The World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent, Belgium is restructuring its annual Film Music Days to run alongside the parent Film Fest Ghent rather than after it, aiming to increase integration between filmmakers and composers. This change addresses a key challenge in the film scoring industry: communication barriers between directors and composers who often struggle to articulate their musical vision and understand each other's creative language.

The Film Music Days will run 8–10 October, featuring talks between established director-composer partnerships including Lukas Dhont with Valentin Hadjadj and Edward Berger with Volker Bertelmann. The expanded programme includes matchmaking sessions, student networking, and Third Character, an annual film music market that pairs composers with producers and directors developing new projects. The initiative builds on Ghent's track record as a collaboration incubator—Dhont and Hadjadj themselves met at a Third Character event in 2013, whilst director Jacqueline Lentzou and composer Colin Stetson met on Ghent's jury in 2023 before collaborating on the Venice prize-winner "A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra."