Supported projects

BRUSSELS - Open your tap and close it again. The water you just saw was yours for two seconds before draining again. But what do you know about that water? Where does it come from and where does it go? And how long will it continue to flow from the tap?

NANYUKI - De Mens en de Hoorn is a project by Olivia Kortas and Kasper Goethals in collaboration with photographer Johannes De Bruycker. Based on the story of Najin and Fatu, the last two northern white rhinos on earth, they tell about the dysfunctional relationship between humans and their planet.

ALBANIA - Over the past 30 years, Albania has evolved at breakneck speed from an extreme communist dictatorship to an unbridled neoliberal democracy. This makes the country an interesting laboratory for contemporary social developments, such as migration, identity construction or gender and the social role of women. There is a lot to be said about this, because Albanian society has always been very patriarchal. Equality between men and women is hardly an issue.

BRUSSELS - How will this pandemic shape the next generation? The middle class is fighting a valiant battle to reconcile family and professional life, but the vulnerable are fighting the same battle with more limited resources.

PUYUELO - Only 15.8% of the total population still lives in the so-called Empty Spain, which covers just over half of the interior of the country. While Spanish cities have doubled or even tripled in size over the past century, the population in the interior of the country has barely increased.

SANAA - Yemen already suffered from a high rate of birth defects and infant mortality before the war, due in part to intrafamily marriages and lack of family planning, but the hospitals we visited in three different provinces are adamant that there has been an unprecedented increase since the war. 

LILONGWE - Malawi is one of the countries hardest hit by climate change. Major floods and extreme drought mean that the harvest fails year after year. Girls are then easy prey for human traffickers.

BRUSSELS - In the heart of Brussels, a stone's throw from the Parliament and the Royal Palace, nearly 100 West African migrants occupy a squat. Divided into seven bedrooms. For six years now.

LEUVEN - The European Commission gave Leuven the prestigious Green Leaf Award 2018 for its climate policy and, in its motivation for naming the city the European Capital of Innovation in 2020, referred to 'inspiring governance models' for getting residents, businesses and knowledge institutions to participate in that policy. However, Leuven's excellent climate performance is not evident from the figures of the past decade. 

BRUSSELS - On 22 March 2016, bombs explode at Zaventem airport and at Brussels' Maelbeek metro station. After the attacks in Paris and in other European cities, Belgium too is not escaping the terror of the Islamic State (IS). The explosions killed 35 people. More than three hundred people were wounded.

Although narcissism is a popular theme in today's media, there is also much confusion about it. This series explores what narcissism is and how destructive the consequences can be for people in close contact with a narcissist. The witnesses are former partners or relatives of.

ANTWERP - The corona virus has been raging through Europe for weeks. The cultural sector is locked up and the creators at home, for the time being without any perspective. Seven artists manage to draw resilience from stagnation and show that they can quickly switch to an alternative frame of mind like no other.

BRUSSELS - In the coming years, more forest should be created in Flanders. Minister Demir wants to invest 121 million euros to create 4,000 extra hectares of forest by 2024. A good thing, but how good are we at protecting and planting trees outside the forest?

BRUSSELS - Protests against police are flaring up and are increasingly visible on the streets of Brussels. Among the demonstrators there are strikingly many young people. "We want change, and that only seems possible if we take matters into our own hands," shouts law student Amira (19), who is at the front of the demonstration following the death of Ibrahima Barrie on 13 January.

FLEMISH-BRABANT - 20 May 2020. Inhabitants of Flemish Brabant municipalities received a compelling call to strictly limit their water consumption. Despite this, water consumption was abnormally high during this period. Citizens were worried, because in some municipalities there was hardly any water coming out of the tap for a few days. Rainwater wells were empty in many places.

NIEUWKERKE - Belgium is the world's largest exporter of frozen potato products. And that takes a lot of potatoes. An unprecedented Belgian success story. What does the chain look like behind that bag of frozen croquettes or that large packet of chips?

