by embedding school buses in concrete and burying them. The result is a maze of dank, claustrophobic rooms with a layout that looks strangely familiar.

Welp was shot by rising cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis, best known for his work with Michaël R Roskam (Bullhead, The Drop) and now much in demand in the US. Together, they watched a lot of early Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter films in order to get the right look.

Govaerts admits that this is not how Karakatsanis usually approaches things. “But if you want winks to Carpenter and things like that, then you need to study the language. That’s what we tried to do.”

There is also a nod and a wink to 1970s horror maestro Dario Argento in the music. The score was composed by Steve Moore of American outfit Zombi, who also tours with Argento’s house band, Goblin. “It’s a lot of synths, very simple and droning,” Govaerts says. “For me, there was no other option than that kind of music.”

Review: Welp Welp begins with two archetypal scenes, which together act as a kind of manifesto for the film.

First, a blood-spattered girl runs through a forest at night, fleeing a half-seen pursuer. Then, a young boy cycles urgently through a small town on a bright, sunlit morning. One scene signals nightmare horror, the other the beginning of an adventure.

This mixture of adventure and horror is intriguing, and for the most part works well. For example, the rhythm of the adventure story stretches our feeling of apprehension so that it pervades the scout expedition that unfolds in the first half of the film. Seen

through the eyes of 12-year-old Sam (pictured), this rings true: if you don’t fit in, simply spending a weekend at the mercy of your peers is a pretty horrifying pros-

pect.

The adventure-horror blend even survives the unveiling of the unseen menace, and it’s impressive that we can see so much of

Kai, a feral boy, without losing the sense of mystery that surrounds him. His scenes with Sam are particularly effective, passing easily from one genre to the next.

As Welp reaches its climax, however, there is an inevitable separation. Adventure films and horror films resolve themselves in different ways, and a choice has to be made. And so out comes the gore, up goes the body count, and off goes the girl through the woods. It’s a proper horror ending, conceived by a fan of the genre and hitting all the right buttons, yet it sits a little uneasily with what has gone before.

\ AGENDA

OCTOBER 29, 2014

The children left behind

CONCERT

Waiting for August From 4 November

Leuven

In cinemas across Belgium www.waitingforaugust.be

H

istory is repeating itself in Romania, says Teodora Ana Mihai. When Mihai was a child, her parents fled the Ceau˛sescu regime, leaving her behind until they could settle and send for her. Now kids are being left behind because of economic migration, as hundreds of thousands of citizens leave the country annually to work abroad.

Mihai’s new award-winning film, Waiting for August, spends several months in the life of one such family. The Halmacs lives on the outskirts of Bacˇau, a mid-sized city in eastern Romania.

The film introduces us to the family’s seven children, whose mother has already left for Italy, where she is a domestic worker.

Seventeen-year-old Ionut is the oldest, but it’s his younger sister Georgiana who’s in charge of the brood, cooking, cleaning and getting everyone off to school, including herself. The stalwart

Georgiana (pictured) easily becomes the focus, as the camera follows her both in and outside their small apartment as she negotiates a life hovering between adolescence and adulthood.

Mihai, 33, lives and works in Antwerp, where her parents ended up in the 1980s. Hundreds of thousands left Romania during the reign of Ceau˛sescu, with parents usually leaving their children until it was safe to send for them.

“I made Waiting for August because I felt like this story was repeating itself,” says Mihai. “My parents left for political reasons; now parents are leaving for economic ones. But the children are still being left behind. I thought it was time to talk about it. I don’t know one Romanian family that doesn’t have anyone abroad. Someone is always somewhere else sending money back. It is breaking these families, and that is just incredibly sad.” \ Lisa Bradshaw Waiting for August screens on 4 November across Belgium and on other dates in certain cinemas.

Check the website for details

VISUAL ARTS

CONCERT

Paul Delvaux Unveiled

Neil Diamond

Until 18 January Belgian modernist painter Paul Delvaux was born too late. Although a contemporary of René Magritte and his circle of 20th-century surrealists, with whom he often exhibited, Delvaux was a 19th-century symbolist in spirit. His interest in dreams and the occult, not to mention his mania for the nude

Museum van Elsene, Brussels www.museumvanelsene.net

female form, were out of sync with the increasingly abstract aesthetic of high modernism. And yet his work stands the test of time. This exhibition removes Delvaux, who spent most of his working life on the Flemish coast, from the Surrealist context to consider the work on its own merits. \ Georgio Valentino

get tic

21 June 2015, 20.00

kets n ow

Robert Cray: The living blues legend and one of the greatest guitarists of his generation, with five Grammy Awards and an honorary spot in the Blues Hall Of Fame. 31 October 20.00, Het Depot, Martelarenplein 12 \ www.hetdepot.be

