Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown has received the Audience Award of the LUX Prize competition during a special ceremony held at the International Film Festival of Karlovy Vary (4-12 July). In December 2013, the film won the main LUX Competition prize as voted on by members of the European Parliament.

This marks the first time there has been an audience vote in the LUX competition, with viewers throughout Europe choosing one of three finalists (the other two contenders were Valeria Golino’s Miele and Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant).

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Director Felix van Groeningen is one of 271 film professionals officially invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception in September, after which they will be able to vote for the Oscars. Van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown was nominated for the Foreign Language Film Oscar earlier this year.

The Academy invites artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.

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Hans Herbots’s thriller The Treatment is one of six European films which will be screened for US buyers and industry professionals in New York at the end of the month. Newly founded Brussels-based sales agency Be For Films is representing Herbots’s feature internationally.

The New York industry screenings are aimed at introducing new European films to North American buyers, focusing on pictures with significant festival chances and/or distribution potential. The private screenings take place at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York over a two-day period, with a sales representative of each film in attendance.

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Teodora Ana Mihai’s Waiting for August will compete in the documentary competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (4-12 July), Eastern Europe’s foremost festival. Also invited is Violet by Bas Devos, whose feature debut is set to screen in Another View, the programme dedicated to films with an unusual artistic approach.

The documentary competition in Karlovy Vary consists of 10 feature-length films and six shorts. Waiting for August follows Georgiana Halmac, a 15-year-old Romanian teenager living with her six siblings in a social housing block on the outskirts of Bacau

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Principal photography on Lukas Bossuyt’s directorial debut The Sum of Histories (working title) is scheduled to start on August 4. Set against a university backdrop in the city of Leuven in Belgium, the story combines elements of drama, romance and science fiction.

What would you do if you discovered a way to change the past? The Sum of Histories tells the story of Viktor, a brilliant young professor who discovers a way to send e-mails back in time. Now he can finally prevent the car crash that paralysed his wife, Lena, more than 20 years ago. But Viktor soon learns that changing the past is not risk-free.

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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is to present the work of director Caroline Strubbe, the first of the new batch of Flemish filmmakers to have her films selected by the prestigious cultural institute. Both her debut feature Lost Persons Area and her follow-up film I’m the same I’m an other will be screened on a daily basis throughout the first week of July.

‘Caroline Strubbe is a voice I haven’t heard before’, says Dave Kehr of the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art. ‘At times intimate, detailed and realistic, but at the same time enigmatic, evasive and with a lot of respect for the mystery of people and places. I’m very proud and honoured to be able to present these extraordinary films to New York audiences.’

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Flemish production companies Savage Film (producer of Oscar and César-nominated picture Bullhead) and Eyeworks Belgium (Ben X, The Verdict, Marina) are to join forces, with Eyeworks acquiring a minority stake in Savage Film. The two have been producing features (including Bullhead) and documentary films together since 2010.

Bullhead director Michael R. Roskam (whose Fox Searchlight pic The Drop will get an international release in September) has also become a minority partner in the company.

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Belgian films made in Flanders corner the market and bring home the prizes.

‘Talent Matters’ is the familiar slogan for promoting Belgian films made in Flanders. And talent certainly matters for Belgian audiences, who turned out in impressive numbers for local films in 2013.

At home, almost two million moviegoers bought tickets to Flemish films in 2013 – a 17% increase on 2012. More impressively still, over three quarters of the national admissions for Belgian films were for movies made in Flanders.

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Alleluia, the new film by Belgian director Fabrice du Welz, has been selected for this year’s Directors’ Fortnight (15-25 May), the independent section of the Cannes Film Festival, revealed artistic director Edouard Waintrop, announcing 19 features and 11 short films. Bart Van Langendonck of production hub Savage Film co-produced the film for Flanders.

Alleluia is du Welz’s fourth film after Calvaire, Vinyan and Colt 45. Although situated once more in the Belgian Ardennes, the story is loosely based on real events that shook the United States between 1947 and 1949.

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The Official Selection of the 67th Cannes Film Festival has been announced with Flemish actor Sam Louwyck starring in Alice Rohrwacher’s Le meraviglie. The Dardenne brothers also return to Cannes with Two Days, One Night, co-produced by Peter Bouckaert of Eyeworks. Finally, Ryan Gosling makes his directorial debut with Lost River, on which Nico Leunen worked as editor.

For Alice Rohrwacher’s Le meraviglie, a co-production between Italy, Switzerland and Germany, Flemish actor Sam Louwyck teams up with international stars Monica Bellucci (The Matrix Reloaded), Alba Rohrwacher (Io sono l’amore) and André Hennicke (A Dangerous Method).

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