Flanders (i) Magazine #29 - Summer 2014

TAKE 29 | SUMMER 2014 | E 3.99

GUST IS BACK

VAN DEN BERGHE ON THE MAKING OF LUCIFER

FIGHTING SPIRIT

PETER BOUCKAERT FIGHTS FOR THE FILMS HE PRODUCES

JÉRÉMIE REIGNS

RENIER PUTS ON STELLAR PERFORMANCE IN WASTE LAND

NATALI BROODS JONAS GOVAERTS PIETER VAN HEES NICO LEUNEN KOEN MORTIER MICHAËL R. ROSKAM EMILIE VERHAMME #talentmatters

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Jérémie Renier Waste Land brought the actor into unknown territory. It’s the first time that he worked with a Flemish director Gust Van den Berghe For his third feature Lucifer the director got inspired by a play by one of the most important Dutch writers of the 17th Century

T H E M AG AZINE

i-opener A look at Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Cannes competition entry Two Days, One Night

Talent Matters Featuring Stef Aerts, Felix van Groeningen, Nicolas Karakatsanis, Nico Leunen, Sam Louwyck, Teodora Ana Mihai, Koen Mortier, Matthias Schoenaerts, and many others

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48 Coming Attractions Michaël R. Roskam’s long awaited follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Bullhead is now almost ready to be unveiled

Emilie Verhamme The starting point for her feature debut Eau zoo was the way Western society seems to excuse the mistreatment of children elsewhere in the world on the grounds that different norms apply

Peter Bouckaert When a film succeeds, like Marina and The Verdict recently, the producer is used to being told that he has done nothing special

Jonas Govaerts The young director used his memories of being a boy scout for his feature debut, Cub

Natali Broods The actress likes directors who are open to new things, who are not too rigid, but who have everything in hand

Pieter Van Hees Waste Land completes Pieter Van Hees's ‘Anatomy of Love and Pain’ trilogy, and continues the director's calculated manipulation of movie conventions

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PITCH / Every morning, Zino the rooster encourages four chickens to lay a big egg, because a big-egg-a-day keeps the butcher away!

ALSO AVAILABLE / Series 1 (39 x 7’)

CREATED/DIRECTED BY // Travelling Niko Meulemans through the PITCH PRODUCTION COMPANY / 1st-day countryside and towns to the Belgian LANGUAGE / English (USA), Russian, Dutch, coast, Archibelge! takes French, an unusual Norwegian, Spanish, Indonesian, lookPortuguese, at the thought behind,…and the DURATION / 25 x lifestyle 7’ of people living in everyday YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2015 Belgian architecture.

CONTACT / Melanie Chabrier / melanie@1st-day.com INT’L SALES / Mediatoon / www.mediatoon.com

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CREATED/DIRECTED BY // Over Agnesthe Lecreux, Benyears, Tesseur, PITCH last few the Steven De Beul, Fabien world Drouet of the contemporary arts has PRODUCTION COMPANY / Vivement Lundi! (FR), been subject to drastic change.

Beast Animation (BE), Film taste (CH) is no longer Our Nadasdy modern-day LANGUAGE / French, Dutch by museums or critics determined DURATION / 26 x but 5’ + by 1 xdealers 26’ and rich collectors.

YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013-2014 Art Collectors offers a look into the CONTACT / Ben Tesseur / ben@beastanimation.be different processes involved in the INT’L SALES / France Télévisions Distribution / actual micro-economy of art business. www.tvfrance-intl.com

ART COLLECTORS

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AMATEURS

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PITCH / Dimitri, a little bird from northern Europe has landed on the plain of Ubuyu in Africa. Every day he learns to overcome his fears and discovers a world full of surprises. In Ubuyu being different is an asset that he will share with Makeba the giraffe, Oko the zebra and Pili the meerkat.

ORIGINAL TITLE / ART COLLECTORS

/ Kika & Bob travel the world to bring back Tilly, the price pigeon of Miss Haakmans, who has captured Kika’s beloved cat Tiger and won’t let him go until she has her Tilly back.

ALSO AVAILABLE / Series 1 (26 x 13’) PITCH

CORDON

VOICE CAST / (English) Verbaan, PITCHGeorgina / In Grand Central

Belge, Frieda Lenny Mark Irons,Van Richard Wells, Vincent Wijck walks alongBal, the 19thTess Bryant, Chriscentury Brookerprivate railway line of the CREATED/DIRECTED BY name, / Yannick Zanchetta, same which linked Wallonia and Paul De Blieck Flanders and which was predominantly PRODUCTION COMPANY Walking The (BE),of used to/ transport theDog riches Superprod (FR), Submarine (NL) region to the Port of the Charleroi LANGUAGE / English, French, Dutch Antwerp.

flandersimage.tv

KIKA & BOB 2

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toils away latest amateur production. playwright and CONTACT / Eric would-be Goossens /director eric.goossens@offworld.be / Jan Delvo, the Frederik Nicolai /troupe’s frederik@offworld.be spirited efforts often outweigh INT’L SALES / Offtheir World / www.offworld.be talent.

Company president Jos is hell-bent on reversing their fortune, even if it means replacing Jan with a 2013 professional director.

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CREATED/DIRECTED BY/ /Everyday Frank Vanlife Den PITCH in Engel, the centre

CONTACT / Eric Goossens / DE RIDDER GRAND CENTRAL BELGE

MIPTV 2014 I BOOTH P-1.E56

Tina Maerevoet, Griet Dobbelaere, Peter Van Gucht promising Belgian national soccer

Christine Parisse, fervor Federico Milella and suspense of this Belgian

PRODUCTION COMPANY Fabrique D’Images (LUX), football/ renaissance both on and

Skyline Entertainment (BE), Grid Animation (BE) the pitch.

T +32 2 226 0630 / F +32 2 219 1936 / E flandersimage@vaf.be LANGUAGE / English, Dutch, French DURATION / 52 x 11’ YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013-2014 CONTACT / Mark Mertens / mark@grid-vfx.com With thanks to the producers that supplied information.

INT’L SALES / Planet Nemo Animation / PHOTO CREDITS Cordon ©Maarten De Bouw / Homegrown ©Frederik Beyens / PERCY’S TIGER TALES DEADLINE HERE COME THE BELGIANS De Ridder ©Johan Jacobs / Deadline 25/5 ©vtm / www.planetnemoanimation.com ORIGINAL TITLE / PERCY’S TIGER TALES (PERCY ET SES AMIS)

the

off

COMPILED AND EDITED BY Christian De Schutter / Saidja Callewaert / DESIGN Karin Pays / PRINT Wilda /

ORIGINAL TITLE / IEDEREEN DUIVEL

CONTENT_MIP2014_docs.indd 1

sealed off

(English, Dutch, a French, German subtitles) contagious and deadly virus, which DURATION / 10 xspreads 26’ like wildfire. Tens of people YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2015 left to their own devices. are suddenly CONTACT / Eric It Goossens / eric.goossens@offworld.be / brings out the very best in them, but Frederik Nicolai /also frederik@offworld.be the worst...

INT’L SALES / Off World / www.offworld.be

BAKE MATCH

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WITH / Frieda Van Wijck/ (host) PITCH Helena De Ridder is a young CREATED/DIRECTED BY / Peter Vandekerckhove and ambitious public prosecutor. Week

BENIDORM

PITCH / Three contestants CAST / Liesa Van Der Aa, Wouter Hendrickx,per episode put Veerle their baking skills to the test, with Tom Dewispelaere, Baetens, the public deciding upon the winner.

Geert Van Rampelberg SCRIPTED BY / Carl Joos DIRECTED BY / Tim Mielants PRODUCTION COMPANY / Eyeworks LANGUAGE / Dutch DURATION / 10 x 50’ YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2014 (in post-production) CONTACT / Peter Bouckaert / peter.bouckaert@eyeworks.tv INT’L SALES / Eyeworks Distribution / www.eyeworks.tv

PITCH / Elderly people are the Damen, main CAST / Clara Cleymans, Michaël Pas, Katelijne

protagonists in this edgy hidden Lynn Van Royen, Dahlia Pessemiers-Benamar show. They get out on the SCRIPTED BY / camera Rik D’hiet with only one in mind: DIRECTED BY / street Lars Goeyvaerts, Tomgoal Goris playing pranks on young PRODUCTION COMPANY / Eyeworks, VRT people.

LANGUAGE / Dutch DURATION / 13 x 50’ YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013 CONTACT / Peter Bouckaert / peter.bouckaert@eyeworks.tv BASTARDS 2 / Eyeworks Distribution / www.eyeworks.tv INT’L SALES

ORIGINAL TITLE / DEADLINE 25/5

25/03/14 11:29

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DURATION / 12 x 52’

YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013

CONTACT / Sue Green / sue.green@tnfp.tv

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PITCH / Two sets of two celebrities who CAST / Charlotte Vandermeersch, are good friends travelRuth to aBecquart, foreign Peter Van den Begin, Koen De Bouw, Marc Lauwrys location and compete against each other, testing out Rudy how well they really CREATED BY / Ed Vanderweyden Morren, knowGeert each Bouckaert, other.

Nicholas Roelandts, Dirk Nielandt DIRECTED BY / Maarten Moerkerke PRODUCTION COMPANY / Menuet LANGUAGE / Dutch DURATION / 8 x 50’ YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013-2014 CONTACT / Menuet / info@menuet.be

25/03/14 11:27

ONLINE

PRODUCTION COMPANY / Hotel Hungaria LANGUAGE / Dutch

DURATION / 15 x 25’

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CONTACT / Sue Green / sue.green@tnfp.tv

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CAST / Emiel Ravijts, Gaston Rombauts, Marcel Mols,

Irène Vervliet, Johan Grootaert CREATED BY / Tim Van Aelst PRODUCTION COMPANY / Shelter LANGUAGE / Dutch DURATION / 7 x 22’ (+3 Best Of episodes) YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2010 CONTACT / Tim Van Aelst / tim@shelter.tv, Sofie Peeters / sofie@shelter.tv INT’L SALES / Red Arrow / www.redarrow.tv

ORIGINAL TITLE / BENIDORM BASTARDS 2

CREATED/DIRECTED BY/ /Marianne, Joeri Vlekken PITCH a former journalist, PRODUCTION COMPANY / Bonka gets shaken by aCircus tragic incident. At the LANGUAGE / Dutch, French same time, Belgium is getting ready for DURATION / 9 x the 49’ + 1 compilation (Dutch version) / long-expected elections.