PARTY Brussels Transformation Night: Halloween clubbing to the sounds of DJ Vernon Sullivan and Vgeranium, while Fyl Sang d’Or turns hair into art and Rebecca Warrior applies makeup in her on-site beauty saloon. 31 October 21.00, Potemkine, Hallepoortlaan 2-4 \ www.visitbrussels.be

FESTIVAL Brussels

Sportpaleis, Antwerp www.sportpaleis.be

Neil Diamond will not be neglecting Flanders on his sweeping 2015 tour. The legendary American singer-songwriter plays Antwerp on the summer solstice, no less.

The long list of chart-toppers written by Diamond includes “Sweet Caroline”, “Kentucky Woman” and “Red, Red Wine” (which he recorded himself long before the tune made UB40 a household acronym). In one of his finest hours, Diamond co-wrote the 1982 hit “Heartlight” with Burt Bacharach and his then-wife after the trio watched an early screening of ET the Extra-Terrestrial.

Tickets to this show are moving briskly. \ GV

Kuona Afrika: Africanthemed festival for the entire family, featuring concerts, dance, fashion, workshops, film, food, market and more.

31 October to 2 November, Tour & Taxis, Picardstraat 3 \ www.kuonaafrika.com

FAMILY Brussels Omelette: A combination of wordless shadow puppetry and live music, narrating the humorous story of a child who befriends a bold chicken. (ages 4+, music in Dutch or French) 2 November, GC De Zeyp, Van Overbekelaan 164 \ www.dezeyp.be

FAIR

FESTIVAL

PERFORMANCE

Flori Mundi

Vader

Until 30 November

Botanic Garden, Meise www.florimundi.be

After a brief hesitation, autumn has arrived, and with it dark skies and chilly temperatures.

Meise’s Botanic Garden offers respite. Inside its greenhouses, it’s always summer. For the next several weeks, there’s an added incentive to visit: The Flori Mundi festival showcases thousands of colourful and endangered orchids and other varieties. The explosion of colour is a welcome change from the unrelenting grey outside, and the presentation is as educational as it is beautiful. While adults enjoy the spectacle, kids will learn the workings of the world’s ecosystem and the importance of conservation. \ GV

Until 31 October, 20.00 It turns out grandpa can cut a rug.

Brussels-based dance company Peeping Tom’s latest production is set in an unlikely place: a nursing home. The action centres on an aging resident/inmate who, trapped in this no-man’s-land between life and death, reminisces about his glory days. Or so he says.

His neighbours suspect these gran-

Ghent

KVS, Brussels www.kvs.be

diose stories might rather be the product of an unsound mind. Vader (Father) is the first instalment of a decidedly Freudian trilogy, to be followed by Moeder (Mother) and Kinderen (Children). After Brussels, the production moves on to Norway, Spain and finally Antwerp, where it runs at deSingel from 27 to 29 November. (In English) \ GV

Countryside: 20th anniversary edition of the annual lifestyle fair for interior and garden decor, home textiles and accessories, featuring furniture, lighting, antiques, arts and crafts and a regional products market. 30 October to 2 November, Flanders Expo, Maaltekouter 1 \ www.countryside.be

MARKET Bruges Antiques and flea market: Annual gathering of merchants of second-hand, antique and collector’s items, including furniture, dolls, stamps, coins, train sets and much more. 1 November 9.3018.00, Beurshal, Hauwerstraat 2 \ www.hobby13.be

© Maarten Strack van Schijndel

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\ BACKPAGE

OCTOBER 29, 2014

Talking Dutch Less than Zero

Johan Gunnarsson @gujops Just got my second DevOps cert at #devopsdays in Ghent.

Recruiters are gonna love me now :)

Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

Everyone has seen a film that they think is the worst film of all time. For some Howard the Duck might spring to mind. For others nothing could possibly beat the pain of sitting through Sex Lives of the Potato Men. But no one could ever have imagined that the worst film of all time would be a remake of the most successful Flemish film of all time. I’m talking about the Hollywood version of The Loft by Flemish director Erik Van Looy. It’s been getting fairly good reviews here in Flanders – except from Bret Easton Ellis.

The enfant terrible of American literature was the chair of the jury at this year’s Ghent Film Festival and was interviewed in front of an audience at Vooruit cultural centre.

