12 January 2018

Elected als co-chairman of the Belgian Society of Cinematographers (SBC)

a new SBC presidency

At the Action 18 event in Brussels the general assembly of the SBC gathered to elect a new presidency and board, as the current  President, Willy Stassen, was stepping out after 10 years of dedication to the association.The 35 SBC members present decided unanimously for a co-presidency, to be occupied by Lou Berghmans and Louis Philippe Capelle. They will be aided by a new board consisting of Willy Stassen, Kommer Kleijn, Anton Mertens, Philip Van Volsem, Pierre Gordower, and Ella van den Hove.

Also at the meeting five new members were accepted into the society bringing the total to 67 members.Eline Kirschfink, Virginie Surdej, David Williamson, Rik Zang and Brecht Goyvaerts join our ranks.Lou Berghmans started making short films with his friend and later director Dominique Deruddere at the age of 14. This let him to attend the RITCS film school in Brussels where he graduated in 1981. He made his debut as a feature film DOP on the film by Willem Wallyn titled ” film 1″. Further credits include the films Ben X ( Nic Balthazar), Marina ( Stijn Coninx), the hell of Tanger and Van Vlees en bloed ( Frank Van Mechelen) and tv series De Ronde ( Jan Eelen) and Salamander ( Frank Van Mechelen). Besides being a DOP, between 1983 and 2010 Lou together with The Checkpointcharlies managed several rock bands including The Scabs, Stash, Tubelight, 1060 and the TV chef Jeroen Meus.Louis Philippe Capelle graduated from the INSAS film school in 1978. This let him to work as cinematographer on numerous documentaries before moving on to shoot features and tv films. In 2005 he won a bronze frog at the Camerimage festival for the film Nuit Noire by Olivier Smolders. His 5 year  involvement in the post house Hoverlord put him at the forefront of digital cinema. Besides his current occupations as a business manager at the rental company Eye-lite,  he also has long standing and well respected career as board member and administrator of Imago, a collaborative global umbrella for the world´s Cinematographers Societies.

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Lou Berghmans (Co-President)Louis-Philippe Capelle (Co-President)Ella Van Den Hove (Secretary)Philip Van Volsem (Secretary)Pierre Gordover (Treasurer)Willy StassenKommer KleijnAnton Mertens 

Mission statement SBC

From a few initial contacts in 1993 between Pierre Lhomme in Paris and Luciano Tovoli in Brussels the idea emerged to create a Belgian society of professional directors of photography. On April 4th Tovoli invited about ten Belgian D.O.P.’s at an informal meeting, which was followed a week later by the decision to found the desired association. On December 11th of the same year the bilingual statutes were signed for publication in the “Moniteur”, the official Belgian statute book.These ten founding members are: Michel Baudour, Raymond Fromont, André Goeffers, Michel Houssiau, Jean-Claude Neckelbrouck, Patrice Payen, Willy Stassen, Walther Vanden Ende, Yves Vandermeeren, Michel Van Laer. The SBC, short for BELGIAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS, resolves to defend the quality of work of the D.O.P.’s who are active in the better film production. It intends among other things to represent the D.O.P.’s with public authorities, in particular with IMAGO, which acknowledged the SBC as “active member”. This occurred in Rome on September 3rd and 4th, 1994.

The SBC works towards the following goals:

1 – Promoting the work of the D.O.P.

2 – Participating in manifestations, commissions, meetings, etc… related to

3 – Education, creativity, distribution, reproduction and archiving the cinematographic image;

4 – Protecting the recognition of the D.O.P. as author of the cinematographic image.

The SBC refrains from any activity related to trade unions, philosophy, politics or religion.