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One of the earliest films shot in Belgium is Alexandre Promio’s Arrivée en bateau (1897). Lumière’s cameraman is being inventive, using the slowly moving boat to create a tracking shot of the skyline of Antwerp.

After the success of De Witte (1934), Jan Vanderheyden and his German-born concubine Edith Kiel  grew more confident about the future of Flemish film production and decided to try their hand at an operetta film set in Antwerp. The film was a critical failure: not only did the critics question the film’s nerveless script and general amateurism, but also its ‘non-Flemish’ nature and its slavish follow

Schipperskwartier was one of the greatest commercial successes of the film couple Edith Kiel & Jan Vanderheyden. In this scene we see and hear the popoular revue singer and actress Co Flower in the title song of the film. 

The Sailors’ Quarter (1953) is exemplary for the postwar Kiel & Vanderheyden production: music, laughter, romance and drama set in Antwerp. While the harbour is the general setting, typical sets are home-grown working class locales like a pub, a grocery store and a barbershop where locals walk in and out and gossip and backbiting reigns. The dialogues and songs are articulated in Antwerp dialect. Most Kiel

Pieter Vanhees’ Linkeroever (Left Bank, 2008) looks at the historic city center from the high rises on the left bank of the river Schelde. This rather remote setting, gives the films its awkward and desolate atmosphere. The tunnels connecting the left bank and the right bank (one for pedestrians and one for car traffic) play a central role in the development of the story. The film was co-financed by the Flemish