Felix van Groeningen

Felix van Groeningen (born 1 November, 1977; Ghent) is a Belgian filmmaker. He is known for The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) and Belgica (2016), with the former being nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards. He made his English-language debut with the biographical drama Beautiful Boy (2018).

Van Groeningen was born in Ghent. His parents were hippies who led a very liberal lifestyle. He has an older brother, Seppe. After his parents’ divorce, they lived in the same house, but each with a new partner. His father started a live music club ‘The Charlatan’ when he was twelve-years-old, which became the inspiration for his film Belgica. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) and graduated in 2000 with a Masters of Audiovisual Arts, his masters thesis was the short film 50CC. After graduating from college, van Groeningen directed several short films, and written and directed several stage plays. He embarked on a long-term collaboration with Dirk Impens, originally his professor at KASK, who produced all five of Van Groeningen’s feature films from 2004 to 2016 under his production company Menuet. Impens announced he was closing down Menuet in July 2017.

He and Belgian actress Charlotte Vandermeersch have a son, Rufus, who was born in 2018. He is fluent in several languages, including Flemish Dutch, French, and English.