Belgian and Famous Trivia Quiz

Answer: Christophe Deborsu

Deborsu was born in Namur (Wallonia) in 1965. He studied law at the university of Leuven (in Dutch) and media in Louvain-la-Neuve (in French). In 2006 he was one of the collaborators of the Walloon mockumentary "Bye Bye Belgium" (in Wallonia brought under the title "Tout ça ne nous rendra pas la Belgique"), a TV show styled as a special news bulletin announcing that Flanders had proclaimed its independence.
Soon after this controversial mockumentary, Deborsu obtained the weekly column "De Taalgrens" in the Flemish TV news, in which he commented on Walloon events. In 2007 he also appeared in the TV soap opera "Melting Pot Café" acting as a journalist. He also published a book entitled "Dag Vlaanderen: Hoe Walen echt leven en denken" - a title which I would translate as "Hello Flanders: How Walloons Really Live and Think". This book aimed for the Flemish people, was a nice try to approach Flanders and Wallonia.
Avermaete (1893-1988) was an Antwerp born author, who wrote mostly in French.
Leduc (1863-1934) was a lawyer and politician, who made it into the Belgian senate.
Raoul Tack (1895-1973) was a Brussels journalist and politician. Between 1946 and 1949 he was also a senator.

Answer: Piet Huysentruyt

"SOS Piet" was not the usual culinary TV show, in which a chef prepares a special recipe. Instead each episode started with an amateur trying to make a dish, which would inevitably result in an utter failure. Enter then Piet Huysentruyt, who observed every step in preparing the failure, and then correcting on several points. I recall one episode in which someone tried to make tomato soup for eight people, using only a single small tomato.
Piet Huysentruyt presented the show "SOS Piet" from 2004 to 2013. In 2022, a new episode was recorded on the occasion of Piet's 60th anniversary. Indeed: Huysentruyt was born in 1962 in Kortrijk (West-Flanders). He had a restaurant in Wortegem-Petegem (West-Flanders), but closed it because of the stress it caused him. Later on he opened another restaurant in the south of France.
Pieter Aspe (1953-2021) was a Bruges born author, best known for his mystery novels starring chief inspector Van In.
Piet Van Eeckhaut (1939-2014) was a lawyer and politician. He was born in Aalst (Alost) in East-Flanders.
Peter Bastiaensen (born 1960 in Wommelgem, province of Antwerp) was a TV actor, best known for his supporting roles in several crime series.

Answer: Cecile de France

Cécile de France was born in Namur in 1975. In 1991 she took up acting, in one episode of the TV series "Cas de Divorce" ("Divorce Case"). Her debut in full-length feature movies was in 2000 with "Regarde-moi en face" ("Look Me in the Eyes"), but her first main role was in "L'auberge espagnole" (2002) directed by Cédric Klapisch.
This movie is about six European students in their early twenties sharing an apartment in Barcelona during their university exchange year: the French student Xavier (Romain Duris), the English student Wendy (Kelly Reilly), the Italian student Alessandro (Federico d'Anna), the Danish student Lars (Christian Pagh), the German student Tobias (Barnaby Metschurat) and the Spanish student Soledad (Cristina Brondo). But Xavier's girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tatou) and the Belgian student Isabelle (Cécile de France) have equally important roles: the lesbian Isabelle teaches Xavier how to win Martine's love
Cédric Klapisch would make two sequels with Romain Duris, Cécile de France, Kelly Reilly and Audrey Tatou again as Xavier, Isabelle, Wendy and Martine: "Les poupées russes" ("Russian Dolls", 2005) set in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow when the main characters are thirty-something, and "Casse-tête chinois" ("Chinese puzzle", 2013) set in New York about ten years later.
Cécile de France has won two Césars (the highest movie awards in France) for her role as Isabelle. She also starred in "Le gamin au vélo" (2011, directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne), which earned her a nomination as Best Actress in the European Film Awards.
Emilie Dequenne (born 1981) is best known for her title role in "Rosetta" (1999), directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.
Virginie Efira (born 1977 near Brussels, having also the French nationality since 2016) is known for Paul Verhoeven's controversial movies "Elle" (2016) and "Benedetta" (2021).
Natacha Régnier (born 1974 near Brussels) is known for "La vie rêvée des anges" (1998) and "Les amants criminels" (1999).

