print magazine features
Belgium’s Breaking Bad: Can Netflix make a grassroots production?
There are no stretch limos, no flashing veneers, and no “safe” stories – Netflix is pumping serious money into the European screen industry, but not as a massive studio house intent on churning out back-to-back blockbusters. They’re focused instead on giving local productions global reach through counsel, campaigns, and a whole lot of cash.
Boerentoren: Antwerp’s Art Deco icon to get new lease on life
Brussels has its Atomium. It also has the Grand Place, the Royal Palace and the Palais du Justice, often proudly grouped together on the postcards and magnets sold in souvenir shops and at the airport, or photoshopped into impossible proximity in a bid to both evoke an entire city in a skyline.
Antwerp, however, has the Boerentoren – the Farmers’ Tower.
online news stories
Belgium’s Jews lament ban on ritual slaughter
In Antwerp’s Jewish quarter, families filter in and out of Hoffy’s kosher restaurant cheerfully, making conversation with friends and neighbors as they look over the takeaway options at the front of the shop.
But for all the buzz and the delicious-looking spread, chef Moishy Hoffman is downbeat. “I am ashamed of what’s behind that glass,” he said.
Homeless crisis: 750 sleeping on streets, mayors ignore call for emergency shelters
The mayors of several Brussels municipalities have failed to reply to a request from the Brussels region to offer vacant buildings as crisis shelters for the homeless, as an estimated 750 people are left sleeping on the streets during what has recently been an especially cold winter.