‘C'est arrivé près de chez vous - Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde’

On 15 September, BOZAR CINEMA will treat film buffs to C’est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog), undoubtedly Belgian cinema’s most famous black comedy and a masterpiece of scathing humour. The screening – organised on the occasion of the 50/50: Fifty years of Belgian cinema, Fifty years of discoveries campaign – will take place in the presence of André Bonzel.

Exactly 25 years ago, audiences at the Cannes Film Festival got to watch C’est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog) for the very first time. The film was initially intended for national release, but from the outset it proved to be an incredible popular and critical hit, and ended up being shown all over the world. In a few short months, the film gave a fresh boost to Belgian cinema and had a cult following for an entire generation.

The film denounces the voyeurism of reality TV before it was even a ‘thing’. Each day Ben (Benoît Poelvoorde) earns his living, and that of others, as a hitman. He kills the retired, postmen and other ‘insignificant’ people, but never big fortunes, so as not to attract attention. Ben agrees to have a film team follow him and, as their friendship develops, the team becomes more and more complicit.

On the occasion of 50 years of support for filmmaking in the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, last June the Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel (CCA) launched the 50/50: Fifty years of Belgian cinema, Fifty years of discoveries campaign which pays homage to 50 films which have influenced the history of French-speaking Belgian cinema. BOZAR, and its partners Flagey and CINEMATEK, will be putting on a series of screenings until June 2018.