Balzac

Lionel on July 15, 2026 at 6:42 am

The Balzac had about 200 seats and was part of the building housing the “Hotel de Suède”. Everything was demolished in the late 1970s to make room for the Galerie Opéra shopping mall that opened in September 1981 and housed the six-screen Ciné Opéra multiplex.

The Balzac was essentially showing foreign films in their original languages with subtitles. In the early 1950s, “Hamlet” with Laurence Olivier played for a month. It should be noted that, even as a French dubbing had been made for Hamlet, the version shown at the Balzac was the English-speaking one. This is an example of how Liège always was receptive to foreign art films shown with subtitles, contrary to other cities of Wallonia where dubbing is the norm and films like Hamlet aren’t playing at all.