BIFFF: where Brussels culture lodges

« On navigue à vue. On n'a aucune vue sur le suivi qui est fait, on n'a pas encore l'orientation claire et définie de la région sur le secteur culturel. On voit que la culture est dans le viseur politique actuellement. »

(English translation: "We're flying blind. We have no visibility on the follow-up being done, we still don't have the Region's clear and defined orientation on the cultural sector. We can see that culture is currently in the political crosshairs.")

— Jonathan Lenaerts, BIFFF communications manager, RTBF, 16 March 2026.

The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF) opened its 44th edition on 3 April 2026 at Brussels Expo, Palais 10, and closed on 18 April. Reconfigured format: a single screening room mobilised instead of a multi-hall set-up, and the time window extended to 16 consecutive days (from 3 to 18 April) in order to cover three weekends of higher attendance. The management explicitly described this choice as "cautious". The underlying economic logic was clear: lower the fixed costs (rent, technical, security of a single hall) while extending the operating window to optimise cumulative attendance — an economic re-engineering under constraint rather than a pure shrinkage. The edition's theme was La vie est belle (Life Is Beautiful). The bet paid off: the 44th edition closed on 18 April with 60,000 spectators (+30%, +12,000 vs previous edition), a record since the post-COVID return to Heysel. Forty years after its founding, the festival has become a textbook case of Brussels institutional fragmentation — and its economic model is being redeployed in real time under the effect of a regional austerity trajectory that has already claimed more radical victims.

A private institution, a public dependence

The BIFFF is run by two separate ASBLs sharing the same address at rue de la Comtesse de Flandre 8 in Laeken: BIFFF ASBL (BCE 0431.844.988, founded 8 July 1986) and Peymey Diffusion ASBL (BCE 0419.261.714, founded 23 February 1979, classified as "specialised sound, image and lighting services"). Peymey Diffusion is presented by the BIFFF as the "parent" structure. Its 2024 revenue reaches €985,337 for 10 FTE — a figure that constitutes a floor of the festival's total cost, as the real aggregated budget is not published.

The festival was created in 1983 by five founders who met in spring 1982 at the Cheval Blanc restaurant on rue Haute: Annie Bozzo, Gigi Étienne, Freddy Bozzo, Georges Delmote and Guy Delmote. The BIFFF ASBL board of directors in 2026 still includes four of the five founders — Georges Delmote (chair), Freddy Bozzo and Guy Delmote (vice-chairs), Annie Bozzo (treasurer). Gigi Étienne is no longer on the board. Forty-three years later, no public succession plan has been announced. Operational management is handled by a salaried team (Jonathan Lenaerts on communications, Chris Orgelt on programming, Dianne Leenders on finance, Youssef Seniora on event coordination).

Five addresses, four levels of government

The BIFFF's spatial trajectory is, in itself, a sensitive mapping of Brussels institutional fragmentation.

Each move was triggered by an event beyond the festival's control, and each successive host belonged to a different level of government. Private → private → federal → municipal: there is no institutional continuity. A failure at one level (the 2021 Bozar fire, federal infrastructure) forced the BIFFF into a rescue at another level (Heysel, a municipal asset).

Sources: RTBF (2013, BIFFF at Bozar); La Libre (2007, Passage 44 → T&T; 2022, post-pandemic return); IEB (Tour & Taxis, Eurostadium); FR Wikipedia (timeline); bifff.net.

The funding lasagne

Map of BIFFF's structural public funding, reconstructed from primary sources verified in April 2026:

The draft municipal convention (vote on 20 April 2026)

As of 19 April 2026, the vote has not yet taken place. The Municipal Council decides on 20 April 2026 (item 62). If approved, the provisions described below take effect subject to regional oversight.

For 20 April 2026, the closing day of the 44th edition and the first day of dismantling, the Municipal Council of the City of Brussels has placed on its agenda (item 62) the approval of a multi-year partnership convention with the Peymey Diffusion ASBL covering editions 2026, 2027 and 2028. The draft decree, prepared by the Beaux-Arts department, cites article 117 of the New Municipal Law and the law of 14 November 1983 on the control of the granting and use of certain subsidies.