Follow-up 8 x 52’ (French version) / 1Deadline x 52’ (English version) series to 14/10 (also 8x50’).

YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2014 CONTACT / Catherine Castille / catherine@bonkacircus.com INT’L SALES / Bonka Circus / www.bonkacircus.com

25/5

#talentmatters

#talentmatters

/ Charting a year (in this case PITCH CAST / Marc Van Eeghem, Stany Crets, 2013)Matteo in theSimoni, life of aEvelien selection of Ludo Hoogmartens, Bosmans people from allVan walks of life, SCRIPTED BY / different Jef Hoogmartens, Jonas Geel, Steve Aernouts each episode brings the story of one DIRECTED BY / month.

Frank Van Passel PRODUCTION COMPANY / Caviar Antwerp NV LANGUAGE / Dutch DURATION / 9 x 50’ YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013-2014 CONTACT / Helena Vlogaert / helena.vlogaert@caviarcontent.com

PRODUCTION COMPANY / Deshe Raconteurs after week wages her own war for LANGUAGE / French, Dutch justice.

DURATION / 4 x 52’ YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2014 CONTACT / Peter Vandekerckhove / info@deraconteurs.be

SEASON 1

VOICE CAST / (Dutch) Sara Gracia, Anne-Mieke Ruyten, PITCH / An insight into today’s CREATED/DIRECTED BY the / Jean-Marie Musique, team, ‘Red Devils’.

Experience

of

David VerhaegheAntwerp comes to a sudden standstill

PRODUCTION COMPANY World when the/ Off area is hermetically

LANGUAGE / Dutch, German, Russian, Spanish fromEnglish, the outside world.

The cause is

ORIGINAL TITLE / GRAND CENTRAL eric.goossens@walkingthedog.be BELGE ORIGINAL TITLE / DE RIDDER - SEIZOEN 1 INT’L SALES / Superights / www.superights.net

PITCH / Percy and his friends go on a IS PUBLISHED BY FLANDERS IMAGE, THE AUDIOVISUAL EXPORT AGENCY joyful adventure where they are each a knight, princess, superhero and CONTACT pirate. Each episode they encounter a Flanders Image / p/a Flanderswhich Film House, challenge, they’ll overcome by Bischoffsheimlaan 38 / BE1000 Brussels / Belgium/EU great teamwork.

CONTENT_MIP2014_animation.indd 1 CONTENT_MIP2014_format.indd 1-2

LANGUAGE / Dutch, Frenchtheatre (Englishcompany subtitles) Pajotters’ DURATION / 3 x on 52’ their

YEAR OF PRODUCTION 2014 Led by /enthusiastic

YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013

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all other stills copyrighted by the respective producers.

#talentmatters

CREATED/DIRECTED BY/ /Tucked Gilles Coton, Benoot away Sofie in a tiny, PITCH PRODUCTION COMPANY / Off parish World hall, the ‘De nondescript

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PRODUCTION COMPANY / De Filistijnen LANGUAGE / Dutch

DURATION / 8 x 52’

YEAR OF PRODUCTION / 2013

CONTACT / Sue Green / sue.green@tnfp.tv

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25/03/14 11:23

25/03/14 11:14

A SERIES OF CONTENT FLYERS PRESENTING AN UP-TO-DATE OVERVIEW OF RECENT, NEW AND UPCOMING AUDIOVISUAL PRODUCTIONS MADE IN FLANDERS AND BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

flandersimage.com The website keeps you up-to-date on audiovisual talent and creations made in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium. Read the news when it happens, browse and search in the online product guide, or get the environmentally friendly digital versions of publications such as the magazine, brochures and flyers screener.be The promotional V.O.D. platform that is available to sales agents, buyers and curators around the globe interested in audiovisual talent and creations from Flanders and Brussels, Belgium

‘I DO COME WITH A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE’.

Teodora Ana Mihai’s documentary was not to sensationalise what for many Waiting For August played at both is an everyday reality. ‘I spent about eight Visions du Réel in Nyon and Hot Docs months talking to people and reaching out in Toronto. to different organisations. Families are not ‘I’m not quite Romanian and not quite very proud of having to make these kinds Belgian,’ admits filmmaker Teodora of choices, so it was hard to find someone Ana Mihai, whose most recent film, the willing to talk about it, let alone be filmed.’ documentary Waiting for August, is an ‘I explained to them that I wanted to tell the emotionally powerful fly-on-the-wall story because I understood it. I wanted to account of seven Romanian children be with them and follow them in their daily getting by on their own in the small town life. It took a while,’ she admits, ‘but then of Bacau. Their mother works abroad and it started being like a home video for them. the title refers to her brief return home I was kind of at the heart of the family.’

Teodora Ana Mihai between jobs. Mihai’s split nationality Mihai, who studied in the US, has helped her both empathise and observe recently been on the festival circuit, filling the situation objectively. ‘I grew up speaking Romanian, so in time between Hot Docs and Visions du Réel with a trip I don’t feel like an outsider. But I do come with a different to research her next project: a film about kids growing up perspective.’ among the drug wars in northern Mexico. ‘It’s a very violent The situation in which the children find themselves is common country to grow up in,’ she says. ‘It’s disturbing seeing kids enough in Romania. ‘It was something I was hearing all the wanting to become part of the cartel. They can’t escape it. time. I actually don’t know any Romanian family who doesn’t It’s everywhere: gangs, shoot-outs, police on the streets…’ have someone abroad: for many, it’s both the mother and Like Waiting for August, she says, the film will be ‘about kids the father.’ But finding the right family was all-important if she growing up in an abnormal situation’. Nick Roddick

KARAKATSANIS TO LENSE. HILLCOAT’S TRIPLE NINE. Ace cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis has joined John Hillcoat’s Triple Nine heist film project the helmer of films such as The Road plans to begin shooting this summer. The two men already worked together on the Johnny Cash ‘She Used Me A Lot’ music video as well as on a commercial for Coca-Cola.

Scripted by Matt Cook, Triple Nine is a thriller about a bunch of dirty cops that are blackmailed by the Russian mafia to execute a virtually impossible heist. When they believe they have found a way to pull it off, plans are turned upside down, triggering a breakneck, action-packed finale filled with double-crosses, greed and revenge. The ensemble cast consists of such names as Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet and Aaron Paul.

Karakatsanis lensed films that will hit the screens this year include Jonas Govaerts’s feature debut Cub, Erik Van Looy’s The Loft (pictured) and The Drop, the new film by Bullhead director Michaël R. Roskam. HW

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Nicolas Karakatsanis

'A STRANGE KIND OF. THRILLER ABOUT.A GUY. LIVING IN FEAR.WHO DOESN’T. KNOW WHAT TO DO'.

It’s mid-April and Flemish director Koen Mortier – best known for in-your-face features Ex Drummer and 22nd of May – has less than two weeks to deliver his latest film. He starts shooting tonight but doesn’t appear to be panicking.

The film, working title: Play Away From Home, is part of an ambitious plan to put together 31 short films that, says the brochure ‘are connected to football through powerful emotional stories of people around the world’. Might there, one wonders, be a link with the 2014 World Cup? The films, collectively entitled 'Short Plays', are being produced by Mexico’s Daniel Gruener, who has signed up an impressive squad of directors, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Gaspar Noë, Vincent Gallo and Carlos Reygadas.

Mortier is a late addition, called off the bench at the last minute to replace a director who dropped out.

He has risen to the challenge in typical fashion with a film that has no actual pitches, balls or goals. ‘I had three scripts of which one I couldn’t do because my colleague from Korea had the same idea,’ says Mortier. ‘The one I liked the most was Play Away from Home, which is about a bigamist.’

The title comes from football and refers to when a team is playing away from home, is often wearing different outfits and operating in unfamiliar surroundings. Even the supporters are alien.

‘It’s about a 70-year-old man who lives with his wife during the daytime; and during the night he lives with his other wife, a younger one with a child. When he’s with his wife during the day, he really feels at home; but with his new younger wife he doesn’t feel 100% comfortable. He doesn’t know anything in the house: he just lives there but is really insecure about it. It is,’ he concludes, ‘a strange kind of thriller about a guy living in fear who doesn’t know what to do.’

Apart from the football metaphor, the only other instructions from Mexico were: not more than five minutes; and no dialogue. Mortier’s film, he says, may be a little more than five minutes. ‘And I’m afraid I have three or four words of dialogue...’ Nick Roddick

Koen Mortier

Sam Louwyck

'THE IMPORTANCE. OF LEARNING THE. LANGUAGE OF. YOUR.CHARACTER'.

Italian director Alice Rohrwacher had to really convince her producers to give Sam Louwyck a lead role in her new film, Cannes Competition entry Le meraviglie. After all, this weird Belgian did not speak a word of Italian and the German he spoke had a heavy accent. So, the actor started studying to prove the doubters wrong. ‘For me, it’s important to really learn the language of your character, not just the dialogues. Otherwise you create a distance between what you play and what you say.’

He got the part, playing opposite Monica Bellucci, Alba Rohrwacher and André Hennicke. Le meraviglie is set against the backdrop of the Umbrian countryside where 14-year-old Gelsomina lives with her sweetly dysfunctional family. Her safe environment is disrupted by the arrival of Martin, a German criminal on a rehab programme.

Born in Bruges, Louwyck (°1966) toured the globe in the 1990s as a dancer in Alain Platel’s Les Ballets C de la B dance company. The transition from dance to acting came when Tom Barman cast him as Windman in his debut feature Any Way the Wind Blows. This resulted in roles in such films as Ex Drummer, Lost Person’s Area, 22nd of May, The Fifth Season, The Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears and the Oscar nominated Bullhead. HW

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TALENTWATCH ‘I GUESS YOU COULD SAY HOLLYWOOD IS. KNOCKING AT MY DOOR THESE DAYS’.

Making shoes has been the Leunen family trade for generations. ‘My father and his father and several uncles and brothers were all cobblers,’ says Nico Leunen, who almost went into shoes when he left school, but has instead gone on to become one of Belgium’s top film editors. He is now very much in demand, not just in Belgium but internationally.

And, with Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut Lost River selected for Un Certain Regard in Cannes, stitching together shoes is unlikely ever to be a career option again.

TEXT NICK RODDICK

PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

‘When I was 19, I asked my father whether I should go into the family business, and he said, “You need to decide whether you want to do the same thing every day of your life!”’ Leunen decided he didn’t. Instead, he studied experimental film and was quite happy for a while making stuff that was seen mainly by his friends. ‘I made maybe 15 films which hardly anybody saw: I guess I was more interested in making them than distributing them,’ he chuckles.

