Campaign launch Film Fest Gent 2025
Digital film carriers and a futuristic view
For the third year in a row, Film Fest Gent is collaborating with the Antwerp-based creative agency Mutant. While the campaigns of 2023 and 2024 explored the early precursors of cinema, such as the phenakistiscope of the Ghentian professor Joseph Plateau, the zoetrope or the Kaiserpanorama, this year’s focus shifts towards the future. The design has evolved from data and refers to digital carriers and their potential in cinema.
The new pattern is also a nod to the film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. The visual element in the Film Fest Gent 2025 campaign recalls the legendary Stargate sequence, in which actor Keir Dullea embarks on a journey as an astronaut through a psychedelic tunnel of light to another universe.
“This time, for Film Fest Gent, we deliberately chose to approach the new pattern from a modern perspective. By experimenting with creative coding, the graphics you see now gradually emerged.”
For the public and (inter)national film industry
With over 100 feature-length films and around 30 short films, Film Fest Gent caters each year to a broad audience of film enthusiasts and cinephiles. At the same time, the festival serves as a key meeting point for professionals from the (inter)national film and film music industry.
Every year, Film Fest Gent organises various initiatives for (young) Belgian and international creators. These include The Day of the Film Profession, the daily FFG Talkies conversations in the Film Fest Café, panel discussions on current topics, Director’s Talks with international directors and numerous networking opportunities.
The World Soundtrack Awards Film Music Days (14-16 October) are also a cornerstone of the festival. This three-day event at the heart of the festival combines acclaimed concerts and award ceremonies with masterclasses and networking sessions, bringing together composers, directors and music supervisors from across the globe and connecting them with fellow Belgian professionals. The Videodroom programme – the annual collaboration with arts centre VIERNULVIER – also celebrates film music in all its forms and brings film and film music professionals together.
The professional dimension of the festival will be further strengthened in 2025 with the Flanders Film Days (7 and 8 October), a renewed version of the former Connext. This initiative of Flanders Image, the international promotion department of the VAF, offers a two-day showcase of Flemish films in the making, pitches and works-in-progress aimed at international professionals.
The combination of Flanders Film Days and Film Fest Gent offers representatives and programmers from international A-list festivals, as well as international sales agents, a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in both Flemish productions in the making and those premiering at the festival, to network with numerous local filmmakers and producers and international guests, and to take part in a rich programme of interesting sessions and meetings for the international film industry.”
The event is thus returning to Ghent. As early as the 1990s, market screenings were organised during the festival, and the Flanders Film Days - then still known as Connext - were presented in Ghent by Flanders Image from 2016 to 2019, before the initiative temporarily moved to Antwerp in 2022 and 2023. The Flanders Film Days are open by invitation only.
Opening night on Wednesday
As in 2024, the festival will once again open on a Wednesday evening, rather than on the traditional Tuesday. The 52nd edition will therefore run from Wednesday, 8 October to Sunday, 19 October 2025.
MARIJKE VANDEBUERIE, Managing Director Film Fest Gent: “Thanks to the shift in dates, the festival now spans two full weekends, giving visitors from further afield the opportunity to fully enjoy the event."
