Erik Van Looy

Erik Van Looy
200px Erik Van Looy in one of the three famous seats of De Slimste Mens ter Wereld (translation: The Smartest Person on Earth)
Born	Erik Ludovicus Maria Van Looy (1962-04-26) 26 April 1962 Deurne, Belgium
Residence	Borgerhout, Belgium
Nationality	Belgium
Occupation	Filmmaker & host on VIER
Known for	The Memory of a Killer, Loft, The Loft
Children	1 (a son)

Erik Ludovicus Maria Van Looy (Dutch: [ˈeːˌrɪk vɑn loːj]; born 26 April 1962, Deurne) is a Belgian film director. He is known for his thriller movies, a genre that is extremely popular in Belgium.

Erik is also a hugely popular television host in Flanders, most famously known for hosting "De Slimste Mens ter Wereld" (translation: The Smartest Person on Earth), but also for hosting "De Pappenheimers". The former is a television show aired on VIER where Erik Van Looy and his team of comical judges are on a quest to find the smartest person of the entire world (i.e., the one who has the best knowledge of politics, history, arts, sports, media and film). The show is known for having relatively high television ratings.

Awards and recognition

His most famous films The Alzheimer Case and Loft have been widely appreciated by the Flemish audiance as well as by the Flemish critics, with Loft even being the best watched Flemish movie in theaters up to now. Loft has got a Dutch remake in The Netherlands which was also a success. This resulted in an American remake which was again highly liked by the Flemish audiance and critics, but not by the American critics. The reason for Loft not being a success in the United States will be a cultural difference between the United Stated and Flanders/The Netherlands. As Erik Van Looy pointed out in Flanders/The Netherlands cheating on someone (by a male or a female) is not considered to be such a big deal (as long as you still love your partner), where in the US it caused the main characters to become all very unlikeable to the American audiance. The critique that the script made by Bart De Pauw contained too many plot twists in the end was however, a valid point which has also been made in Flanders. This however didn't let people find the movie less valuable because of the strong cast of the original film.

In Flanders in 2008 and 2009 Erik Van Looy also received the prestigious Flemish Television Award for "Best host", and received those same years together with his team of "De Slimste Mens ter Wereld" the Flemish Television Award for "Best Show, Category Entertainment".

Movies

The American actors of The Loft praised Van Looy's peaceful and calm directing style. This resulted in generally excellent on-screen performances which were also noted by the American audiance which although they found the characters highly unlikeble still gave the movie a B- on average. For some reason the American critics didn't agree with that, and found the characters "wooden", which was actually intended to give the movie a more European (as a piece of creativity) and less exuberent character, but was not as such interpreted by the American critics.

His most famous movies are:

• Ad Fundum (1993)
• Shades (1999)
• The Alzheimer Case (2003), this movie was also released in the United States as The Memory of a Killer
• Loft (2008)
• The Loft (2014), American remake of the 2008 film with the same name

Currently Erik Van Looy is working on his next title De Premier (translation: The Prime Minister).