“Een buitenkans om het tijdens deze ‘An evening with’ met de schrijver te hebben over zijn oeuvre én over zijn houding tegenover cinema” – a rare opportunity to spend ‘An evening with’ the writer and find out about his work and his relationship with cinema,” read Vooruit’s website.

But no one really expected the celebrated author of American Psycho and Less than Zero to criticise the new thriller by a Flemish director that had opened the festival and is soon to be released across the entire US. “Ik weet dat ‘The Loft’ hier heel populair is, maar het is een van de stomste films die ik ooit heb gezien” – “I know that The Loft is very popular here in Belgium, but it is one of the most stupid films I have ever seen.”

“Ik vond het opmerkelijk dat iedereen zo serieus bleef bij de belachelijke dialogen en plotwendingen” – “I found it remarkable that everyone continued to take it so seriously when the dialogue and plot development were so ridiculous.”

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Van Looy managed to remain upbeat in the face of the damning criticism. “De man provoceert graag en staat bekend om zijn uitgesproken meningen” – “The man likes to be provocative and is famous for his outspoken opinions.” But he added: “Het was natuurlijk leuker geweest had hij The loft de hemel in geprezen” – “Of course it would have been much nicer if he had heaped compliments on The Loft.”

The festival’s general director, Bart Vandesompele, wasn’t taking it on the chin. “Het is als juryvoorzitter niet verstandig in de loop van een festival je mening te ventileren over een film” – “It’s not right for the chair of the jury to express an opinion about a film while the festival is still going on,” he said.

Ellis was later interviewed on the TV programme Reyers Laat. “De film een fossiel uit de jaren 90 lijkt” – “the film was like a fossil out of the 1990s” and the characters were “antieke stereotypes van mannen” – vintage stereotypes of men.

It does sound bad when he describes it like that. But surely not as bad as Sex Lives of the Potato Men.

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Poll

a. The new government’s measures haven’t even been debated yet. The action is purely political and an abuse of the right to strike

60% b. The new government has made its priorities perfectly clear. The unions have the right to defend their workers

13% c. I don’t mind the strike, but it won’t resolve anything. Once the marching is over, it’ll come down to compromise, like always

27% before the unions started stirring up trouble, you agree. Of course, many of these disputes go back to the previous administration, but for the majority of you, this industrial action is an abuse of the right to strike.

Barely one in eight of you expresses

support for the actions, with twice as many convinced the strikes will change nothing. Some sort of compromise will probably be cobbled together in the end. But the question is: How much hassle do we have to go through to get there?

\ Next week's question: The Flemish sports ministry is investing in a pilot programme to get unemployed youth signed up for sports clubs.

What do you think?

Log on to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!

\ 16

sab. @thisismesab Too many items to add to my wishlist but definitely had a blast at the Biennale on friday. #interieur14 http://instagram. com/p/uUx4vov7Lr/

In response to: Brussels government to focus on major urban projects Tom Diderich To see is to believe.

In response to: Shorter maternity stays in hospital feasible, says KCE Claire Masson In the UK women go home too soon and often without having received adequate care or time from a doctor.

Ashes Leuven on Friday was great, always cool to play room66.

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the last word

How do you feel about the national strike on 15 December, which will disrupt transport services and shut down businesses across Belgium?

Clearly, the prospect of a Winter of Discontent – with on-going strikes from police, postal workers, supermarket staff and, on 15 December, everyone all together – doesn’t strike much of a fraternal note among Flanders Today readers.

The policies were hardly announced

VoiceS of flanders today

Cell phones

Growth area

“Most prisoners want to telephone with the outside world after 19.00 and that takes an enormous amount of organisation. In their cells, they can decide for themselves when they want to make a call.”

“An open, grey playground causes stress. The strongest stake claim to their domain, and the rest are banished to the sidelines. There are fewer fights in a green playground because the children are too busy playing.”

Bert Vermeulen, director of Hasselt prison, on plans to equip each cell with a telephone. The prison also plans more visit periods and a welcome basket for new arrivals

Sweet dreams “Substitute sugar is not enough when it comes to weight problems. If you want a good cake, go for the real thing. Enjoy it, but only do it once in a while.”

Tanja Callewaert of the Flemish Association of Nutrition Experts is not convinced of the use of the new artificial sweetener Zusto, which has one-quarter of the calories of sugar

The magazine for schools, Klasse, is organising a competition to create the perfect green playground, which research shows is better for children

Silent support “We want to give the players a chance to play without commentary … and to give parents a more positive role.”

The junior matches of Olympic Deurne in Antwerp have imposed a vow of silence on parents on the touchlines, explained youth coach Thomas Lermytte, after incidents where tempers got the better of spectators

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