Culture beat - March 28

Belgium’s love affair with fantasy comes alive once a year with the Brussels International Fantastic Film Fair from Tuesday until April 13. The 31st edition swaps Tour & Taxis for the more spacious Bozar in a programme offering more than 100 feature films, many of them premieres. BIFFF opens on April 2 with Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, part of an Irish film focus that includes a retrospective of the director’s work. Among the many hair-raising events is the Zombifff Parade, which attempts to awaken the dead from the Royal Park to La Monnaie on April 6.

The Irish theme continues until Ireland’s EU presidency ends on June 30. Belgo-Irish singer-songwriter Perry Rose showcases his ninth album, Wonderful, at Wolubilis on April 18. Rose has been performing his melodic brand of Celtic pop for more than two decades, and his latest opus is an upbeat playlist that is guaranteed to inspire a jig when performed live.

One of the traditional Easter pieces of music is Bach’s masterpiece St Matthew Passion, first performed on Good Friday in 1727. Here in Brussels it will be performed for the same occasion at Holy Trinity Church tomorrow. The gospel narrative and meditation on Christ’s suffering is performed by Holy Trinity choirs, professional soloists and orchestra plus students from the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and Antwerp. Entry is free, but because of the limited number of seats you need to register online (full; returns only).

School holiday activities for kids are running at Bozar with workshops surrounding the Antoine Watteau exhibition from Wednesday until April 24. There are discovery trails for children aged six and up in French and Dutch on April 3 and 10. A Family Day (for ages three and up) on April 28 pays tribute to the musicality of Watteau’s paintings with a party in Horta Hall and interactive tours of the exhibition. Over at Bronks, the over-12s will be taking over the Flemish youth theatre for the bulk of the holidays and from Friday until April 7, they are invited to participate in the multidisciplinary Bronks XL Festival. The highpoint is the Dutch-language show Sorry voor alles. There are other performances without dialogue. 

Outside Brussels

If you want to truly test your French-language skills check out Slovenian-Swiss comedian Gaspard Proust, the joker du jour in France, where he presents a weekly caustic review on Canal+. He presents his one-man show Gaspard Proust tapine on April 23 in Namur (just sold out) and Louvain-la-Neuve on April 24. 

The work of British artist Maria Marshall is frequently disturbing. She films her own children in a series of large-scale video productions, a selection of which form the exhibition I Love You, Mummy, I Hate You at Mac’s in Site du Grand-Hornu until June 2. The short, mainly silent films all relate to a memorable video shown at the contemporary art facility in 2002. Entitled Don’t Let the T-Rex Get the Children, the 1999 film is a prime example of how Marshall borrows familiar codes of advertising aesthetics to produce disturbing images.