#24 - Autumn 2012 by Flanders Image

TaKe 24 | auTumn 2012 | € 3.99

GaME ON!

The creatives behind Eugene and Louise

Climate CHaNGE Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth getting ready for a hot festival season

Peter Monsaert

goes OFFLINE

IBBE DaNIËLS BaRT DE PauW BÜLENT ÖZTÜRK SCaLa FIEN TROCH SaRaH VaNaGT JOËL VaNHOEBROuCK JOE VaNHOuTTEGHEM KaTRIEN VERMEIRE KOEN VIDaL

Veerle's got

TALEnT! IS THERE aNYTHING VEERLE BaETENS CaN'T DO?

QUOTE

‘it took a long time before i did my own projects. one way or another, i fell into production management and assistant directing. i suppose i have a talent for organising and for keeping budgets. And when I finally got around shooting my own stuff, i couldn’t help but asking myself: “Jeez, why didn’t i start before!”’

rEaD THE FLaNDErS I INTErVIEW WITH TOM HEENE

tom heene interviewed by geoffrey macnab in flanders take 21 heene’s debut Welcome home is selected for this year’s venice int'l critics' Week and the montreal World film fest

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I WWW.flandersimage.com I talent matters

C NTENT I Take 24

Screenwriter Bart De

Pauw on the US remake of his alltime indigenous box office hit Loft and brand-new TV series Quiz Me

Quick

Peter Brosens and

Jessica Woodworth return to Belgium for their third feature, The

Fifth Season, which is set to star at many autumn fests, including Venice and Toronto

In Kid, Fien Troch tells

the story of a seven-year-old boy struggling to replace the lost love of his mother

A winning combination

of locations, financial incentives and entrepreneurship led to the prestigious BBC and HBO series

Parade’s End being partly shot in Flanders

In Waiting, Bülent Öztürk wanted to confront viewers with the immense power of nature, and the comparative frailty of human beings. And with the harshness of life in eastern Turkey after the region was struck by an earthquake

Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown is much more than just a film about bluegrass and body art

Veerle Baetens really bonded with her character in The Broken Circle Breakdown

The duo behind creative design studio Eugene and Louise have a truly unique style that is more in demand with every project

Offline’s Peter Monsaert is convinced that he’s made a better film now than he could have ten years ago

Express yourself! That was the message Ibbe Daniëls and Koen Vidal had for the subject of their documentary project Ouverture

source of satisfaction to screenWriter bart de pauW. after a dutch remake in 2010, an american version is due to arrive in cinemas later this year. 'it's Quite a compliment for me that the story is international enough to make sense, that an american audience can relate to it,' he says. TExT IaN MuNDELL

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ILLUSTrATIOn KarL MEErSMaN

However it's the original version of the story, about five men who keep a secret apartment for their love affairs, which remains his favourite. 'the others are interesting variations, but my heart belongs to the one we made,' he says. 'for me it's more subtle, more profound. it's exactly what i imagined.' part of that is down to the creative collaboration with director erik van looy. 'he's the kind of director who really wants to talk with the screenwriter,' de pauw says. 'he was open to the ideas that i had. he let me be a part of rehearsals with the actors, so i could explain why i had written some things. it was a nice collaboration and i hope we can work together in the future.' van looy also directed the us remake, but this time de pauw observed from a distance. apart from introducing american names and locations, the idea was to stick closely to the tried and tested storyline. 'it's a complicated script, with a complicated structure,' de pauw explains. 'if you take something away you have to replace it with something else, and it still has to make sense. it was quite a puzzle to make.' but although the story and script remain the same, de pauw may not get a screenwriting credit when the film finally appears. Instead Wesley Strick will have the screenwriter’s credit. Hollywood protects its own, and he wasn't a member of its screenwriters' guild when he wrote the film. 'It's a bit of a catch-22,' he says. 'i'm not a member of the guild, and i couldn't be because i was writing the script for a belgian company, and now in the remake i'm not the writer any more. it's a pity,' he says. 'We are all writers and our work needs the same protection.' Meanwhile, De Pauw has just finished making Quiz me Quick, a 10-episode tv series about an amateur quiz team that sets out to win the highest prize in the land. he describes it as a comedy with deep undercurrents. 'The only thing these five guys are good at is remembering stupid facts,' he explains. 'They are all at low points in their lives. they've burned out or their lives are in second gear, and the quiz gives them a boost, a lust for life. they think it will make them important.' but pursuing this goal affects their relationships, teaching them that there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. 'they realise that there are some questions to which there are no answers.' perhaps the only similarity with loft is De Pauw's decision to use a set of five characters once again. 'it's about balance,' he explains. 'i can have someone in the middle and two people at opposite extremes. that lets me describe the whole and say everything i want to about being unfaithful or trying to mean something in life.' Quizzes are very popular in belgium, the uk and scandinavia, which suggests the series has remake potential, but de pauw thinks it could go even further. 'the characters are so busy with something trivial that they don't see what is important. that is something people can relate to, and it could equally be in the world of dog shows or another setting.' after Quiz me Quick, which airs on flemish public television this autumn, de pauw has plans for another tv series and a movie, which he is keeping close to his chest. 'it's a simple idea,' he says, 'such a simple idea that i want to keep it secret for a while.' and while he looks forward to the loft being a success in the us, he doesn't expect it to change his life. 'for me it's important that i tell the stories i have in me, and that there is an audience. it doesn't necessarily have to be a big audience,' he says. 'it's like writing a book. if it is translated into 40 languages then that's great, but you still want to write in your mother tongue.' 



people

LOFT In TraNSLaTION

the international career of flemish thriller loft is clearly a

Warner bros. currently plans to release erik van looy’s the loft internationally as of early 2013. the us remake stars karl urban, James marsden, Wentworth miller, eric stonestreet and matthias schoenaerts, dop is nicolas karakatsanis (bullhead).