Then, one day, a fellow student who had skipped the editing class and was, as a result, having difficulty finishing his film, asked Leunen to help him out. ‘The film turned out to be very successful and, after that, 80% of the students wanted me to edit their films!’ he says.

Since then, Leunen has notched up over 50 editing credits, including some of Flanders’s best known films, including Khadak, Altiplano, The Misfortunates and The Broken Circle Breakdown. What is more, editing now runs in his family the way shoemaking did in his father’s: Leunen is married to Belgian director Fien Troch (Someone Else’s Happiness), whose father, Ludo, is the godfather of Belgian editors. Perhaps because of this, it’s a family film that Leunen is most proud of: Fien’s 2012 feature Kid. ‘You might not be able to see it,’ he says, but it was the most challenging film I’ve ever had to edit.

The Broken Circle Breakdown was also challenging,’ he adds ruefully. ‘But there you can see it!’

Leunen has worked internationally - for a German production, in The Netherlands and, of course, in the US. ‘I guess you could say Hollywood is knocking at my door these days, but I can’t really say any more at the moment.’ Nor is he yet ready to discuss Lost River – not before the film’s Cannes launch, in any case. Meanwhile, when we speak, he is about to set off for Dublin to do something he’s done quite a few times before: jumping in on films that need a new approach in the editing room.

The technical skills of film editing are not that hard to pick up, he says, even though the hardware has changed completely, with computers replacing celluloid. ‘It’s always the story,’ insists Leunen.

I ask what the basic requirements are to become a successful editor? ‘Psychological insight,’ is his rather surprising answer. ‘And,’ he adds, ‘trying to analyse the emotional development of the characters.’ Does he work closely with directors when he is cutting? Yes and no. ‘I like to have them as available as possible, but mainly just to chat with them,’ he says. ‘I sort of scan them, to find out what they think about sport, food, the environment… But I also like to have a couple of hours to myself every morning.’

Working with Gosling wasn’t that different from his normal routine, says Leunen. ‘We discussed finding different ways of dealing with the material every day, trying to avoid the most obvious.

‘Early on, I discovered I have this weird capacity for seeing the structure in a film, a play, a book… I guess I’m very fortunate: it’s something I was born with. But,’ he insists, ‘editing techniques are something that can be taught.

People skills are a lot harder to learn. They have to do with who you are as a person. And that’s what really counts.’ 

‘Editing techniques are something. That can be taught. People skills. are a lot harder to learn’

GENERATION NEXT Keen to ensure that Flemish filmmakers continue to have first-rate editors at their disposal, Nico Leunen is involved with an editing workshop at RITS in Brussels and is proud of having brought on a couple of young editors who are now making their way in the business.

‘Thijs Van Nuffel and Thomas Pooters are two young editors I discovered there,’ he says. ‘They both surprised me with their eagerness to work, their talent for evaluating rushes and their psychological insight. Because that mix of qualities is rare, I try to inspire and coach them the way Ludo Troch did with me.’ Both Van Nuffel and Pooters assisted Leunen on Pieter Van Hees’ upcoming Waste Land.

He also teaches a course at KASK in Ghent. ‘But it’s not restricted to editing.’ he says. ‘I challenge my students to examine the parameters of film and explore the options.

They usually start out thinking, “I have this dialogue and I have to film it”. I try to show them that there are lots of other ways of doing it. This is my heritage of studying experimental film and an approach I apply every day when editing myself.’

Lost River - Courtesy of Bold Films

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i-opener

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

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Marion Cotillard stars in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Cannes Competition entry Two Days, One Night.

Considered to be probably the closest the auteur siblings have ever gotten to mainstream cinema since The Promise, it's the story of a woman suffering from depression. She has only one weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses so she can keep her job.

Olivier Gourmet, Fabrizio Rongione and Catherine SalĂŠe share the other main parts. Co-producer for Flanders is Peter Bouckaert for Eyeworks Film and TV Drama, with Wild Bunch handling international sales. ď Š

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i

nter view

nter view i

FALLEN ANGEL TEXT IAN MUNDELL

PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

WHEN GUST VAN DEN BERGHE SETTLES ON A LOCATION, IT IS NOT THE END OF THE JOURNEY BUT THE BEGINNING. ‘I DON’T NEED MUCH TIME TO DECIDE WHERE I WORK,’ HE SAYS ‘THE INVESTIGATION COMES AFTERWARDS. IT’S THEN YOU ENCOUNTER YOUR PROBLEMS, BUT YOU STAY TRUE TO YOUR FIRST CHOICE: WE SAID IT’S HERE, SO IT’S GOING TO BE HERE.’

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After shooting Little Baby Jesus of Flandr on home territory and then Blue Bird in Togo, he found his latest film, Lucifer, in Mexico. Despite their different locations and styles, the three films are related, making up a triptych. ‘Lucifer is the closing panel of a bigger story in which I try to talk about the emergence of consciousness within humankind. And it is a story about Paradise.’

Little Baby Jesus of Flandr was based on a 1924 Christmas play by Felix Timmermans, in which a group of beggars have a religious encounter while travelling the Flemish countryside in winter. Van den Berghe shot the story in striking black and white, with a cast of disabled actors.

Blue Bird also has a literary source, a 1908 play by Maurice Maeterlinck about two children who go on a quest to find the blue bird of happiness. The film was shot with a blue tinge, in a very wide, narrow format that Van den Berghe named überscope.

Lucifer is inspired by a play of the same name by Joost van den Vondel, one of the most important Dutch writers of the 17th Century. This describes the conflict in Heaven between angels loyal to God and a group of rebel angels who fear the ascendancy of Man. It ends with the rebel angel Lucifer being cast out and the subsequent fall of Mankind.

‘I started working with the text, which is very literal in its description of the battle between the angels,’ Van den Berghe says. ‘But then there are some elements that you can translate and use. Whenever you work with literature, it’s the art of translating one story to another, translating a character to a role, and also an idea to an image.’

He was particularly drawn to the play’s conclusion, and the film begins with Lucifer being cast out of Heaven and arriving on Earth, then still Paradise. ‘That was the interesting part

for me,’ he recalls, ‘and of course I invented new characters, because I wanted to transpose the story to a setting we can relate to.’

Lucifer gains the confidence of a poor family, consisting of an old woman, Lupita, her invalid brother Emanuel, and her granddaughter Maria. He cures Emanuel, who actually had little wrong with him, using the ‘miracle’ to convince the family and the wider community that he is an angel. When he leaves, as suddenly as he arrived, the town is no longer innocent. Sin has come into their lives, and Paradise has been lost.

ideas and images

The original plan had been to make the triptych of films quickly, over three or four years. The first two films emerged close together, and were selected for the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2010 and 2011 respectively. But work on the third was delayed by the demands of financing, and Van den Berghe continued to work on his story.

‘I was ready after Blue Bird. I had a script on the table and I could have shot it that summer, but if you give me two years then I will keep on writing. But that’s fine. I also think it’s important that, as an artist, you make something that is of the moment, not something that you can make any time.’

When the funding came together, the place that drew him as a location was the town of Angahuan in the Mexican state of Michoacán. ‘I travel a lot, and I was there at one point, writing and looking around,’ he says. ‘It’s 600km from Mexico City, to the west. It is a very rainy, dark place, but with an antique feel, both in the way people live and dress up.’

Exactly what drew him to the place is unclear. ‘I don’t think about these things too much. You have ideas and images in your mind, which you see in a place as well.’

‘I was ready after Blue Bird. I had a script on the table and I could have shot it that summer, but if you give me two years then I will keep on writing. But that's fine. I also think it's important that, as an artist, you make something that is of the moment, not something that you can make any time'

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One attraction was the Parícutin volcano, which destroyed the original town of San Juan Parangaricutiro in the 1940s. ‘There is something about a volcano that I think is quite fascinating. It is new land and so it reminds us of the beginning, the creation of the Earth,’ he says. ‘It also reminds us of the end of time, in a way. In the end there is only ash.’

The remains of the old town’s church can still be seen sticking out of the rock thrown up by the volcano, an image that features strongly in the film. Another local characteristic Van den Berghe was able to work into the scenario were the loudspeakers used by local shops to advertise their wares, and which call out from 7 in the morning to 11 at night. ‘The first time I drove through the town I thought it was complete madness,’ he recalls. ‘I could use them, but it was really a struggle with the sound department.’

He worked in the town for three months, two of which were taken up with filming. ‘We tried to shoot chronologically. That was the biggest challenge for me,’ he says. ‘If you shoot chronologically you can have a kind of evolution within the movie, and make big changes on set. It becomes a circus: you are in the middle of it and can invent as you go along.

That’s very powerful.’

Lucifer and Maria are played by professional actors, while the rest of the cast are locals. This demands a flexible approach to the script, adapting it to follow the logic of people’s everyday lives. ‘You erase everything that you have written and change it to something that they would say,’ Van den Berghe explains.

panoramic images

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The key crew was unchanged from the first two films, with Hans Bruch Jr. behind the camera, Matthias Hillegeer handling sound and David Verdurme editing. ‘I had an unspoken promise from them that we would make the three films together, and it was nice to do it with the same people.’

And like its predecessors, Lucifer has a distinctive visual signature, since it is presented in a circular format that Van den Berghe has dubbed Tondoscope®. This was inspired by the use of circles in early Renaissance paintings of heaven and hell, or more modestly when presenting parables or the seven deadly sins. ‘I wanted a visual reference to this pictorial language.’

He even developed a new method of filming in order to create panoramic circular images. ‘Your whole approach to filming an object changes, in particular the spatial aspects of how it relates to its surroundings. It is fascinating,’ he says.

‘When you put it in a room or a smaller space, it really bends lines of the ceiling in a very interesting way.’

Editing these panoramic images together with conventionally shot, but still circular images, presented no special problem.

‘Whether images are round, blue, or black and white, they should have a certain truth. The art is to construct a story with those images, and it either works or it doesn’t.’

Van den Berghe’s enthusiasm for experimentation and the themes that interest him often attract accusations of

Tondoscope®

In order to produce the panoramic views for Lucifer’s Tondoscope® format, Gust Van den Berghe had to come up with a new way of filming. What he wanted to do was place the sky in the centre of the image and have ground level, along with any people and buildings present, around the edges. His inspiration was the idea of looking up from inside a volcano, and seeing the walls of the crater wrapping around the sky, just like Mantegna’s ceiling in Camera Picta.

This kind of view would not be possible with standard fisheye lenses, since with an angle of view typically around 120° they capture only part of the panorama. On top of that, they produce an image that is most distorted at the edges, which is where Van den Berghe wanted to see people and buildings as clearly as possible, even shot from a flat surface.

Working with researchers at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), he came up with a novel approach which involves mounting a camera with a conventional lens above a spherical mirror. The panorama appears in the mirror, giving an angle of view of 180°, and the image is truest at the edges, distorting towards the centre. A small black dot in the centre of the image gives away the position of the camera above the mirror. ‘But at the same time it is an eye, it is us, looking at the world.’

inter view

A NE W VIE W

pretentiousness. He disagrees. ‘I really believe that there is a difference between pretention and ambition. And if you start to cut the ambition of young directors then you need to watch out for future generations.’

Now that the triptych is complete, Van den Berghe is already working on his next feature, although he says it is too early to go into details. But he hopes to move quickly. ‘When you finish something it’s fantastic, because you start on the next thing at the same speed.’

He claims to be unaffected by any expectation that Lucifer needs to perform well in order to build on the festival success of the first two films, although he concedes that his producer, Tomas Leyers of Minds Meet, protects him from such pressure. ‘I’m very realistic. It’s not that this is going to be a blockbuster, and we both know that. So why be afraid of it?

But I think it is a beautiful piece of work and we should all be proud of it.’  All location photos: Lucifer

GUST VAN DEN BERGHE (°1985)* (2014) – LUCIFER (2011) – BLUE BIRD (2010) – LITTLE BABY JESUS OF FLANDR * selected filmography

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A DARK KNIGHT TEXT IAN MUNDELL

PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

WASTE LAND IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER THAT EXPLORES THE DARK SIDE OF BRUSSELS. AND ALTHOUGH THIS MEANT A LOT OF WORK AFTER HOURS FOR LEAD ACTOR JÉRÉMIE RENIER, HE HAS NO COMPLAINTS. 'I LOVE TO SHOOT AT NIGHT, IN A CITY,' HE CONFIDES. 'THERE IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT IT, THE ATMOSPHERE IS NOT THE SAME.'

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Shooting in his home town also helped, although this is something of a rarity. ‘It’s true that I haven’t made a lot of films in Brussels, but each time it’s a little like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers. It’s very pleasant, because it’s home and I immediately feel more free,’ he says. ‘I have the impression that, as I transform myself for the role, I have less need to act and can be more myself.’

Despite having roots in Brussels, most people associate Renier with the industrial south of Belgium and the ragged urban landscape made famous by directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. He burst into the public imagination in their films The Promise (1996) and The Child (2005), and has appeared in almost all their subsequent work. This year’s Two Days, One Night will be an exception.

Meanwhile, his career developed in Belgium and in France, where he worked with François Ozon and Olivier Assayas among other directors, and beyond. Beginning with small parts in English-language films Atonement and In Bruges, he has recently graduated to major roles in

White Elephant by the Argentine director Pablo Trapero and Alain Choquart’s forthcoming Lady Grey, shot in South Africa.

director’s vision

But Waste Land is the first time he has worked with a Flemish director. This is Pieter Van Hees, who has made a name for himself with quirky, dark films such as Left Bank and Dirty Mind which toy with different film genres.

Waste Land continues this line of thought, completing a loose trilogy the director describes as an 'Anatomy of Love and Pain'.

Renier plays police detective Leo Woeste, who is called in to investigate a crime in Matongé, an African neighbourhood close to the centre of Brussels. As time passes, he becomes obsessed with the case and the need to solve it, but grows increasingly distant from his wife, who is expecting their first child. ‘He’s a very tough character, who has difficulty communicating, and this is a moment when his life will be turned upside down,’ says Renier.

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The actor was drawn to the character from the moment he read the script. ‘I found it very, very beautiful,’ he recalls. ‘It’s tough, but even from the writing you can sense the artistic depth of the director’s vision. That’s not always the case with scripts.’ As well as directing, Van Hees has scripted all of his films to date.

‘If I can make a comparison, you can’t see the directing style of the Dardenne brothers in their writing, but Pieter’s writing is immediately very stylised, very deep, and so I found the character very rich.

A very heavy, powerful character, who at the same time is very fragile.’

The attraction grew once the actor saw Van Hees’s previous films.

‘I really like his universe, which is slightly bizarre, slightly Lynchian.’

rich experience

All stills Waste Land

Renier prefers to begin working on his character long before shooting begins, and he talked a lot with Van Hees about the plot, the character’s backstory and emotional state. Then comes his physical presence.

‘I begin by working on his body, the way he moves, how he occupies the space around him, how he looks other people in the eyes, how he feels in relation to others,’ he says. ‘And I imagined someone brutal, a rock who cracks little by little until he breaks apart completely.’

The actor also spent time with the Brussels police, which gave him the chance to see their procedures up close. But the psychological dimension of their work was much more important. ‘Above all I needed to speak to the police to find out about their inner lives. It’s less about the proper way of holding a weapon so that it seems realistic and more about how they feel when someone guilty goes unpunished, when they are involved in an investigation which gets out of hand, what happens when they come home to their families after a day at work.’ The people he talked to were generous with their personal details. ‘That was a very rich and interesting experience for me.’

no limits

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Brussels is a multi-lingual city, and so both French and Dutch are spoken by the film’s characters. Leo is essentially a French speaker, but his wife Kathleen - played by Natali Broods - is Flemish, as is

'I really like Pieter Van Hees’s universe, which is slightly bizarre, slightly Lynchian'

cover

his police partner Johnny Rimbaud (Peter Van den Begin). This meant that Renier had to relearn some of the Dutch he had not spoken since he was at school.

‘I really like acting in another language, even if there are frustrations since you obviously don’t have the same freedom of expression as you do with your own language. But at the same time that allows you to rely less on words and more on a look and everything else that happens without words.’

This proved particularly useful in bringing out certain aspects of Leo’s character. ‘I took advantage of the fact that I didn’t speak Dutch and used it to show that Leo feels a little bit excluded from this world, that he feels alone or misunderstood.’

An admirer of Flemish films and theatre, Renier was pleased to have the chance to work with actors from the other side of Belgium’s linguistic divide. ‘All the Flemish actors on the film were incredible,’ he says. ‘Peter Van den Begin has an incredible face and freedom in the way he performs. There are no limits. That’s great, I love that. It was a pleasure to say, right, let’s improvise...’

The other Flemish actors were equally free, a marked difference from working with French or even French-speaking Belgian actors. ‘Every actor should know how to perform this way, to allow themselves this freedom,’ Renier says. ‘You can be rigorous, say the lines and follow the director’s instructions, then all of a sudden let yourself go completely.’

together

After Waste Land he would be happy to explore further Flemish collaborations, although he concedes that language remains an obstacle. ‘They have a lot of interesting directors, but I don’t speak Dutch, that is the problem. I need to learn.’

He immediately singles out directors Felix van Groeningen and Michaël R. Roskam as people he would like to work with, and he is particularly inspired by the mixed casting of Roskam’s Bullhead. ‘There are a lot of great actors in the two parts of the country, and we need to make movies together.’ 

JÉRÉMIE RENIER (°1981)* (2014) (2014) (2014) (2014) (2013) (2012) (2011) (2010) (2008) (2008) (2007) (2006) (2005) (1999) (1996)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

WASTE LAND LADY GREY SAINT LAURENT LE GRAND HOMME (QUI NE VOULAIT PAS MOURIR) WHITE ELEPHANT (ELEFANTE BLANCO) CLOCLO THE KID WITH THE BIKE (LE GAMIN AU VÉLO) POTICHE LORNA’S SILENCE (LE SILENCE DE LORNA) IN BRUGES ATONEMENT NUE PROPRIÉTÉ THE CHILD (L’ENFANT) CRIMINAL LOVERS (LES AMANTS CRIMINELS) THE PROMISE (LA PROMESSE)

* selected filmography

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DARKNESS IN

THE HEART TEXT IAN MUNDELL

PORTRAIT MENNO MANS

WASTE LAND COMPLETES PIETER VAN HEES’S 'ANATOMY OF LOVE AND PAIN' TRILOGY, AND CONTINUES THE DIRECTOR’S CALCULATED MANIPULATION OF MOVIE CONVENTIONS. ‘I FOUND IT INTERESTING TO WORK IN THREE DIFFERENT GENRES,’ HE SAYS. ‘BUT RATHER THAN MAKE REAL GENRE FILMS, I WANTED TO ADD MY OWN THEMES AND CHARACTERS, AND BRING

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SOMETHING FRESH TO THEM.’

nter view First there was Left Bank (2008), a psychological horror film about a young athlete who moves in with her new boyfriend in order to recover from an injury. But the things she learns about him drive her over the edge. Then there was Dirty Mind (2009), a comedy about a shy man with low self-esteem who wakes up after an accident out-going and totally uninhibited.

And now there is Waste Land, about a police detective who becomes obsessed with investigating a crime in an African neighbourhood of Brussels. Gradually he loses touch with reality, putting his fragile family life in jeopardy.

What unites these very different films as a trilogy is their treatment of relationships. ‘It starts with a very young couple in Left Bank, and a girl experiencing first love,’ Van Hees explains.

‘Dirty Mind is a film about people who have relationships, but then experience a passion for someone else. And the idea in Waste Land is to look at a mature relationship, with people in their late thirties, with kids, trying to make it work.’

And in each case Van Hees tells the story from a single point of view, choosing the genre to fit the psychological condition of his protagonist. ‘I always try to get inside the head of the main character and adapt everything from there.’

i

'Waste Land is the crisis of the couple, but also the crisis of a city and of white European culture. It's about bringing a new child into the world and the values you pass on'

Although Waste Land was always part of his plan for the trilogy, the passing years have brought changes. Events such as the financial crisis, violent conflict around the world and the rise of extremist movements in Europe have all crept in.

‘It’s all very well talking about love, but somehow even to a person in love all these things matter as well,’ he says.

‘So for me, Waste Land is the crisis of the couple, but also the crisis of a city and of white European culture. It’s about bringing a new child into the world and the values you pass on.’

T.S. Eliot

Another subtle influence was T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land, from which the film takes its title. ‘It’s a very personal story. Eliot talks about his own waste land, in which he and his wife have fallen apart, but at the same time it is about European society still suffering from shell shock after World War I,’ Van Hees explains. ‘It’s really a society in trouble, and I wanted that feeling to be an undercurrent in the movie.’

He was also inspired by the mixture of cultures in the poem. ‘If I’m going to talk about a guy who lives in the belly

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of Brussels, which has all these different cultures, it is much more interesting if the death he has to investigate drags him into another culture, with other values.’

Making this culture the Congolese community in Brussels raises the stakes, given Belgium’s uneasy relationship with its former colony. Van Hees is typically robust about it. ‘It’s something we haven’t come to terms with. It’s an open wound.’

Naming his cop Leo is a deliberate echo of King Léopold II, who created a personal empire in the Congo in the 19th Century. ‘Leo is trying to do the right thing, but he is full of guilt,’ Van Hees goes on. ‘And if there is any culture we have this relationship with, it’s the Congo.’

Arthur Rimbaud

Previous films in the trilogy are lead by untried actors, but Waste Land would not work that way. ‘I needed someone with a lot of experience who could make the very nuanced journey Leo has to make, and who could help me think that through.’

All stills Waste Land

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Pieter Van Hees and Jérémie Renier on the set of Waste Land

He chose Jérémie Renier, a French-speaking Belgian actor best known as a protégé of the Dardenne brothers in films such as The Promise and The Child. ‘What really attracted me to Jérémie is that he makes everything so real and so human, in every film he is in, whether that is a Dardennes movie or if he is playing Claude François in the French musical Cloclo,’ Van Hees says. ‘Leo is a troubled, dark character, but you want people to keep watching the movie and still feel for him. Jérémie plays a big part in that.’

Sharing Leo’s collapse is Kathleen, his wife, played

by Flemish actress Natali Broods (Hotel Swooni, The Misfortunates). ‘I wanted someone opposite Jérémie where you can believe they are a couple,’ Van Hees says.

‘I wanted to make it hard for him to consider leaving her, and to make her as interesting, as beautiful, as empathising, as strict as possible. Natali combines all these things and she has this terrific screen presence. She also has enough darkness in her so that, as a viewer, you understand that she understands her husband.’

Having a couple with different mother tongues added another layer to the story. ‘I thought it would be interesting if they have to find a common language to speak,’ Van Hees recalls. ‘Or if Leo has to fetch his kid from the Flemish school and talk to the teacher, although he doesn’t really speak the language. It makes him so much more lonely and vulnerable.’ Another important component in the film is

Koen Mortier

Johnny is played by Peter Van den Begin, who also had a role in Dirty Mind. ‘It’s rare that people are both funny and good, solid actors, and I needed a guy like that to bring out the humour. But at the same time he has a dark, threatening side, and you never know where he will end.’

The chemistry between Renier and Van den Begin was bonus. ‘They didn’t know each other, but clicked immediately on set.’

The main cast is completed by Babetida Sadjo, who plays Aysha, a relative of the victim and the focus of Leo’s obsession, and Pitcho Womba Konga, who plays a mysterious figure called The Professor. A popular Brussels rapper, Pitcho has also acted on stage for veteran director Peter Brook.

Then there is Brussels, whose Matongé district and other locations are a strong presence in the film. ‘The thing about Brussels is that it looks vintage, in a way. There are scenes where, if the actors were dressed differently, it could have been shot in the seventies. It’s the New York of Belgium.’

The job of capturing this fell to Dutch director of photography Menno Mans. ‘That was his biggest task, and his biggest success: to give me Brussels!’

A recommendation of producer Koen Mortier, Mans had not shot a feature before. But his work on music videos and commercials was impressive. ‘Even if it is a music video, he got the emotions and the atmosphere,’ Van Hees says.

‘He is very good, he’s going to have a big career.’

Editing was in the hands of Nico Leunen, a long-time collaborator. ‘He likes to kick ideas around until the very end, and either he is right or he’s pointing to something that isn’t right yet. So he’s a very important guy for the movie.’

maverick

Leo’s partner, a barely legal cop from the drug squad called Johnny Rimbaud. This is a reference to rebel poets such as Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine who sought refuge in Brussels in the 19th Century. ‘Brussels is a safe-haven for chaos. If you are a transgressive person you come here because anything goes, and I wanted to get that aspect in,’ Van Hees says. ‘It’s important, because Leo is not like that.

But he is surrounded by people who are and he thinks they are dragging him down.’

switching to TV

Now that his film trilogy is complete, Van Hees is switching to television. ‘In the last couple of years, when you go for a drink, people talk about series, very few people talk about movies,’ he explains. ‘And what is great about series is that they deal with what is happening now.’

AT HOME WITH EPIDEMIC Pieter Van Hees and producers Koen Mortier and Eurydice Gysel go back some time. Just out of film school he made some commercials for them and the short film Black XXXmas, before moving on.

‘I wanted to make features,’ he recalls. ‘So did they, but not right away, so I went to work with Caviar.’

There he made Left Bank and Dirty Mind, but he has come back to Mortier and Gysel’s Epidemic shingle for Waste Land. ‘It looked like we were going to work together for a long time, and it felt like the right moment now,’ Van Hees says.

‘I also thought this was a theme they would like and would fight for. On paper, it’s not the easiest film to get financed, so they were very brave.’

Gysel handled the business side of the production while Mortier, himself a feature director (Ex Drummer, 22nd of May), took on a more creative role. ‘He’s there at important moments, when you finish the script, begin shooting or after the first couple of cuts. And it is good to have him as a sounding board.’

As directors, the two share a sense of commitment.

‘We have this feeling of not compromising and always looking for the edge. If it is in dark places, then we go there.’

He is currently developing a futuristic satire called B, together with writer and comedian Joost Vandecasteele.

The premise is that Belgium has been given a ‘b’ financial rating, putting it on the same footing as Greece. This devastating assessment prompts a revolution, with young people and baby boomers struggling for scarce resources.

The series is being produced by deMensen for Flemish public broadcaster Canvas. 

PIETER VAN HEES (°1970)* (2014) – WASTE LAND (2009) – DIRTY MIND (2008) – LEFT BANK * selected filmography

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TOUGH

LOVE THE CENTRAL CHARACTER IN PIETER VAN HEES’S WASTE LAND IS A TROUBLED COP, INTENT ON DAMAGING HIMSELF AND HIS FAMILY. NATALI BROODS, WHO PLAYS HIS WIFE KATHLEEN, HAS TO CONVINCE US THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO LOVE SUCH A MAN, IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING. ‘WE ALL KNOW THAT LOVE CAN DO STRANGE THINGS, BUT ON THE SCREEN YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IT,’ SHE SAYS. TEXT IAN MUNDELL

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PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

Kathleen and Leo have been married for some time. Her son from a previous relationship treats him like his father, and Leo is delighted when she reveals that she is pregnant again. And yet, as he becomes increasingly obsessed with investigating a murder in Brussels’ African community, his behaviour is ever more erratic and self-destructive.

‘The movie is about a cop who goes more and more into the dark side of his mind.

My character and the child, especially by the end, are the only ones who remain in the light, in the here and now,’ Broods explains. That does not mean that Kathleen has to be Leo’s opposite, however, as kind as he is cruel. ‘I think everyone has this dark side,’ Broods says. ‘She also has her issues, otherwise she wouldn’t fall in love with him. But she has boundaries. She can take care of herself and make the right decisions, which he can’t.’ This relationship and the part it plays in the story attracted her to the role. ‘I could believe that a woman could fall in love with a guy like that, but the challenge is to play it in a way that everybody can accept it.’ It is significant that this is a couple with a history, something that has to be clear from the first moment they appear on the screen. ‘The most important thing I wanted to have is that when you see Jérémie and me you believe that we’ve been together for quite a while.’

Her preparation for the role was mostly in rehearsal, talking with Renier and director Pieter Van Hees about what makes this relationship tick, the issues the couple have together and how that situation changes with the prospect of another child coming along. ‘For example, the way she asks him to be there when the baby is born,’ Broods explains. ‘It’s finding the right balance between her choosing for herself and still wanting him to be there. These were the most difficult things.’

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This aspect of the film was heightened by Broods own condition, since she was pregnant at the time of filming.

‘I can see on my body that I’m pregnant, so in a way it was good for the film!’ she says. ‘That’s how it is sometimes, life goes together with the part you are playing.’

unknown quantity

Another aspect of the couple is that they speak different mother tongues, their conversations are a mixture of Dutch and French. ‘I know people who are in that situation, and that is the way they talk. They talk to the child in one language, then talk another to each other,’ Broods says.

It can also be part of the emotional exchange. ‘When she is angry with him she gets more Dutch. When you think fast and you have to speak fast, you say things in your own language. But when you really want someone to listen to you, you speak in their language.’

The challenge of working this into the performance was another attraction of the role. ‘How are we going to do that, to be that couple?’ she says. ‘It had to look logical and easy.

It’s not that they are speaking to each other in this way for the first time.’

Even though Broods has experience of acting in French on the stage, working in another language is still a challenge.

‘I’ve toured six times in French, but I’m not fluent and I really have to study. But I’m getting used to it.’ This gave her a slight advantage over Renier, who was acting in Dutch for

Someone Else's Happiness

Hotel Swooni

the first time. ‘He helped me and I helped him, particularly with this longer monologue he has about his childhood.’

One of the attractions of working with Renier was that he was an unknown quantity. Flemish actors tend to form a tight-knit community, where everyone knows everyone else, even if they have not performed together. ‘I was happy to act with someone I didn’t know, but who had filmed so much.

I was even a bit nervous the first time I met him. But it went really well. The natural feeling we had to have on screen was there.’

Working together proved to be a pleasure. ‘He is very focused, very relaxed, and not too noisy, because that is something I don't like,’ she says. And now that she has seen the film, she is even more impressed by his command of the changes his character undergoes. ‘He captures that very well, particularly since the film was not shot chronologically.

Sometimes he doesn’t seem to be acting because you really believe he is the character.’

different worlds

While Renier was a stranger before the film, she already knew Van Hees well and liked his previous work. ‘I said yes immediately,’ she recalls. ‘He writes and creates things that are from entirely different worlds than the one I live in. So I was curious to see how that would work out.’ The intensity of his vision, apparent in the scenario, was another attraction.

‘I like it when people really know what they want. It gives you

Hotel Swooni

EMOTIONAL JOURNE YS

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While she follows what is going on in cinema, Natali Broods hesitates to name directors with whom she would like to work. ‘I don’t like to do that, it feels too needy,’ she says. ‘If I could choose anyone in Belgium I’d say the Dardenne brothers. That would be nice! But then there are some good younger directors as well.’

