Belgium: Last News

Ellise Shafer Émilie Dequenne, the Belgian actor who won a Cannes Film Festival prize for her breakout role in the Dardenne Brothers’ 1999 film “Rosetta,” died on Sunday. She was 43. Dequenne’s family confirmed to French news agency AFP (via The Guardian) on Sunday night that she died of a rare cancer in a hospital just outside Paris.

Actress Emilie Dequenne has tragically passed away at the age of 43 following a battle with a rare cancer.The Belgian star was diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma, a cancer affecting the adrenal gland, two years ago. Emilie bravely fought her illness and in October 2023, she announced the start of her treatment. By April 2024, she shared an uplifting update that she was in remission, expressing her relief in a heartfelt message: "I was close to forgetting because I was leaving the hospital today after 13 days...

Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne, who first achieved fame with her 1999 Cannes d’Or-winning, big screen debut in Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s drama Rosetta, has died at the age 43.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix’s “The Leopard” is gaining global traction with viewers just as the streaming giant is taking the sumptuous Sicilian series on a tour involving gala presentations in Italian embassies in Washington D.C., London, Berlin, Brussels and other world capitals. The high-end show, based on the classic Sicily-set novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, dropped on Netflix March 5.

The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) has named Karla Puttemans as its new director, in a move many in the Flemish film industry are hoping will bring closure to a tumultuous 18 months for the public funding body.

Brut Post TikTok Subscriber MilestoneFrance’s young adult-focused, online news-skewed platform Brut is sounding its own bell after hitting 10 million subscribers on TikTok, making it the top French publisher on the Chinese-owned platform. The subscriber gains also make the platform the second most followed European news publisher on TikTok after the Daily Mail. “Making news on TikTok was a challenge. A successful bet with 10 million subscribers, which makes us the leading news media in France on a platform historically focused on entertainment,” said TikTok Editor in Chief Laurent Lucas in a release. “This symbolic milestone reflects the success of an editorial policy developed especially for new uses of information consumption in France and around the world.”  Launched by Guillaume Lacroix and Renaud le Van Kim in 2016, the Paris-based platform employs some 250 people. It has had its financial ups and down over its existence but reported last year that it had gone into profit in the final quarter of 2023.  The company is also pushing into the U.S., Africa and India.

Formula 1: Drive To Survive has been an annual staple on Netflix since 2019.The documentary series has gone behind-the-scenes on the Formula One World Championship over the past six years, detailing the drama both on and off the track over each season.The seventh season, released on March 7, 2025, charts the 2024 Formula One World Championship across ten episodes.A synopsis for the seventh season reads: “Familiar faces make a comeback, team stalwarts defect to arch rivals, and new champions emerge in one of Formula One’s most tumultuous seasons yet.”Dutch-Belgian racing driver Max Verstappen won the 2024 Formula One World Championship, after a fifth-place finish at the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November.Verstappen has now won four Championship titles in a row with Red Bull, making him the sixth driver in history with at least four world titles, alongside Michael Schumacher (seven), Lewis Hamilton (seven), Juan-Manuel Fangio (five), Alain Prost (four) and Sebastian Vettel (four).In the 2025 season, Verstappen is hoping to match Michael Schumacher’s record of five consecutive Formula One World Championship titles.You can check out the full standings for the 2024 Formula One World Championship below.1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – 437 points2. Lando Norris (McLaren) – 374 points3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 356 points4. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – 292 points5. Carlos Sainz Jr. (Ferrari) – 290 points6. George Russell (Mercedes) – 245 points7. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 223 points8. Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) – 152 points9. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) – 70 points10. Pierre Gasly (Alpine Renault) – 42 points11. Nico Hülkenberg (Haas Ferrari) – 41 points12. Yuki Tsunoda (RB Honda) – 30 points13. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) – 24

Linkin Park have shared footage of them recording new music in the studio.The band recently released their latest album ‘From Zero‘, which marked the band’s first since the passing of frontman Chester Bennington and features Dead Sara’s Emily Armstrong as the band’s new vocalist.The album shot to the top of the charts in 10 countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Belgian film festival Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Academy will honor the memory of David Lynch by having young composers score an excerpt from the late auteur’s “The Elephant Man” as part of their annual Film Music Composition Contest. “The Elephant Man,” Lynch’s 1980 cult movie, tells the true story of English artist Joseph Merrick who, due to his severe physical deformities, became a national celebrity in Victorian England.

EXCLUSIVE: Belgian director Olivier Pairoux’s thriller Vigilante is being billed as one of the most ambitious feature projects set to come out of French-speaking Belgium this year.

Those who know and love Irish Cream liqueur, with its smooth and creamy texture, can vouch that this drink is a delight not just for the festive season but all year round. While we're all familiar with big brand Baileys, which has been enticing consumers with a variety of new flavours recently, a number of alternative Irish Cream brands have made waves in the market, offering everything from supermarket versions to premium reinventions of the classic drink.