The annual amount is set at €250,000, explicitly split in article 3 of the convention:

• €150,000 charged to the Burgomaster's Cabinet (budget article 77210/33202 — functional code "tourism");
• €100,000 charged to the Alderwomanship for Culture (budget article 76201/33202 — functional code "cultural festivals").

The €250,000 cash envelope was inscribed in the City's 2026 ordinary budget as early as mid-December 2025 (adoption of the municipal budget), and formalised as a multi-year commitment by the April 2026 convention. The subsidy is granted annually for each of the three editions: the convention provides that, should no new subsidy be granted during the period, the conditions are deemed renewed without re-signature. It nonetheless remains subject to the resolutive condition of regional oversight (article 6) — the Brussels Region retains the power of annulment through its legality control.

Non-cash support also documented. The annex to the convention, entitled "Logistical support from the City", details for the first time in a public document the material resources mobilised alongside the cash: road-works services (3 trucks, 2 to 3 vans and 12 to 18 staff per day of set-up/tear-down), OPP joinery service (set-up of 240 partition panels with 15 tall and 15 low display cases, mobilising up to 24 people across 3 days of set-up and 2 days of tear-down), transport service (EPV), and provision of the urban display network (25 JCDecaux 2 m² posters over two weeks, City play dynamic screens, 23 Rentapub street-light poles with 46 banners). No amount is costed for this support, but the description is precise enough for it to weigh several tens of thousands of euros in implicit value — a hidden municipal support that had remained absent from public documents until the publication of the agenda of 16 April 2026.

In return (article 2), the organiser commits to displaying the City's logo, mentioning support in all promotional communication, providing a communication insert in the programme, ensuring site security, and making tickets available to the cabinets based on a guest list. Standard obligations for a municipal partnership, with no editorial clause or oversight on the programming.

The convention is signed for the City by Nawal Ben Hamou (Alderwoman for Culture) and Emilie Dupont (Secretary of the City), for the College; for Peymey Diffusion by Youssef Senoria (Administrator delegated to daily management). The management report and financial statement are due to the City by 31 May 2027, with an obligation to reimburse (plus legal interest from 1 September) in case of non-use or diversion of funds.

Verified non-contributing bodies:

• COCOF: no subsidy to BIFFF; the COCOF audiovisual budget is on provisional twelfths in 2026 with a moratorium on new multi-year agreements;
• VGC: no BIFFF file; VGC werkingssubsidies require operation in Dutch, which the BIFFF's French-speaking structure does not provide;
• VAF (Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds): the "toegekende steun" database returns no BIFFF/Peymey entry;
• Beliris: no festival line;
• Creative Europe MEDIA: not verified at this stage — to be investigated via the EACEA database.

→ Not a single euro of public money comes from the Dutch-speaking side. This is the central element of the BIFFF's institutional asymmetry.

The linguistic paradox

The festival is officially named in English ("Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival") — a strategic choice to bypass the FR/NL divide. Its legal structure is French-speaking (statutes in French, French-speaking Brussels ASBL). Its public funding is exclusively French-speaking (FWB + Loterie + City). But its recruitment runs through RAB/BKO, the bilingual Réseau des Arts à Bruxelles / Brussels Kunstenoverleg network, and its audience is multilingual.

The strategic consequence is radical: no political sponsor on the Dutch-speaking side will feel obliged to defend the festival if austerity pressure hits. The English name protects the programming day-to-day, but it provides no political safety net in a crisis. This is exactly the situation Lenaerts described in March 2025 and 2026.

Sources: audiovisuel.cfwb.be; loterie-nationale.be; bifff.net (partner footer); companyweb.be.

Heysel: the schizophrenic situation

Since 2022, the BIFFF has been hosted at Palais 10 of Brussels Expo, an ASBL founded in 1936 whose statutes published on its official site specify that:

• directors must be members of the Municipal Council of the City of Brussels (or specifically authorised by it),
• candidates are presented by the College of the Burgomaster and Aldermen,
• the Burgomaster of Brussels is a member by right,
• mandates last 6 years, renewable.

Brussels Expo manages the Heysel palaces conceded by the City. It is, in practice, a municipal operator.

