Under the name 'Het Eerste Internationaal Filmgebeuren van Gent' (or 'Ghent's First International Film Event'), the very first 'Film Fest Ghent' took place from 25 to 31 January 1974.
The driving forces behind the initiative were Ben Ter Elst, manager of the Studio Skoop, and Dirk De Meyer of the Ghent University Film Club.
The programme included Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky and Winter Wind by Miklós Jancsó, films that provoke, innovate and cast a different light on what cinema can be.
During the year of 1978, cinephiles could find something to their liking among author films by, for instance, Luis Buñuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Bernardo Bertolucci and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Even more so, since the international film landscape evolved rapidly at the time, the event encountered several organisational and financial problems despite the success of the initiative.
The creation of this non-profit organisation ensured that the authorities (the city of Ghent, the province of East Flanders, the federal and (later) the Flemish government) would participate and contribute financially.
Besides the competition, the festival also decided to organise silent film screenings with newly composed music that was performed live.
Other internationally renowned composers such as Jean-Claude Petit, Nicola Piovani, Peer Raben, Stanley Myers, Carl Davis, Bruce Broughton and Michael Nyman also attended the festival to perform their work.
During the 90s the International Film Festival of Flanders-Ghent even received several film titles in European or world premieres and hosted big names such as Willem Dafoe, Samuel Fuller, Terry Gilliam, Anthony Perkins, Charlotte Rampling, Paul Schrader, Frederick Wiseman, Patricia Arquette, Kenneth Branagh, Mel Brooks, Crispin Clover, Paul Cox, Atom Egoyan etc.
Robert Altman, Elmer Bernstein, Terence Davies, Arthur Penn, James Earl Jones, Guy Pearce, Karl Malden, Danny Glover, Michael Haneke, Irvin Kershner and many others visited Ghent during these years.
The godfather of Belgian film music, Frédéric Devreese, conducted a double concert during the same edition in the then newly reopened Vlaamse Opera Ghent.
The need to put all the contacts between composers, musicians and agents who attend the festival each year into a fixed structure grew bigger.
This is why the festival (led by Jacques Dubrulle, music projects coordinator Marian Ponnet and Brussels Philharmonic conductor Dirk Brossé) launched the World Soundtrack Academy in 2001.
The 2000s also saw many prominent guests at the film festival, including Jean Reno, Juliette Binoche, Jeanne Moreau, Blair Underwood, Maurice Jarre, Paul Verhoeven, Darren Aronofsky, Tom Tykwer and Kathleen Turner.
Many renowned talents from the film industry visited Ghent during the period of 2007 to 2012: Clint Mansell, Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Andy Garcia, Kevin Costner, Shigeru Umebayashi, László Nemes, Tim Robbins, Paul Greengrass, Jim Sheridan, François Ozon, Norman Jewison, Seth Rogen, Isabelle Huppert, Ezra Miller, Emmannuelle Riva, Paolo & Vittori Taviani, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne etc.
During the festival Dubrulle received the Joseph Plateau Honorary Award for his years of commitment to the organisation of Film Fest Ghent.
During the period of 2013 to 2019, the following guests found their way to Film Fest Ghent: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bret Easton Ellis, Sergei Loznitsa, Yorgos Lanthimos, Colin Farrell, Sir Alan Parker, Michael Nyman, Craig Armstrong, Alan Silvestri, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kôji Fukada, Terence Davies, Tran Anh Hung, Ken Loach, Olivier Assayas, Derek Cianfrance, Asghar Farhadi, Isabelle Huppert, Leila Hatami, Geraldine Chaplin, Rian Johnson, Thomas Vinterberg, John C. Reilly, Jacques Audiard, Terence Blanchard and Jayro Bustamante.
The retrospective was dedicated to the Neue Deutsche Welle, with films by Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Margarethe von Trotta, Helma Sanders-Brahms and others.
The most important international guests were actor-director Viggo Mortensen, who presented his directorial debut Falling and received the Joseph Plateau Honorary Award, the author-director Pedro Costa and the French actress-director Maïwenn.
Gabriel Yared performed his compositions live, and audiences could see the reactions from composers such as Alexandre Desplat, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Nicholas Britell.
Film Fest Gent honours two directors with a Joseph Plateau Honorary Award: Andrea Arnold and Harry Kümel.
Notable guests at FFG2021 include Pablo Larraín, Leos Carax, Ari Folman, Miguel Gomes, Radu Jude and Avi Mograbi.
In a year in which Belgian cinema reaches international success, the opening film Close by Lukas Dhont generates a lot of buzz.
The 22nd edition of the World Soundtrack Awards welcomes American film composer and jazz artist Mark Isham as the guest of honour.
On top of that, FFG is stomping out a unique project: 2x25, in which 25 filmmakers will make a short film inspired by music by 25 composers.
Despite competition from the robust programme of avant-premières, classics such as The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (Peter Greenaway), Novecento (Roberto Bertolucci) and A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang) managed to attract packed theatres.
Throughout the year, FFG offers deep-dives into its On Tour films with a ‘Wide Angle’, a dossier including texts, podcasts, and video essays.
Furthermore, the organisation of Film Fest Ghent yearly offers a Joseph Plateau Honorary Award to someone who has had a great impact on the seventh art.
Yorgos Lanthimos Miguel Gomes The Joseph Plateau Honorary Award is presented to distinguished guests of Film Fest Ghent whose achievements have earned them a special and distinct place in the history of international filmmaking.
The award itself is a replica of professor Joseph Plateau’s Phenakistiscope, the device he designed to illustrate his theory of the persistence of vision, which became the basic principle behind the idea of “moving images”.