Gracie Abrams has shared her “deepest regrets” after cancelling the first two shows of her upcoming 2025 UK and Ireland arena tour.The ‘I Know It Won’t Work’ singer kicked off ‘The Secret Of Us’ tour at the Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid last month, making stops in cities such as Lisbon, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Zurich, Milan and Paris.From there, Abrams was meant to make her way to the UK, beginning with a show at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham tonight (March 3) which should have been followed by a show in Leeds.However, a note shared on social media today revealed that due to an ongoing illness – which has already seen her cancel a date in Belgium recently – she was deemed not fit to perform.“I hate that I have to write this again so soon,” the handwritten note, addressed to Nottingham and Leeds, began. “Unfortunately, I am still really struggling with this illness and have been advised that I cannot perform these next two nights.

Neil Young has announced plans to perform a free concert in Ukraine ahead of his upcoming European summer tour.The Canadian singer-songwriter is set to hit the road this summer with his ‘Love Earth’ world tour with the Chrome Hearts. It’ll follow Young’s bill-topping set at Glastonbury Festival in late June.Now, he’s shared plans to perform a free concert in Ukraine before the tour kicks off.

Sad news for Gracie Abrams fans hoping to see her perform in Brussels.

EXCLUSIVE: The London TV Screenings are a whirlwind of meetings, screenings, lunches and cocktail bashes for buyers. With so many vying for their attention, one savvy distributor found a novel way to get some quality time with the in-demand execs; provide a taxi service to and from the smorgasbord of events and shop them your wares during the ride.

EXCLUSIVE: ITV is among the first buyers to swoop for Mark Williams crime drama Safe Harbor here at the London TV Screenings.

EXCLUSIVE: Side Hustlers, the Reese Witherspoon-produced format in which businesswomen transform their passion projects into fully-fledged businesses, has landed its first international adaptation.

Pet Shop Boys have announced a string of huge outdoor shows in the UK for this summer – see all the details below.The duo’s ‘Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live’ tour has been extended into 2025, and will now include a show at Cardiff Castle on July 31, followed by appearances at Hardwick Festival in County Durham on August 16 and Warwick Castle on August 30.Tickets for Cardiff go on general sale at 9am on Friday (February 28), with Warwick tickets going on sale one hour later – you can get yours here. Hardwick Festival tickets are on sale now.The shows come in addition to Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s already announced performances at Lucca Summer Festival in Tuscany on July 20 and Lokerse Feesten Festival in Belgium on August 2.The ‘Dreamworld’ tour kicked off back in 2022 and a show in Copenhagen was captured in the documentary film Pet Shop Boys Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live at the Royal Arena Copenhagen, which hit cinemas in January 2024.In a five-star review of a ‘Dreamworld’ gig in Hull in 2022, NME praised “the band’s infallible greatest hits collection, and their ability to constantly stay ahead of the pack”.It added: “[The concert] shows the range of styles and subjects tackled in their canon, and is a two-hour joyous celebration of their decades of holding pop to a higher standard.”Pet Shop Boys released their 15th album ‘Nonetheless’ in 2024 and in an interview with NME back in April, they described it as their “queer album” and Neil Tennant, who came out as gay in 1994, discussed how things have changed for the queer community in pop culture since then.“What I think now is that what you might call gay culture has become mainstream,” Tennant said.

Jamie Lang “Save Your Cash,” a physical challenge game show created by ABS-CBN Studios in the Philippines, won the MipFormats Pitch 2025 at Mip London, held in partnership with Fox Entertainment Global. The competition showcased top format pitches from around the world, with MipFormats Pitch receiving 65 submissions from 23 countries.

Pitbull has announced his return to the UK and Europe with some new ‘Party After Dark’ summer shows. Check out the details below.The new announcement comes just days after the global megastar played a string of sold-out shows across Europe earlier this week, and following him completing his ‘Trilogy Tour’ last year.Now, he has confirmed that he is planning to head back across the pond later this summer for a new run of ‘Party After Dark’ tour dates, which will see him joined by Shaggy as a special guest.In total, 14 new shows have been added to the schedule, kicking off with an opening night at the 3Arena in Dublin on June 5.

Jamie Lang Beta Film is bringing the new high-end drama “Bookish” to this year’s London TV Screenings, and the post-WWII London-set crime series is generating plenty of buzz. A captivating new project created by “Sherlock” co-creator Mark Gatiss – who also leads the show’s cast – and screenwriter Matthew Sweet, “Bookish” promises viewers a sophisticated and modern exploration of post-WWII London, one that combines a cerebral crime drama with complex character dynamics and a nuanced view of the LGBTQ experience in a time of societal repression. Produced by Eagle Eye Drama in association with Happy Duck Films and supported by the Belgian Tax Shelter, the series is heading to UKTV’s specialist crime drama channel, U&Alibi.