Philippe Close, Burgomaster of Brussels since 20 July 2017 (succeeding Mayeur post-Samusocial), reconfirmed after the October 2024 municipal elections in a PS-Vooruit / MR / Engagés coalition, has chaired Brussels Expo since 2013. For any BIFFF event taking place at Heysel, Philippe Close potentially combines five roles:

• ASBL chair (the lessor, Brussels Expo),
• Burgomaster (the permit authority for events in public space, art. 119/135 NLC),
• head of administrative police (Brussels-Ixelles Police Zone),
• head of the municipal executive (ultimate grantor of the palaces),
• direct funder: since the April 2026 convention, 60% of the BIFFF's municipal subsidy (€150,000 out of €250,000/year) flows through the Burgomaster's Cabinet via the "tourism" line (art. 77210/33202), compared to 40% (€100,000/year) on the "cultural festivals" line of the Alderwomanship for Culture (art. 76201/33202). The political weight of this split, in a dossier where the Burgomaster is already the chair of the lessor, is unprecedented in the Brussels cultural ledger.

Medor (No. 36, Autumn 2024) describes this configuration as a "schizophrenic situation" between municipal interests and organisational interests, and documents:

• the 2017-2018 merger of the FIB, FSB and Brussels Summer Festival ASBLs into Brussels Expo, a direct consequence of post-Samusocial reforms,
• a leadership crisis in January 2023 (CEO Denis Delforge and two top managers threaten to resign, mediator appointed, strike notice),
• "unacceptable safety risks" documented on the palaces in 2023,
• an estimated COVID revenue loss of €80 million.

NEO resurfaces

The 2026-2029 Brussels government agreement revives NEO on the Heysel plateau. The project, long dead after the burial of Eurostadium in 2018, is repivoted around a CONFEX model (CONference + EXhibition) — a new congress centre integrated with the existing halls, supplemented by a Parc des Sports on the south of the plateau (athletics, hockey, rugby) and a transformation of the large empty car parks into housing/retail/leisure. Governance is now regional, with funding planned via existing NEO structures plus external and private finance.

The agreement explicitly guarantees the project's coexistence "with iconic monuments such as the Atomium or the exhibition halls" — so the palaces are not being demolished. But the BIFFF finds itself a tenant in a multi-year construction zone, on buildings whose safety has been flagged, precisely as its 2022 "min. 5 years" lease approaches expiration.

Sources: brussels-expo.com/en/transparence; medor.coop (No. 36); rtbf.be (NEO); rtbf.be (2024 municipal elections).

BIFFF in the 2026 Brussels austerity: compression under constraint

The BIFFF 2026 opened precisely as the Brussels government agreement of 12 February 2026 was deploying its savings plan (~€1 billion over four years, return to balance in 2029).

The most visible cutting instrument affects visit.brussels, the regional image and tourism agency whose "Be Brussels" logo the BIFFF displays as a partner. DG Patrick Bontinck confirmed to Belgeo (26 March 2026):

« La Région bruxelloise réduit nos financements de 5,7 millions d'euros en 2026, sur un budget total de 22 millions d'euros. »

(English translation: "The Brussels Region is cutting our funding by 5.7 million euros in 2026, out of a total budget of 22 million euros.")

Confirmed trajectory: €22M → €8M by 2029, i.e. −64%. Up to 90 jobs out of 160 are threatened. The direct cultural victims already confirmed in March 2026:

• BD Comic Strip Festival 2026 — cancelled
• Festival of the Iris 2026 — reduced to a single concert
• J'aime les sciences (October 2026) — cancelled
• all event promotion frozen, with the exception of Pride.

Unlike the festivals that have already fallen (BD, Iris, J'aime les sciences), the BIFFF was not hit by a direct cut or cancellation. Its 2026 strategy — concentrating programming on a single hall and extending the window to 16 days to capture three peak weekends — was a deliberate economic re-engineering rather than an imposed amputation. The final tally (60,000 spectators, +30%) confirms that the festival absorbed the pressure without brushing the breaking point: redeploying the model produced audience growth, not amputation. But exposure to the two threats identified by the RAB/BKO (visit.brussels, Image de Bruxelles) remains, with a larger footprint than the festivals already fallen (60,000 spectators in 2026, +30% vs previous edition, international visibility, founding member of the Méliès International Festivals Federation, FIAPF accreditation). Its visibility makes it a privileged barometer: what the BIFFF had to reconfigure in order to keep growing says, more precisely than a regional budget, what Brussels austerity imposes on a well-equipped intermediate cultural operator.

