BRUSSELS – Today, September 16th, the FISU Headquarters ‘Château de la Solitude’ was the setting for a Flemish TV Show. The show called ‘Man bijt hond’ (Man bites dog/ http://www.een.be/programmas/man-bijt-hond) is a human interest program from production house Woestijnvis (www.woestijnvis.be) that is aired daily on primetime, after the 7 o’clock news on Channel One (één), with re-runs at midnight and at noon the following day. It is a very successful show that is going on for 13 years now.
The particular episode filmed at the FISU mansion is part of a new series within the program called ‘Memories’, where a TV crew takes a person for a walk on memory lane to a place of his youth bringing back some fond memories.
In this particular case it was Mr. Jef Van Doorslaer, whose parents where showpeople who worked at the travelling carnival in the sixties. In that period, the FISU HQ was a boarding school for children of traveling showpeople. Mr. Van Doorslaer, a showman himself, stayed at the defunct boarding school from 1960 to 1966.
During his visit of the current FISU HQ he had some fond memories of his school years, returning after 44 years. ‘The library used to be the children’s refectory’, Mr. Van Doorslaer explained. ‘And the adjacent office of FISU Secretary-General/CEO Eric Saintrond was the kitchen.’ The office of Financial Director Uyan Bekhbat used to be the office of the School Principal. ‘He was a severe looking man with a dark beard and mustache’, the former pupil remembers. ‘If you ended up in this office, you definitely did something wrong. I stood here a couple of times’, Mr. Van Doorslaer chuckled.
The shooting of the program started at 9am and lasted until 2pm and will be aired in the upcoming weeks.
Christian Pierre, FISU Press Officer
Mr. Jef Van Doorslaer