Answer: Peter van den Begin

Peter van den Begin was born in 1964 in Berchem near Antwerp. He started his career with the TV show "Het sprookjestheater" (1979, I'd translate the title as "The Fairy Theatre") and took up his first movie role in 1986 in "De Paniekzaaiers" ("Flics Panic").
Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth directed the two movies mentioned in the question. In "King of the Belgians", King Nicolas III is visiting Turkey when he hears that Wallonia has separated from Belgium. He decides to return to his home country as soon as possible, but as the airlines are down, he decides to undertake a road trip through the Balkans. "The Barefoot Emperor" continues the road trip, but now King Nicolas III is promoted to Emperor of Europe.
Titus de Voogdt (born 1979) played King Nicolas' assistant Carlos De Vos in both movies.
Filip Peeters (born 1962) starred in "De Hel van Tanger" (2006).
Peter and his best friend Stany Crets (also born 1964) starred in the sketch TV shows "De Raf en Ronny show" and "Debby en Nancy".

Answer: Philippe Geluck

Philippe Geluck was born in Brussels in 1954. His first comic strips were published in 1974, but at that time he preferred working as a theatre actor in serious roles ("Romeo and Juliet", "Der Dreigroschenoper" or "Faust"). He also worked for the Walloon radio RTBF on the series "Le Jeu des Dictionnaires" ("The Dictionary's Game"), in which guests had to pick the correct definition for an unusual French word. This radio series is very similar to a subcategory of the Humanities on FunTrivia.
In 1980 Geluck married, and he sketched a large cynical cat on the announcements. This cat would later have a comic strip of its own, published daily in the Brussels newspaper "Le Soir". The success of this anthropomorphic cat has led to a spin-off, starring the offspring of the cat: "Le fils du chat".
Alex Agnew (born in Antwerp in 1972) is a stand-up comedian.
Mark Uytterhoeven is a producer and presenter of comic TV shows, such as "Alles kan beter" (a title which I'd translate as "Everything Can Be Better", 1997-1999) - a parody on the weekly news.
Annie Cordy (1928-2020) was a singer and actress.

Answer: Laura Wandel

The Film Festival in Cannes in 2022 had four movies from Belgium in different sections, and incredibly they all won some prize.
Laura Wandel (born 1984 in Brussels) showed her first full-length feature film, titled "Un Monde" ("Playground") in the section "Un Certain Regard", not the main selection but a selection dedicated to unusual movies. "Un Monde" was filmed at the playground of a school for children aged 6-12, and the camera was, during the whole movie, held at their shoulder height. It dealt with bullying: 7 year old Nora wants to intervene when other children bully her brother Abel, but Abel asks her not to tell anyone. A brilliant fiction drama in documentary style, "Un monde" won the International Film Critics Award.
Lukas Dhont (born 1991 in Ghent) visited Cannes with his second movie, "Close". He had already won the Caméra d'Or in the selection "Un Certain Regard" in 2018 for his movie "Girl", but now he entered the official competition. "Close" (2022), the story of two boys of 13 years old who feel attracted to each other, won the Grand Prix - the second most important prize at Cannes, after the Palme d'Or. It had to share the Grand Prix with the French movie "Stars at Noon" (2022) directed by Claire Denis.
Charlotte Vandermeersch (born 1983 in Oudenaarde, East-Flanders) and her partner Felix Van Groeningen (born 1977 in Ghent) directed the Italian spoken movie "Le Otto Montagne" ("The Eight Mountains" (2022)) about two teenaged boys living in the Alps. This movie won the Jury Prize in the official competition, together with the Polish movie "Eo" (2022) directed by Jerzy Skolimowski.
And then there were also the brothers Dardenne. Luc (born 1954) and Jean-Pierre (born 1951) - habitual visitors and prolific winners of the Cannes film festival. They won the Palme D'Or in 1999 with "Rosetta" and in 2005 with "L'enfant"; they also won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in 2002 for "Le Fils" and in 2014 for "Deux jours, un nuit"; they won the Best Screenplay award in 2008 for "Le silence de Lorna"; they won the Grand Prize of the Jury in 2011 for "Le gamin au vélo"; and they won Best Director in 2019 for "Le jeune Ahmed". Now in 2022 they competed with "Tori et Lokita", a movie about two young children who emigrated to Belgium without their parents. And the brothers Dardenne won the 75th Anniversary Prize. By the way, all of their movies shown at Cannes were at least nominated for the Palme D'or. What a list of honours: winners of the Palme d'Or in 1999 and 2005, nominated for the Palme d'Or in 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2016 ("La fille inconnue"), 2019 and 2022.

