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Curator's text Jean-Paul Tréfois, 1990
Carré Noir/RTBF
It is never enough to stress that Belgium is a small 10 million inhabitants country where coexists two communities of totally different cultures and languages: the French-speaking community and the Flemish community, which did not experience the same development along their TV and video movie production history.
Flanders developed essentially a cultural policy which should reflect its understandable and legitimate need to establich a Flemish culture, in spite of the French culture imposed sometimes even with arrogance by the people from the South of Belgium. The Flemish TV (BRT) is located in Brussels, is spite of the predominance there of the French language. The French TV (RTBF), on the other hand, spread its production centers between Brussels and Wallonie.
The public aid has ocurred very differenty in the two parts of the country with the Flemish region privileging some more prestigious productions while the French part, a little less disturbed by identity problems was more flexible as to the emergence of talent whose reputation far outreached the borders of Belgium: from André Delvaux to Chantal Akerman, not to mention foreign producers welcomed by their internationally known school - INSAS, like Mary Jimezes and Michel Khlefi.
The video industry has experienced this same difference: The almost total neglect by Flanders of a segment considered minor and unprofitable, both culturally and economically, and an astonishing growth (two consecutive first places at Montbéliard), of the video industry in the region of Wallonie even though, ironically and paradoxically, sometimes under the responsability of foreign professionals.
So, the Belgian video was born in the French region, favored by three additional factors at the same time technical, economic, and cultural. Belgium, as we know, had the originality of being the first European country totally covered by cable TV, but it was in Wallonie that this technology was installed in the first place, beginning with their local difusion facilities and then expanding in the mid 70's to the community TVs. By the way, some videographers gave their first steps on these TVs (Jean Calude Riga or Rob Rombout, both winners in Montbéliard).
The lack of movie industry in Belgium led independent producers to associate in half-public half-private audiovisual production associations and to participate in the development of video-creation on the Belgiuan French-speaking community.
The TV show "Vidéographie" had an essential role in the Belgian video production. In the mid 70's it transmitted from the RTB center in Liége, for the first time in Europe, complete productions of the pioneers of the American video, such as Nam June Paik, Les Vaskula, P. Campus.
Then "Vidéographie" changed its name twice. The transmissions was renamed "Lumière Bleue" and more reclently "Carré Noir".
But the basics of the program has always been the same: to give financial aid/or technical support to independent productions.
8th Fotoptica Internacional Video Festival. 09 a 15 de Novembro de 1990. p. 22 e p. 23