About Avila

Avila is a non-profit organisation based in Brussels, distributing auteur cinema in theatres and online. Founded by filmmakers, Avila proposes both contemporary works and timeless classics, spanning across documentary, fiction and experimental films, reflecting a wide diversity of voices. 

What brings these films together is not a genre, but a stance: they are shaped by distinctive, often surprising perspectives, and made by filmmakers with a strong cinematic signature who resolutely approach cinema as an art form. Through their work, these filmmakers search, question and are unafraid to take risks, capturing the complexity of the world they inhabit and explore. Their films resonate as much aesthetically as socially.

Avila was created in 2020 to help Belgium’s rich output of unique, bold, and innovative films, many of which often remain under-seen, find a wider public. As of 2026, we bring these works into conversation with kindred auteur films from around the world, while keeping Belgian cinema at the heart of our mission. Above all, the focus remains on giving audiences the opportunity to discover films of great artistic and cultural relevance that would otherwise remain under the radar, as they fall outside commercial logic.

• On the Big Screen: As a film distributor, Avila brings Belgian films (both new productions and re-releases) to the big screen in the Benelux. Through carefully tailored distribution strategies and contextualised screenings in cinemas and other social and cultural venues, Avila makes underexposed films visible and gives (forgotten) classics a new life. Thanks to this care, each screening becomes a meaningful moment of encounter and exchange.
• Watch Online: Avila’s streaming platform brings together a rich and thoughtfully curated selection of titles, most of them accessible worldwide. The catalogue places Belgian films in dialogue with an international selection driven by the same artistic and intellectual standards. In doing so, Avila aims to reveal resonances and spark connections across cinematic landscapes.