GEZNAKH - Atra is a documentary about Alexandro Yaramis' search for roots. He travels through former North Mesopotamia. He crosses Assyrian settlements that are in the middle of the conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK. When he hears that a church is being built in his father's village, Geznakh, he decides to make this important journey

HASSELT - Hunting of wild boar in Flanders increases exponentially. Despite restrictive measures because of the coronavirus, 2,196 wild boars were shot in 2020. More than twice as many as in 2016. Many hunters have been using modern, prohibited hunting tools such as night vision goggles in recent years. "If there is control, I can quickly shake it off my rifle," he says.

CONAKRY - Every year, hundreds of thousands of discarded and polluting cars from all over Europe are shipped from Belgium to West Africa. There the wrecks, which pose a threat to the health and safety of the population, can continue to travel hundreds of thousands of kilometres. Attempts to tackle this trade have come to nothing. Simon Oeyen and Arnaud De Decker went to Conakry, the capital of Guinea, in search of our old wrecks.

ANTWERP/ROTTERDAM - Heavily contaminated plastic waste from the Netherlands and the rest of Europe can be illegally exported via the port of Antwerp, unnoticed by inspectors, to countries where it ends up being dumped. Antwerp is an important hub for the international trade in plastic waste. But compared to the port of Rotterdam for example, it has too few inspectors and resources, which opens the door to criminal trade in plastic.

CAÏRO - Can you love a dictatorship? Well, no, but the Belgian journalist Ruth Vandewalle does not want to leave Egypt after more than ten years. Ten years after Tahrir, she goes looking for answers among her Egyptian friends. Their solution: create your own reality.

AL HOCEIMA - During the summer holidays, Europeans with a Moroccan migration background flock to Al Hoceima. For two months, the tourist resort in the Rif region is flourishing and there is work again. But it's only a little solace for the Rifine population that has to deal with a corrupt government and oppression on a daily basis.

GHENT - 'The Farm', is literally an old Belgian farmhouse outside of Ghent. From the seventies onward it was the operational base for young promising international riders. Michael Tvardovskiy lived at The Farm for eight years, after deserting the Ukranian army. When he got deported from Belgium, both this story and the Flemish cycling era came to and end.

ANTWERP - The port of Antwerp is considered to be the most important port for coca imports in Europe. Every year, tons of cocaine come here hidden on board container ships. The value of the smuggled cocaine is estimated to have a street value of tens of billions of kronor. 

BEVEREN - ‘Jailbirds’ intents to speak about the impact of the Covid-crisis and the lockdown, not only on a practical or economic level but to highlight mental processes and how it influences our psychological state. From a microcosmos: incarcerated life versus universal and collective uncertainty and the feeling of being deprived of physical and social freedom.

MINA DO BAROSSO - Lithium is the raw material we need en masse for batteries, including electric cars. Under Portuguese soil there is a lot of that 'white gold'.

BRUSSELS - This story tells how European border and migration policy is making life difficult for people on the Balkan route. Officially, the route is closed, but this research shows how it is still active.

BRUSSELS - Europe's Natura 2000 protected areas are groaning under nitrogen emissions from livestock farming. Meanwhile, farmers near nature reserves fear for their future. Due to conflicting policy choices, agriculture and nature conversation have become diametrically opposed. The call for a long-term vision is becoming louder and louder. What kind of agriculture do we want in Flanders?

STEKENE - It is not allowed to live in a recreation area. Yet people still live in a chalet or a caravan, or sometimes in a brick weekend residence. Sometimes these are people who find themselves in precarious financial circumstances. Pensioners, people coming out of a divorce, people who are ill, or who, in short, have a low income. They have found a housing solution that is acceptable to them and they are proud of it. They are not going to let it go.

DAVOS / ROSTOCK / GOTHENBURG - Climate change is making European summers ever drier and hotter, and not just in the south: During the extremely dry summer of 2018, the drought was mostly limited to the part of Europe north of the Alps. In many places, the summers of 2019 and 2020 were again unusually dry.