Composers, Filmmakers Sync Up at World Soundtrack Awards’ Film Music Days

The World Soundtrack Awards will mark its 26th year, further solidifying Ghent's status as the unofficial worldwide capital of film music. That connection took root during the 1980s, when Film Fest Ghent chose screen composition as its signature focus, a decision that eventually gave rise to the World Soundtrack Academy and the Awards around the turn of the millennium. Since then, the WSA has grown into a significant showcase and industry meeting point, typically unfolding alongside its parent festival rather than inside its main program. This year, that longstanding divide is being taken down.

Wim De Witte, who serves as program director for Film Fest Ghent and also heads the WSA's Film Music Days, expects much more interaction between visiting directors and composers. Previously, panels, roundtables, live performances, and the ceremony itself generally kicked off only after the main festival had begun winding down. This time, the WSA runs concurrently, creating more organic opportunities for filmmakers and composers to connect in concert environments. De Witte likened the old setup to a slim passage within the festival that mostly attracted film music devotees, and said the aim now is to open it up. For background, the World Soundtrack Awards is considered one of the few international prizes devoted solely to music composed for film, television, and video games, with past honorees including Hans Zimmer and Alexandre Desplat. That reputation has made the WSA a key calendar date for composers seeking both recognition and industry contacts.

Collaboration serves as the guiding theme for this year's edition, set for Oct. 8-10, one day after the festival opens with Coward, directed by Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont. The scheduling is fortunate: Belgium's Oscar submission, which Dhont describes as a musical about the repression of feeling, comes to Ghent with its core music team. The broader shift also stems from direct member feedback. Composers have noted that communicating with filmmakers can be difficult because each side speaks a different language, De Witte said, while directors have said it can be just as hard to express what they want from a score. Two talks will therefore explore that dynamic: how filmmakers approach music, how they communicate with composers, where music belongs, what style fits, and whether it should work against or heighten a scene.

The opening conversation features Dhont, his regular composer Valentin Hadjadj, and Coward music supervisor Pierre-Marie Dru. The second pairs director Edward Berger with his musical collaborator Volker Bertelmann, who records as Hauschka. Both sessions showcase enduring creative partnerships while highlighting two festival regulars: Dhont, who first attended as a guest and later served on the jury, and Bertelmann, a two-time WSA Film Composer of the Year. Edward Berger, for added context, directed the 2022 German-language adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, which earned four Academy Awards, including Best International Feature Film. Together these figures embody the WSA's goal of turning Film Fest Ghent into a incubator for film music. To that end, the program offers matchmaking and student networking sessions, and the industry days will feature Third Character, an annual film music market organized with Music & Cinéma Marseille that connects composers with producer-director teams developing new projects.

Those who question the approach need only consider Dhont and Hadjadj, who first met as students at a 2013 Third Character session in France and have since built a partnership that now brings them to Flanders. De Witte said that when people are introduced, it sometimes grows into a collaboration, citing the Coward duo as well as director Jacqueline Lentzou and rocker-composer Colin Stetson, who met on Ghent's 2023 jury and went on to make the Venice Horizons prize-winner A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra. Dhont also served on that same jury, making it a particularly fruitful year for the festival's matchmaking efforts.

Looking forward, WSA organizers believe an earlier weekend slot will draw more industry attendees and could create new ways to tackle familiar tensions. De Witte acknowledged that the team tries to avoid yet another AI panel, but whenever the boards are asked which topics deserve attention, AI keeps coming back. He added that members hardly need persuading that composers, not machines, should write the music. The people who need persuading, he said, are producers. Even as it welcomes new participants, the WSA plans to preserve the relaxed camaraderie that has made Ghent a draw for global talent. De Witte noted that composers often say they live in Los Angeles, just around the corner from one another, yet never meet there, only to finally connect in Ghent, a city that also happens to offer Belgian beer and chocolate.