The bilingual RAB/BKO network published on 7 March 2026 a call co-signed by 120+ institutions not to sacrifice the cultural sector, targeting three threats in the agreement: removal of the "Image de Bruxelles" envelope, ACS reform (which threatens sustainable employment), visit.brussels cuts. The BIFFF cumulates at least two of the three.

The BIFFF in the government agreement: a blind spot

The 2026-2029 DPR does not mention the BIFFF. Culture is treated transversally there (accessibility, reading, dance, seniors), with no line dedicated to film festivals. No exception, no targeted measure. The festival is neither protected, nor named, nor exempted.

The sequence of alerts (2022-2026)

Lenaerts stated explicitly to L'Avenir on 27 April 2025: "We've been alerting public authorities since 2022." The equation "constant subsidies + rising costs" tipped after the post-Bozar move and post-COVID inflation of rights, insurance and rental costs at Palais 10. The public statements of March 2025 and March 2026 are therefore not a cyclical reaction to a new crisis: they are the culmination of three years of structural compression.

44th edition final tally — the re-engineering validated by attendance

At the festival's close on 18 April 2026, organisers announced a final tally of 60,000 spectators, a 30% rise and 12,000 more people than the previous edition (~48,000). It is a record since the post-COVID return to Heysel, in the most compact format the festival has ever produced (one hall, 16 days, three weekends covered).

The BGM reading is direct: deliberate yield management — concentrating the offer on a single hall to compress fixed costs, extending the time window to capture three weekends — did not drive the audience away. It brought them in. The hypothesis of "imposed shrinkage" is therefore refuted by the numbers: re-engineering under constraint works both as a survival strategy and as an engine of audience growth. For other Brussels intermediate cultural operators facing the same austerity trajectory, the precedent is instructive — but it rests on an operational re-engineering capacity and an already-established reputation that younger or more local festivals do not necessarily possess.

The prize list has consecrated an international cinema, with the Golden Raven (Corbeau d'Or) awarded to Never After Dark by Dave Boyle (Japan). The Silver Ravens went to Tristes Tropiques by Hoon-jung Park (South Korea) and Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie by Matt Johnson (Canada). The European competition rewarded Nightborn by Hanna Bergholm (Finland/Lithuania/France/UK). Organisers commented: "This edition once again confirms the richness and diversity of fantastic cinema".

This attendance level also turns ticketing into a significant revenue source that the figures published to date (mainly the 2024 Peymey revenue of €985,337) do not reflect — the 2026 report due to the City by 31 May 2027 will be the first public document to aggregate it with the subsidies.

This tally does not extinguish any of the risks identified above (Brussels Expo lease 2027, FWB 2027-2030 application to be submitted by 11 May 2026, residual exposure to the regional channel, Municipal Council vote on 20 April still pending). It shifts the frame: the BIFFF is no longer solely a defensive barometer of Brussels cultural austerity. It also becomes an offensive textbook case of a response to pressure — to be confirmed or disproven over editions 45 (2027) and 46 (2028), which will be covered by the multi-year municipal convention if the Municipal Council approves it on 20 April.

Sources: RTBF (18 April 2026); La Libre (18 April 2026).

The structural asymmetry of the lasagne

The BIFFF provides an unusually clear textbook case — and the municipal convention of 20 April 2026 alters the reading:

• The FWB Centre du Cinéma line (€120,000/year) is contractual, agreement-based, multi-year. The next cycle 2027-2030 opens in April 2026 (application deadline 11 May 2026), and the overall festival envelope is announced at €1,028,000/year. Subject to an accepted application, this is a protective funding floor over four years.
• The City of Brussels line (€250,000/year, 2026-2028) has just switched from "discretionary, not published" to "agreement-based multi-year three years", with budgetary inscription on the two articles 76201/33202 and 77210/33202. The commitment remains legally annual (tacit renewal provided by art. 3 of the convention) and subject to regional oversight (art. 6), but the protocol of support is now written and public. Seen this way, the municipal channel joins, at a smaller but real scale, the protective logic of the Community channel.
• Conversely, the strictly regional channels (visit.brussels, "Image de Bruxelles" envelope, Culture support via COCOF) remain discretionary, annual, cabinet-driven. These are precisely the lines that the 2026 austerity agreement has chosen to cut first.