Answer: Wim Mertens

Wim Mertens was born in Neerpelt (province of Limburg) in 1953. He played piano and guitar, sang and composed. Many of his compositions such as "Struggle for Pleasure" are styled as minimal music. "Struggle for Pleasure" has been used in Peter Greenaway's movie "The Belly of an Architect" (1987) as well as in advertisements for Proximus, one of the main telecom companies in Belgium.
Ozark Henry (born 1970 as Piet Goddaer) was a singer, best known for his experiments with 3D sound (such as the song "21 Grams Short", used in a campaign for road safety).
André Brasseur (born 1939) was a harpsichord player and organ player. He gained fame with the 1965 song "Early Bird Satellite".
Fleddy Melculy is not a typo for the late front man of the band Queen, but a Flemish metal band. One of their studio albums was "And Just Niks for All" (2021).

Answer: Salvatore Adamo

Salvatore Adamo was born in Sicily in 1943, but moved to Wallonia in 1947. Since 2022 he has the double nationality of Italian and Belgian. He started his singing career in 1960 and was the first Belgian to sell over 100 million records worldwide. In about sixty years he sang over 850 songs, most in French but also in Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Spanish, Turkish and Japanese.
The song "Vous permettez, Monsieur?" was recorded in 1964 and is still considered his most popular song.
Will Tura (born 1940 in Veurne as Arthur Blanckaert) is another prolific singer-songwriter. His best known song is "Eenzaam zonder jou" (which I'd translate as "Lonely Without You").
Sandra Kim was born in 1972 as Sandra Caldarone. In 1986, she was the first Belgian winner of the Eurovision Song Festival with the song "J'aime la vie" (my translation: "I Love Life").
Belle Perez was born in Neerpelt (Limburg) in 1976. She had a great hit with "El Mundo Bailando" (translated: "The Dancing World").

Answer: Brussels Jazz Orchestra

Frank Vaganée was born in 1966 in Mechelen (province of Antwerp). Bo van der Werf was born in 1969. Together with the trumpeter Serge Plume and the trombonist Marc Godfroid they founded in 1993 the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, an orchestra similar to a jazz big band such as were popular in the forties. They made over 20 records, and also performed the soundtrack for the Oscar winning movie "The Artist" (2011).
La Petite Bande (founded by Sigiswald Kuijken) specializes in Baroque music on authentic instruments.
Jos Van Immerseel founded the orchestra Anima Eterna, best known for a very wide range of classical music (from the Baroque to the Twentieth Century) performed on authentic instruments.
Collegium Vocale was founded by Philippe Herreweghe in 1970. It specializes in vocal music from the Baroque and Renaissance period, although it has also recorded some works of Romantic composers.

Answer: Philip Catherine

Philip Catherine was born in 1942 in London, but his family moved to Belgium in 1948. There he learnt to play the guitar, and following the tracks of the other Belgian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt Philip chose jazz music. His first record appeared in 1971, and since then he recorded several dozen records; over 30 records as the leading musician, and over 80 as a supporting musician. In 1998 he was honoured as best European jazz musician.
Toots Thielemans (1922-2016) was a famous Belgian jazz musician, known for playing the guitar and especially the mouth organ.
Bert Joris (born 1957) was a jazz trumpeter.
Jeroen Van Herzeele (born 1956) played the saxophone.