After acting in French for Waste Land she would also be keen to repeat the experience, possibly over the border. ‘I’d love that, but it is not that easy. They have a lot of good actors and actresses. But I wouldn’t say no!’

As for roles, she has been inspired by the story of Waste Land. ‘I would like to play the female equivalent of Leo, to get into the emotions, a bit like Gena Rowlands, and be the woman who loses her head. We can’t do that in everyday life, so let’s do it in a film! I think that would be a nice part to play, to make that believable.’

She is also thinking of Joachim Lafosse’s Our Children, about a young woman who is driven to kill her children by the pressure of an unconventional relationship. ‘I’m not saying I want to play exactly that part, but I think that kind of emotional journey is interesting. The way people struggle with life fascinates me.’

casting

'I like the dictatorship!

I really like a director who is open to new things, who is not too rigid, but who has everything in hand' something very concrete to work with. He is very focused.’

Broods has been acting in films since her early twenties, making her debut in 1998 with S., an erotic road movie by veteran director Guido Henderickx. She went on to appear in Any Way The Wind Blows by Tom Barman, Someone Else’s Happiness by Fien Troch, The Misfortunates by Felix van Groeningen and Hotel Swooni by Kaat Beels.

But the difficulty of combining the long-term planning of stage work with the short-term demands of filmmaking has meant turning down several other attractive screen roles.

‘I really cherish the things I’ve done,’ she says. ‘I’ve worked with some very good people, like Fien, Guido Henderickx, Kaat and now Pieter. I’ve had some nice opportunities and if I could choose I would like to film a little bit more, but I could never leave theatre. I like the combination.’

She has also worked in television, but that is also difficult to fit into a theatre agenda often booked years in advance. ‘I did a series that was on television last year, which I really liked,’ she says, referring to the political satire With Might and Main. ‘They invited us to be in the series without audition and then wrote around us, which was very nice.’

Part of the attraction of stage work is the creative liberty it allows her, particularly when working with theatre collective De Koe alongside Willem de Wolf and Peter Van den Eede (who also has a supporting role in Waste Land, playing Leo’s boss). ‘We make our plays without a director,’ Broods says. ‘We write them or put on something from the repertoire the way we want it. So we have a lot of freedom. If I only made films, I would miss that.’

At the same time, she does not yearn for this kind of free creativity in filmmaking. ‘I like the dictatorship!’ she says. ‘I really like a director who is open to new things, who is not too rigid, but who has everything in hand.’

Waste Land

One film project pencilled in for the near future is Galloping Mind, by the choreographer turned director Wim Vandekeybus. ‘He is very ambitious and he has a lot of energy,’ she says. ‘I’d like to work with him and it is a very nice script.’ The story revolves around twins separated at birth, whose lives follow very different paths but who are re-united later under strange circumstances. Producer Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film is hoping that the longplanned feature can shoot this summer. ‘He wants to film in Hungary, and I lived there for a year and I have some knowledge of the language,’ Broods explains. And once again life and art are converging, since Broods also now has twin sons. ‘It’s the strangest thing…’ 

NATALI BROODS (°1976)* (2014) (2011) (2009) (2005) (2003) (1998)

– – – – – –

WASTE LAND HOTEL SWOONI THE MISFORTUNATES SOMEONE ELSE’S HAPPINESS ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS S.

* selected filmography

25

Joseph Gordon-Levitt presented his first feature film ‘Don Jon’ in the company of Brie Larson

14 > 25 OCT 2O14 st

41 EDITION www.filmfestival.be

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(Melinda Newman, Variety)

25 OCT 2O14 th 14 EDITION www.worldsoundtrackacademy.com

Concert Scoring for Scorsese - music by Bernard Herrmann, Howard Shore, Elmer Bernstein, Philip Glass a.o. - Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Dirk Brossé

FILM FEST GENT Leeuwstraat 40b, 9000 Ghent, Belgium – Tel +32 (0)9 242 80 60 – info@filmfestival.be

stop in toronto and start something big.

TIFF Industry saw a 97% increase in attendance at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival Conference. To service this growth for 2014, we’ll expand our footprint in the Festival Village with: • a larger Conference venue • more meeting space in our Industry Centre • new outdoor promotional opportunities to support film sales • increased capacity for Press & Industry screenings Visit tiff.net/industry for more updates and to register today!

nter view i

BE PREPARED... TO BE

SCARED

'The adventure aspect is pretty important and I wanted that 1980s build up before anything really happens'

36

RULE WAS TO WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. ‘I NEVER BOUGHT INTO THAT,’ HE SAYS. ‘I WANTED TO WRITE HORROR FILMS, BUT I’M NOT A SERIAL KILLER.’ ALL THE SAME HE HAS FOLLOWED THE ADVICE, DRAWING ON HIS MEMORIES OF BEING A BOY SCOUT FOR HIS FEATURE DEBUT, CUB. TEXT IAN MUNDELL

inter view

AS A FILM STUDENT JONAS GOVAERTS WAS TAUGHT THAT THE GOLDEN

PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

All stills Cub

The story of Cub involves a group of cub scouts who go camping with their leaders, themselves no more than teenagers. Moved on from the campsite they planned to use, they venture deeper into the woods, where they soon find events taking a sinister turn. Elaborate traps have been set and there is something, or someone, moving in the undergrowth.

Govaerts was inspired by thinking back to the effect of stories told around the campfire, when older scouts would try to scare the young cubs. ‘It was just the leaders pulling your leg, but when you are 12 and have a big imagination that can be extremely scary,’ he says. ‘So the basic premise is: what if they have a campfire story, but there is something else going on and the two things start crossing over.’

Written with Roel Mondelaers, the film is intended to be a ‘dark adventure’, combining elements of horror with aspects of more innocent adventure films such as The Goonies.

‘The adventure aspect is pretty important and I wanted that 1980s build up of an hour before anything really happens,’ Govaerts says. ‘If a gore-hound were to see Cub thinking it was a pure horror film, they would be disappointed.’

casting challenge

Govaerts has developed his interest in horror through a series of short films, including Golden Méliès winner Of Cats & Women, and TV series Super8 and Monster! which cross over into surreal comedy. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by horror, because it is such a freeing genre,’ he says. ‘You can be as wild and as crazy as you want to be.’

With very little tradition of horror in Flemish cinema most of his models are from elsewhere in Europe and the USA. Yet he also sees himself following in the footsteps of local directors such as Harry Kümel (Daughters of Darkness) and French-speaker Fabrice Du Welz (Alleluia, Calvaire).

Casting Cub immediately presented a challenge, since it demands a troop of child actors. Here Govaerts had help from Joke De Bruyn, an actress who also teaches acting to kids. ‘I think we saw around 200 kids and just mixed and matched. And, wondrously, that worked out.’

Sam, the cub scout through whose eyes the story unfolds, is played by Maurice Luyten. ‘I saw him in a music video that hadn’t even been released,’ Govaerts recalls. ‘He looked like River Phoenix in Stand by Me. I didn’t know if he could act

37

RUNNING WITH THE PACK

38

Cub is one of the first Flemish features to harness the power of crowd funding, reaching out to the public for contributions to the budget. People could give a small amount or a lot, and in return receive a credit as a co-producer, and rewards including set visits, mementos from the shoot or the chance to appear as an extra in the film.

The initiative came from producer Peter De Maegd, of Potemkino, who is an enthusiast for social media.

‘Peter made the smart move of not just asking people for money to make the film, but for the booby traps,’ says Govaerts. These appear throughout the film, and the idea was that by pledging funds people could help make them as realistic and functional as possible. The campaign’s slogan was ‘Buy a Trap, Kill a Cub’.

‘That seems to have stirred people’s imaginations, and during shooting we made the goal we set,’ Govaerts says. This amounted to around €37,000.

‘That bought us an extra shooting day, which was very welcome. And it wasn’t just the money: it really helped with the awareness of the film. You can see it on the Facebook page.’

At this stage he is not aware whether there were a lot of small donations or if he has some more generous patrons to thank. ‘I still think it’s something shady,’ he admits. ‘I don’t know where all that money came from. I have to watch the credits to see if my dad put €30,000 in there.’

or not, but the charisma was there. I thought maybe I could dub him if he couldn’t act, but he turned out to be at least as professional as the adult actors.’

These are the scout leaders, who are meant to be older teens. ‘They all play a bit younger than they are, but when you are 12 - and the film is told from a 12-year-old’s perspective - then those 18-year-olds look much older, and we play with that idea a little bit.’

First there is Evelien Bosmans, who Govaerts first saw in the feature Germaine. ‘I loved her energy in that, and thought: I don’t need to look any further.’

Although she has a growing mainstream career with films such as Marina and Halfway, she showed no reluctance at getting involved in a horror film. ‘She said that there are so few horror films made here in Flanders that, when you get the chance to be the blonde girl running screaming through the woods, then you just have to take it,’ Govaerts says.

‘And I thought: that’s the right attitude!’

Stef Aerts was also cast after Govaerts saw him in another film, Hans Van Nuffel’s Oxygen, ‘Again, he had an energy that I was looking for.’ It also turned out that he had already performed on stage with Luyten. ‘They had a very violent scene together, so I thought this was a good omen.’

Finally there is Titus De Voogdt, the star of Felix van Groeningen’s Steve + Sky, amongst other films. ‘It’s strange that he has never been cast as a scout leader,’ Govaerts jokes. ‘He was so much in his element walking around in short pants, bossing kids around.’

Contemporary horror films tend to have either orchestral scores or minimal, electronic soundscapes. For Cub, Jonas Govaerts wanted to go back to the distinctive scores used in the films by John Carpenter and Dario Argento in the 1970s and 1980s. ‘It’s a lot of synths, very simple and droning,’ he says.

‘For me there was no other option than that kind of music.’

The soundtrack is composed by Steve Moore of American band Zombi, which is heavily influenced by Argento’s house band Goblin. ‘I wanted this pulsating and to me very effective soundtrack, and that’s what we are getting close to.’

In the interim, Moore has joined the reformed Goblin for its 2014 American tour.

Govaerts is also a musician, until recently playing guitar with The Hickey Underworld, and some of his bandmates have also contributed songs that feature as source music in the film.

inter view

MUSIC FOR KILLING

Meanwhile the villainous Poacher is played by Flemish character actor Jan Hammenecker. ‘He’s got a great face!

And we put some additional, wolf-like features on him.’

