Supported projects

VIENNA - The fact that Vienna was named the most liveable city in the world in 2024 for the third year in a row by The Economist is largely due to its generous social housing policy. The central question in this dossier is “what can Flanders learn from Vienna in terms of social, affordable housing”?

CHURCHILL/DULUTH/NUUK - Some places in the world, due to their strategic location, are proving to be unexpected havens in the face of the relentless onslaught of climate change.

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - In June 2020, following protests in the United States, colonial heritage in Belgium became fiercely debated.

KIEV - In January 2024, Dutch investigative journalist Linda van der Pol and Belgian photographer Gena Kagermanov traveled to Ukraine to investigate the impact of the Russian invasion on the Ukrainian cultural sector in several cities.

LEUVEN - In the project "Does the Appeltans process bring an end to more than 20 years of slum landlords?" Arne Sonck investigated the power of slum landlords in Leuven. He brings to light how the Leuven landlord Appeltans was able to build a real estate empire by coloring outside the lines, and why the Leuven administration was able to watch this alone for a long time.

ESSEN/HOOGSTRATEN/PUTTE - Belgian real estate agents are seeing more and more Dutch people moving across the border, in a desperate attempt to find an affordable house in the border region. What does that do to life in a border region. Apache and OC Spit traveled from Essen across Hoogstraten to Putte and spoke with owners.

LUXEMBOURG - Worldwide, public transport is already free, either fully or partially, in more than 275 cities and regions. However, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is an outlier, having become the first country in the world to make all trains, trams and buses completely free for both residents and foreign visitors on 1 March 2020.

GEORGETOWN - On behalf of US oil giant ExxonMobil, Belgian company Jan de Nul (together with partners) is building an artificial island off the coast of Guyana, South America.

BRUSSELS - After a delay of more than six months, the GATE drug consumption room opened its doors in the Belgian capital on 5 May 2022. Can this project succeed in Brussels and can this harm prevention tool be developed in other cities in Belgium, Europe and in Flanders?

BRUSSELS - Last summer, a fire breather suddenly appeared in Brussels. Photographer Kristof Vadino became intrigued by the mysterious entertainer and started following the man.

BRUSSELS - In 2013, the Belgian television programme Panorama delved into the world of urban black gangs. The members spoke openly about life and survival on the streets of Brussels. Now, eight years later, they look back on their tough youth. Did they succeed in choosing the right path? Does the past still haunt them?

BRUSSELS - In the almost built-up Flanders (northern region of Belgium), land is a precious commodity. Who are the large landowners who own hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of hectares of land in Flanders? Who are the real estate investors who own whole streets in cities or have their eye on certain neighbourhoods? Why do they do it? What is the return?

ANTWERPEN - Antwerp is being undermined. The port of Antwerp is the biggest cocaine import port in Europe. The drug crime creates invisible criminality that affects life in the city.

Ledeberg has a long history. In the Middle Ages, in the shadow of the city walls of Ghent, two rural settlements arose along the roads to Brussels and Geraardsbergen. Between 1860 and 1870, in the context of the industrial revolution, Ledeberg became one of the fastest growing suburbs of Ghent. Cotton factories, a brickworks and several shipbuilding yards sprang up along the banks of the Scheldt. Straight streets were laid out, connected by countless narrow alleys, in order to build as many small and cheap workers' dwellings as possible. Ledeberg changed into a densely populated urban area. Only the chaussée de Bruxelles remained a green lung for a while because of the many large flower shops that were located there.

LEUVEN - One consequence of Leuven being an expensive city to live in is that many people are forced to move elsewhere. The City Monitor showed in 2017 that 15 percent of residents had plans to do so. No less than 56 percent cited financial reasons for this.

ANTWERP - The 40-year war in Afghanistan is pushing more and more Afghans to become refugees. Their numbers are also increasing in Belgium. In the port city of Antwerp, Afghans have become the fifth largest nationality group. Gie Goris went to Antwerp and listened to older and younger, male and female, Pashtu and Dari-speaking refugees and migrants from the war-torn country.

BRUSSELS - 'Back to Bled' is a contemporary story about the connection between the city and the countryside, starting in multicultural Brussels. The core of the documentary is friction; friction between city and countryside, ecology and economy, healthy versus cheap, connected versus uprooted.

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.

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. 

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.

BELGIUM - At the beginning of 2007, the Belgian FC Bruges launched plans for a new football stadium. A professional club derives a large part of the resources it needs from a modern and attractive stadium to maintain itself at the top in Belgium and to be able to participate somewhat internationally. But at the end of 2018, FC Bruges still does not know whether it can build. 

KAKUMA - How do you build a home in a place called nowhere? Filmmaker Lieven Corthouts decided to stay in one of the harshest places on earth and make this camp his home.

AUSCHWITZ - Auschwitz evokes images of wooden barracks and gas chambers in which millions of Jews were gassed and burned during the Second World War. But it is also an average Polish village where 40,000 people live who are ordinary bakers, postmen or IT consultants.

GHENT - In 2014 it will be exactly fifty years ago that the first Turkish labour migrants arrived in Ghent to work in the defunct textile factories. Today, more than 20,000 inhabitants of Ghent (about one in twelve) have their roots in Turkey. How Ghent became a small 'Turkey on the Leie' in half a century is the central question in this book about the people behind those numbers.

BRUSSELS - With its large Islamic population, the majority of whom are of Moroccan descent, Brussels has become the capital of Islam in Europe.

NICOSIA - Since its foundation, the European Union has worked to achieve border integration. Nevertheless, new borders are still being created and existing ones are being strengthened, especially within cities. Now that national borders are more permeable than ever due to globalisation, the strongest conflicts are related to urban space.

OSTEND - Rumours about the people in power in Ostend (Belgium) are growing louder: exceeding authority, conflicts of interest, the strange roll basketball plays in the political and socio-economic fabric. Investigative journalists Wim Van den Eynde and Luc Pauwels decided to have a closer look at Johan Vande Lanotte, Deputy Prime Minister - and one of the most influential politicians - of Belgium.

BRUSSELS – For the first time, Lusobelgae sheds light on the Portuguese community in Brussels, from the first wave of migration in the 1960s (political and economic refugees fleeing the Salazar regime) to the present day. The community is divided between traditional labour migration and EU officials, and there is a young generation who want to break free from the closed community and engage with wider society.