→ The institutional lasagne is now doubly protected at the base (Community FWB + Municipal City) and exposed in the regional middle. The BIFFF sits precisely at this intersection: €370,000/year under convention give it a firmer floor than earlier literature suggested, but the regional zone remains its main and unresolved vulnerability. Another asymmetry: the municipal convention runs for three editions (2026-2028), while the next FWB cycle covers 2027-2030 — the two protective channels are temporally offset by one year, leaving the 2029 edition without confirmed municipal coverage at this stage.

Caveats — what remains to be dug into

This version of the dossier relies on verified primary sources (FWB funding decisions, Brussels Expo statutes, public statements from the BIFFF team, Belgeo / RABKO / regional agreement communiqués, and now the full text of the City-Peymey Diffusion convention published on the agenda of the Municipal Council of 20 April 2026). Several grey areas remain to be actively investigated:

1. Real total festival budget. The €985,337 of 2024 revenue for Peymey Diffusion is a floor, not a total. An activity report or a direct interview would be needed to estimate the real production (rights, venues, travel, guests). The 2026 report is due to the City by 31 May 2027, which sets a public documentary deadline.
2. Articulation between Peymey and BIFFF ASBL. The City-Peymey Diffusion 2026-2028 convention contracts Peymey Diffusion as the legal recipient of the municipal subsidy — a clue to the operational architecture. Still to clarify: who pays salaries, who receives the FWB subsidy, who contracts with Brussels Expo. The full split is not public.
3. Brussels Expo rent (Palais 10) — partially closed caveat. The "Logistical support from the City" annex to the 20 April 2026 convention details for the first time the in-kind municipal support (road works, OPP joinery, EPV transport, JCDecaux and Rentapub display) — documenting one layer of hidden support. The Palais 10 rent itself, however, is still not published: market rate, subsidised, or partly included in the City's concession to Brussels Expo?
4. Exact municipal subsidy — closed caveat. The 20 April 2026 convention publishes the exact amounts: €250,000/year over 2026-2028, split €150,000 Burgomaster's Cabinet (art. 77210/33202) + €100,000 Alderwomanship for Culture (art. 76201/33202). The question of direct regional subsidy (visit.brussels, "Image de Bruxelles" line) remains open: no figure published, to be confirmed via the Brussels regional subsidy cadastre (open data).
5. 2027 lease renewal. This is the decisive operational uncertainty — covered by no public source as of 16 April 2026. The municipal convention secures cash for 2026-2028 but says nothing about the occupation contract with Brussels Expo.
6. Succession plan. The 4 founders still on the board are between 65 and 75 years old (hypothesis to confirm). No public plan.
7. Creative Europe MEDIA. Beneficiary or not? EACEA database to be queried.

These points do not invalidate the dossier's thread: they refine its contours and set the agenda for the next iteration.

Why the BIFFF matters for Brussels governance

The BIFFF is not just a genre festival. It is:

• one of the rare mid-sized private Brussels cultural operators whose funding trajectory simultaneously crosses four levels of government,
• a direct witness to the effect of political transitions (Samusocial, Eurostadium/NEO, 2024-2026 formation, 2026-2029 austerity) on real cultural programming,
• a barometer of the resilience of Brussels intermediate cultural operators: its 2026 re-engineering (yield management: one hall, 16 days, three weekends) demonstrated that an international-scale festival can absorb austerity pressure without breaking — and even capture audience growth (60,000 spectators, +30%, post-COVID record). With the draft 2026-2028 municipal convention (to be voted on 20 April), the festival would appear better anchored publicly than earlier literature suggested (€370,000/year in cash at two levels, subject to the vote and regional oversight). The question for 2027-2028 shifts: it is no longer whether the festival "holds" in a compact edition, but whether the re-engineering is replicable over the following editions, with key deadlines — Brussels Expo lease renewal (not guaranteed) and FWB 2027-2030 cycle application — still determinative. The residual pressure lies on the regional zone (visit.brussels, Image de Bruxelles) and on structural costs (operating, insurance, rights, security), not on the demonstrated viability of the format.

Following it means following — in real time and with a very legible metric (is the festival happening? in what format? how many rooms? how many days?) — the material effect of political decisions that, elsewhere, remain abstract.