Alongside him is Kai, a feral child played by Gill Eeckelaert, who is a bit older than the other children. ‘He was smaller than most 14-year-olds, but for us that was perfect. He had the height of a 12-year-old but he had the experience and could take direction like someone a bit older.’

winks to Carpenter

The forest atmosphere came from shooting in the Ardennes and around Liège, in French-speaking Belgium, as well as in the rural Flemish neighbourhood of Kasterlee. On top of that there is a more surreal subterranean world that belongs to the Poacher. This was inspired by the Ark Two Shelter in Canada, a refuge from nuclear war built in the 1980s by embedding school buses in concrete and burying them.

‘That was a huge inspiration for the art department.’

Cub was shot by Nicolas Karakatsanis (Bullhead, Violet), who was at school with Govaerts and worked on all his shorts.

Together they watched a lot of early Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter films in order to get the right look. Govaerts admits that this is not how Karakatsanis usually approaches things. ‘But if you want winks to Carpenter and things like, then you need to study the language. That’s what we tried to do.’

Even so, Karakatsanis’s personal touch is still present. ‘He has a poetry to his images and that is definitely in our film

and enhances it greatly.’ For example, he devised a very simple way of lighting the night scenes, which was very different from the way a conventional horror film would be lit.

‘That can be very kitsch, and Nicolas is not kitsch,’ Govaerts explains. ‘He always says that it’s a combination of my bad and his good taste.’

Govaerts also has ambitions to work in areas other than horror, such as psychological drama or comedy. ‘I love all the collaborations between Steve Martin and Carl Reiner,’ he says, referring to films such as The Jerk and The Man with Two Brains. ‘The base pleasures of a horror film are very similar to the base pleasures of a comedy. It’s even harder to do, but I’d love to make a breezy, well-timed comedy with a good comedian.’ 

39

FIGHTING for FILMS PETER BOUCKAERT IS USED TO FIGHTING FOR HIS FILMS. AND WHEN THEY SUCCEED, LIKE MARINA AND THE VERDICT RECENTLY, HE IS USED TO BEING TOLD THAT HE HAS DONE NOTHING SPECIAL. ‘PEOPLE TEND TO EXPLAIN COMMERCIAL SUCCESSES AFTERWARDS AS BEING NATURAL AND OBVIOUS,’ HE SAYS, ‘BUT WE HAD TO FIGHT FOR SEVEN YEARS TO MAKE MARINA AND A LOT OF PEOPLE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN IT.’ TO HIS SATISFACTION, THE FILM HAS NOW PASSED 500,000 ADMISSIONS IN BELGIUM, WHILE THE VERDICT IS CLOSE TO 400,000.

THIS PUTS BOTH FILMS IN THE TOP 20 MOST SUCCESSFUL INDIGENOUS PRODUCTIONS OF ALL TIME. TEXT IAN MUNDELL

40

PORTRAIT NYKLYN

Marina was one of three films that Bouckaert’s outfit Eyeworks Belgium brought out in the past 12 months. Each embodies his philosophy of producing films in the middle ground between purely commercial and art-house cinema.

‘If we make a film with large market potential it needs to be of a certain quality and to have an added value - a layered story, for example, or a challenging subject. If we do a firsttime film or a film about a difficult topic, we are not in it just to be seen by a few hundred people at a couple of festivals.

We want to reach an audience.’

bizz The Verdict

Marina tells the story of an Italian boy who arrives in Belgium in the 1950s and who survives the hardships of immigrant life to find fame as a singer. Based on the early life of Rocco Granata, this could easily play out as a conventional biopic, but director Stijn Coninx has chosen to bring other themes to the fore. ‘It’s not about going from zero to hero, but finding your own identity,’ Bouckaert says.

While Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne are co-producers on Marina, Bouckaert came on board as co-producer of the auteur siblings’ Cannes entry Two Days, One Night.

The Verdict concerns a criminal who escapes justice when procedural errors appear in the investigation, and the steps taken by one of his victims redress the balance. It is a crime story, but also one which questions the role of the legal system. ‘Again, it is not an easy subject and half of the film takes place in court, so there is a lot of dialogue,’ Bouckaert says. It was also an unusual film for director Jan Verheyen (Crazy About Ya, Dossier K.) who in this case also wrote the Marina

THE BOUCK AERT WAY Peter Bouckaert is not the kind of producer who signs the cheques and then stands back. ‘I’m a firm believer in the holy trinity of screenwriter, director and producer,’ he says. ‘I like to be attached to a project from the very beginning. Then you develop a vision together. If you share a vision about what should be on the screen, then you can overcome any difficulties along the way.’

Central to the Eyeworks mission is the development of new talent. ‘Over the past six years I’ve produced five first feature films,’ Bouckaert says. But it shouldn’t stop there.

‘We want to have a continuing relationship with the talents that we have launched and to continue to develop their careers.’

To get his attention, a filmmaker needs two essential qualities. ‘First, a unique voice. They must tell a story in a different way. Second, and this is very important to me, they must want to reach an audience. That varies all the time: trying to reach an audience of 50,000 with a difficult subject can be as ambitious than aiming for 300,000 admissions with a mainstream film.’

And while it is not a hard and fast rule, almost all of Bouckaert’s first-time directors have been over 30 years of age. ‘What I look for is maturity. A lot of young people have enormous visual talent but they have nothing to say.’

41

screenplay. ‘A lot of people had preconceptions that there would be no subtlety in the film, whereas you can see that it is very well balanced.’

Finally The Treatment is a dark, complex story about a troubled detective investigating a case of child abduction.

Written by Carl Joos and directed by Hans Herbots, this is the first time the work of British crime writer Mo Hayder has been brought to the big screen. ‘We made the film without weakening the toughness of the subject, but in a way that it is accessible for an audience,’ Bouckaert says.

new blood

Image

While these films are all by established directors, Bouckaert is also happy to take risks with new talent, such as Cecilia Verheyden who is to debut with Behind the Clouds, or Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who are behind the next Eyeworks release. The latter first crossed his path as film students, shooting the ‘making of’ for Verheyen’s Dossier K. ‘I found their energy and the way they worked very interesting. I said: “If you ever want to make a feature film, I will produce it for you.”’ The pair took him up on the offer, and even brought some money to the table after winning a VAF Wildcard for their graduation film Brothers. Bouckaert kept his promise, but also hooked them up with co-producer A Team Productions, an outfit used to the kind of guerrilla filmmaking they had in mind.

The result is Image, the story of a television journalist who explores inner city Brussels with the help of a young Moroccan guy, but who must question her role when violence breaks out. The film tackles themes of racial tension, media distortion and personal ambition, and it looks much more polished than its ultra-low budget might suggest.

‘It has the imperfections but also the vibrancy and intensity of a first film,’ Bouckaert says. ‘And it’s a story that comes from somewhere, from their experience.’ Already complete, Image will be released in Belgium this autumn.

The Treatment

FAMILY TIES

42

First of all there was MMG. Then in 2005 it became Eyeworks Belgium. Now it will be part of Warner Brothers Television Group.

According to Peter Bouckaert, who joined the company in 2001, the changes will be similar. ‘With Eyeworks we remained one of the leading production companies, both in feature films and TV drama, but on a bigger scale. We didn’t lose our sense for talent and edginess, but had a stronger backbone behind us. The way I see it is that we are taking a next step and behind us we have an even bigger backbone.’

He thinks it unlikely that Warners will limit his freedom. ‘What they are interested in is local production and bringing that to an international scale, if the potential is there,’ he says. ‘I can only see opportunities.’

In particular it gives him a new source of expertise when it comes to bringing films and TV series to the US and other English language markets. ‘I can easily pick up my phone and talk to someone who is a decision maker, and say this might be interesting to have a look at.’

In addition to films for the big screen, Eyeworks also produces TV drama, two activities that Bouckaert sees as complementary. ‘It enriches both sides. The quality of our television series has risen because we work with people who have cinema skills,’ he says.

At the same time, the ability to work in TV gives filmmakers career continuity and greater experience. ‘In television the budgets are lower, you need to be faster, and you are problem solving all the time. When they come back to film, that pays off.’

Recent successes include comedy Home Grown, crime drama De Ridder and disaster series Cordon. ‘I think a lot of things come together with Cordon,’ Bouckaert says. ‘It has high production values, it’s edgy, it seems American in its theme but is treated the European way, building strong characters. It’s intense and realistic.’

The next production will be The Bunker, about the activities of a local secret service cell as it tries to gather intelligence and infiltrate groups that represent a threat to the state. In preparation, the writers were granted rare access to the secret service archives so that the series could draw on real events.

bizz

T V CONNECTION

typically Belgian

Meanwhile shooting has begun on A Belgian Rhapsody, the fourth feature by Vincent Bal (Miss Minoes, The Zigzag Kid) and another film for which Bouckaert has fought for years.

‘Everything that people will say are obvious if it is a success, they now say are risks.’

It is a Romeo and Juliette story, with the lovers divided by Belgium’s linguistic frontier. He is the soloist in a brass band from French-speaking Wallonia, she is the daughter of the leader of a rival brass band on the Flemish side. The film will also be a musical, drawing on well-known songs from each community.

‘It will be very original, a typically Belgian film with a lot of warmth and humour, with songs and a very peculiar style,’ Bouckaert says. He also feels that it will have a wider European appeal, a little like the French culture-clash comedy Welcome to the Sticks.

in the pipeline

The next Eyeworks film to shoot will be Lee & Cindy C, a romantic comedy in which a young rock singer, something of an amateur Kurt Cobain, falls in love with a successful performer from the world of sentimental pop known as 'schlager'. The film will be written and directed by Stany Crets, better known in Flanders as a TV personality and actor (Germaine, Old Belgium). ‘I don’t see this as actor turns director,’ Bouckaert says. ‘To me he’s an interesting personality wanting to tell a story, and I believe he is the right guy to tell it.’

Then comes Behind the Clouds, in which two people who had been lovers in their twenties meet again in their seventies, when one is widowed and the other divorced.

They live this last love with the same intensity as their first, yet altered by a lifetime of experience. ‘It’s a beautiful story about ageing, about the choices that you make in life,’ Bouckaert says, ‘and about sex for older people.’ Behind the camera will be Cecilia Verheyden, a debuting filmmaker

Dossier K.

‘I like to be attached to a project from the very beginning. Then you develop a vision together.

If you share a vision about what should be on the screen, then you can overcome any difficulties along the way’

43

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tAste of europe

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The Belgian Tax Shelter has been an important factor in the growth of the local film industry over the past decade, providing producers with badly needed gap financing and attracting international co-productions.

Yet it has also been exploited for other purposes, reducing its effectiveness. After a vigorous campaign by producers, a reformed system is expected to come into effect later this year.

bizz

TA X SHELTER V.02

The Tax Shelter was created in 2003, offering an incentive for Belgian tax payers to invest in audiovisual productions while limiting the risk involved. Yet as the years passed, it was increasingly sold as a financial product with a guaranteed return on investment, regardless of the production involved. This in turn resulted in competition to offer ever higher returns. These were often achieved by tapping into production funds, for instance by requiring buying and selling rights in the production.

‘We had reached a point where, in most cases, for every €100 raised only €20 was available to invest in real production costs. So the system was not efficient any more,’ says Peter Bouckaert, who in addition to running Eyeworks Belgium is president of the Flemish Film Producers’ Association (VFPB). ‘If you depend on this measure for the last 25% of your financing, then it makes a difference between going into production and not going into production.’

To address this situation, Bouckaert and other producers lobbied the government for reforms. But rather than go back to the original conception of the Tax Shelter, they proposed a more pragmatic approach. The system should embrace the market’s preference for a fiscal product with a guaranteed return on investment, but in a more transparent way with no room for manipulation.

The idea now is that each eligible production receives a certificate representing the money it intends to spend in Belgium and more broadly in Europe. These certificates can then be sold to investors, who can use them in turn to claim a tax advantage from the government.

The amount of money available to production companies will be substantially more than is the case today. Investors can still expect a 5.5% to 7.5% net return on investment, while the government has the reassurance that the system is directly linked to spending obligations.

‘Everybody will stay in business, but the competition on the market will be on reputation, relationships with investors and the quality of the underlying projects,’ Bouckaert explains.

whose career Bouckaert has followed for some time.

‘I knew this story would appeal very much to her, and that having a young director treat this subject would create an interesting mix,’ he says.

Also in the pipeline is Say Something Funny, the third film from Nic Balthazar after Ben X and Time of My Life. This will feature a stand-up comedian who hits a crisis in his late forties and has to deal with depression and self-doubt in a highly competitive world.

Bouckaert is also developing the third and final film to feature police detectives Vincke and Verstuyft, following on from The Alzheimer Case and Dossier K. And he has an option on the next book in Mo Hayder’s series of dark crime novels.

Finally, Eyeworks continues its co-production partnership with Savage Film, which began with Michaël R. Roskam’s Bullhead. This summer will see the release of teen adventure Labyrinthus by Douglas Boswell, which Bouckaert developed with screenwriter Pierre De Clercq before Savage got involved. Next year production begins on Roskam’s next feature, The Faithful, the third time Savage and Eyeworks will join forces. 

A Belgian Rhapsody

45

under the influence

TEXT IAN MUNDELL PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

EMILIE VERHAMME EMILIE VERHAMME HAS HER SHARE OF FILM SCHOOL INSPIRATIONS, FROM EMIR KUSTURICA AND JIM JARMUSCH TO INGMAR BERGMAN AND BELA TARR. BUT SHE ALSO WENT TO LAW SCHOOL, AN EXPERIENCE THAT SHOWS IN THE STORIES SHE TELLS. 'I'M SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T LIKE INJUSTICE,' SHE SAYS.

46

'EVEN IF I DON'T TRY, THIS ALWAYS COMES THROUGH.'

Cockaigne, made early in her time at Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels, was about a Ukrainian family trying to survive as clandestine workers in Belgium. It was selected for the short film competition in Cannes in 2012.

Later that year she completed her bachelor film, Tsjernobyl Hearts, which used ideas of property to look at the way social codes are embedded in society. This won a VAF Wildcard award. Rather than staying on at film school to complete a master’s degree, she decided to use the Wildcard funding to move directly to her debut feature, Eau zoo. Not only is she the film’s writer and director, but she is also its producer.

Her starting point was the way Western society seems to excuse the mistreatment of children elsewhere in the world on the grounds that different norms apply. 'It’s so easy to say that it’s a pity girls of 12 have to marry older men, that’s their culture or religion. But it’s not OK, it’s actually child abuse.'

She feels the same double standard applies to questions of child labour or the use of children as soldiers. Then there are phenomena such as Uganda’s 'nightwalkers', children forced to sleep together in the centre of their villages to avoid being abducted.

Salinger and Nietzsche

Her approach was to recreate these practices in a Western context. ‘If the viewer thinks that they are strange, the point is that they are not strange. This is what happens in the world.’

The story she devised concerns a group of adolescents living in an island community. ‘An island is disconnected in time and space and it is like a reflection of the world around us,’ she says.

Over-protected by their parents, these young people are unable to make choices in their lives and have trouble negotiating the journey to adulthood. One inspiration for this was J.D. Salinger’s novel ‘Catcher in the Rye’. ‘It’s not that the story connects with my film, but Salinger’s protagonist is going from childhood to adulthood and he is being forced into it without really having a choice. And he tries to resist.’ Another influence was the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who argued that a human being is a sick animal, its natural impulses and drive for self-development thwarted by reason and culture, by the society in which it lives.

Adler, Strindberg and Mamet

Verhamme developed the script for Eau zoo at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam, where her mentor was German script consultant Franz Rodenkirchen (Grbavica, Women without Men, Lore). ‘He has a lot of integrity,’ she says. ‘He constantly pushes you to go further, and then you see how important the script phase is for a film.’

Being at the Binger also brought new ideas about working with actors. ‘For this film I was drawn to theatre writers like Adler, Strindberg and David Mamet, who approach acting and directing at another level from that I was used to.’ Apart from lead actor Martin Nissen, who also appeared in Tsjernobyl Hearts, the cast are non-professionals, many from the island off the coast of western France where the film was shot. Visually she was inspired by photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Bruce Gilden, Sally Mann, Arno Rafael Minkkinen and Robert Doisneau. ‘Some of their photographs fascinated me so much that I tried to reproduce their essence in the film.’ Another visual reference was Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark.

‘We wanted it to be an observational film,’ she says of the decision to shoot only with a zoom.

‘The camera is still and pivots, but it never follows a character. I didn’t want to push the idea of the characters on the viewer. I wanted to keep a distance. We also used a lot of depth of field, so the viewer isn’t forced to look at a particular object. Everything is open.’

INSPIRATIONAL These are some of the works Emilie Verhamme currently gets inspired by:

BOOK

'A Doll’s House'

by Henrik Ibsen

FILM

Persona by Ingmar Bergman

MUSIC

'Shoom'

by Trust

ART

Japan

A different set of inspirations rule her next feature project. ‘I have an obsession with Japan, although I’ve never been there,’ she says. ‘I have this world that I’ve created for myself, formed by filmmakers like Yasujirō Ozu, which surrounds the films I’m writing right now.’ The first concerns a masterservant relationship, between a Belgian politician and his wife and a Japanese woman who cleans their house. Verhamme is fascinated by the way this is at once a very formal working relationship and yet very intimate. ‘The cleaning lady knows everything about the life of her employer, and she can destroy it if she wants to. I think that is a very interesting power struggle.’ 

'Beauty' by Rino Stefano Tagliofierro

47

coming attractions

THE DROP FLEMISH DIRECTOR MICHAËL R. ROSKAM’S LONG AWAITED FOLLOW-UP TO HIS OSCAR-NOMINATED BULLHEAD (2011) IS NOW ALMOST READY TO BE UNVEILED. TEXT GEOFFREY MACNAB

PORTRAIT BARRY WETCHE*

* TM and © 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film

48

The Drop, the helmer’s first film in English, is again a crime drama. This time round, the Belgian is working with top international talent and venturing into Scorsese territory.

The film (formerly known as Animal Rescue) features the last screen performance from the late James Gandolfini (of Sopranos fame), who is cast true to type as a patriarchal mobster. British actor Tom Hardy stars as Gandolfini’s cousin, a Brooklyn bar tender on the fringes of the crime world. He is part of an elaborate scheme to channel cash to and from local gangsters. His job is to hide the city’s dirty money: ‘In Brooklyn, money changes hands all night long... and it’s not the kind of money that you can deposit in a bank.’

Roskam was heralded by American filmmaker Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider) as one of the most exciting young directors of his generation. With Bullhead, he had made a noirish

hardboiled thriller but one with a very Flemish sensibility.

On his first American movie, he is again working with trusted Flemish collaborators but this time has a story from Dennis Lehane (author of Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River).

Young actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who became an international star on the back of his astonishing performance as the traumatised young farmer with the pumped up bodybuilder physique in Bullhead, is again in the cast.

The new film is shot by maverick Flemish D.o.P Nicolas Karakatsanis, also the cinematographer on Bullhead.

In The Drop, Roskam exchanges Flanders for the mean streets of New York. With Tom Hardy and Schoenaerts in the cast, this is bound to be moody, intense, high testosterone fare - in-your-face filmmaking with the same edge the director brought to his much heralded debut. 

APPLICATION DEADLINES 12.09.2014 12.12.2014 I SCREENFLANDERS.COM

end credits TAKE 29 / Summer 2014 / €3,99 COVER / Jérémie Renier by Bart Dewaele EDITOR / Christian De Schutter DEPUTY EDITOR Nathalie Capiau / An Ratinckx ART DIRECTION / Karin Pays SUB EDITORS / Katrien Maes / An Ratinckx CONTRIBUTORS Geoffrey Macnab / Ian Mundell / Nick Roddick Henry Womersley DIGITAL Saidja Callewaert / Mathieu Van Neck Jo Roddick / Nick Roddick

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PHOTO CREDITS P20 set photo © Jo Voets All other stills copyrighted by the respective producers TRANSLATIONS TO FRENCH Miles Translations PRINT / wilda.be SUBSCRIPTIONS By post / €10 / year (three issues) Info / flandersimage@vaf.be This magazine is also available for free via the App Store, and can be consulted on issuu.com More news and features on www.flandersimage.com

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Flanders Image is a division of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) SPECIAL THANKS TO / Albert Bimmel, Myriam De Boeck, Liesbeth Van de Casseye, Dirk Cools, Pierre Drouot, Siebe Dumon, Tom Van der Elst, Karen Van Hellemont, Erik Martens, Karla Puttemans, Jan Roekens, Koen Salmon, Dirk Schoenmaekers, Marijke Vandebuerie, Sander Vanhellemont, Helga Vinck, Annelies Vrijdag + all the filmmakers and producers who helped on this issue.