-opener i

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SAMMY 2 friends sammy and ray help some hatchlings into the sea, only to be caught by poachers and sold to a hi-tech aquarium belonging to a restaurant. as soon as they get there, they start planning their escape, but that’s no easy matter in such a stateof-the-art facility. directed by ben stassen and produced by eric dillens for brussels 3d animation powerhouse nWave, the highly anticipated sequel to sammy’s adventures: the secret passage is sold internationally by studiocanal. 

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-opener i

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rEaD THE FLaNDErS I INTErVIEW WITH VINCENT BaL

nOnO, THE ZIGZ AG KId 13-year-old nono wants to be like his father, the best police inspector in the world. but instead he always gets himself into trouble. two days before his bar mitzvah, to keep him on the straight and narrow, he’s sent away to his uncle sjmoel. however, on the train nono gets one last chance to prove himself. he enters a world of disguises, chases, french chansons, and Zohara, a mysterious lady whose secrets will change nono’s life forever... receiving its world première at this year's toronto international film festival, nono, the Zigzag kid is directed by Flemish filmmaker Vincent Bal (minoes, kika & bob) and stars thomas simon, fedja van huêt (character, buddenbrooks), isabella rossellini (blue velvet) and burghart klaussner (the White ribbon, goodbye lenin!). Based on David Grossman’s bestselling novel, the film’s Flemish co-producer is Antonino Lombardo for Prime Time with dutch bos bros as main producer. 

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nO MOrE

MOTHEr NaTurE after shooting films in mongolia and peru, peter brosens and Jessica WoodWorth have returned to belgium for their latest feature,

the fifth season. 'neither of us Would dare call any place â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; but We have lived here in the condroZ for almost a decade,' says WoodWorth. 'We loved the challenge of Working in our backyard.' the film is invited for official competition in venice and for tiff Wavelengths. text IaN MuNDELL

the condroz is a band of rolling agricultural land in the south of belgium, bordering the hills and forests of the ardennes. in this idyllic setting, brosens and Woodworth tell the tale of a community thrown into confusion when winter refuses to turn into spring. the crops fail, food becomes scarce and the bonds between neighbours start to break. 'the story of the fifth season could be told anywhere,' brosens explains, 'but our backyard made most sense to us

portrait BarT DEWaELE

because we know the people, the light, the topography, the seasons, the customs, the old stone houses, the quarries, the farms, the daily rhythms et cetera. it's hauntingly beautiful and has a timeless quality.'

the bigger picture

a concern with the environment and the impact of modern industrial life on communities run through the couple's films.

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the fifth season

in khadak (2006) members of a nomadic tribe in mongolia are forced to work in vast opencast coalmines, while in altiplano (2009) a community in the high andes is challenged by pollution from silver mining. the fifth season continues this line of thought, although it wasn't a progression that the directors planned. 'Each film was so completely absorbing that we never concerned ourselves with the bigger picture,' says Woodworth. 'it’s only after shooting altiplano that we recognised our desire to transpose our thoughts to the place where we live.'

trilogy

now that the fifth season is complete, the three films can be seen as a trilogy. 'they clearly share a similar visual language, a sense of urgency and a concern with the environment,' she explains. and in each case the themes are bigger than the places where the stories unfold. 'We pose questions,' brosens says, 'questions that pertain to all of us. they are urgent. they are local and universal. they are omnipresent.' While man is the aggressor in the first two films, nature has the upper hand in the third. 'the premise is that nature, by doing absolutely nothing, giving nothing, denying the earth fertility, sparks a rapid implosion of civil conduct within a community,' says brosens. 'We are creating the hypothetical situation of ‘spring-not-coming’ in the dramaturgy by endowing nature with the power to deny man that which he considers so obviously his: grain, milk, pollen, flowers, plants, light, fruit, colours, smells − likewise denying him predictability, control, stability and profit.' 'This indefinable, intangible, invisible enemy called Nature provokes the dissolution of rational behaviour and an ugly face of man suddenly emerges,' Woodworth adds. 'as

filmmakers we believe that nature contains the potential for revenge and that man’s arrogance and ignorance will set the premise for a breaking point at which, in effect, a sort of war could be declared.'

constrained palette

While khadak and altiplano were marked by bright colours, the fifth season is paler and has a more constrained palette. 'Winter in Belgium is by definition rather pale, and we like to honour the true colours of a place,' brosens explains. 'mongolia in winter is blindingly bright and the andes in winter are bursting with colour. We simply stuck close to the reality here. the changes in the palette of the fifth season actually come out of the story itself: spring refuses to come and things start to disappear, even colours.' Their cinematographer on this film, Hans Bruch Jr., is no stranger to extreme palettes, having shot the blue-tinged blue bird for gust van den berghe, as well as the director's black-and-white little baby Jesus of flandr. other key members of the crew are art director igor gabriel, a regular partner of the dardenne brothers, and dutch sound engineer pepijn aben, who has worked on all three brosens and Woodworth productions. The film was shot in the village of Weillen, just two kilometres from where the directors live. 'it’s a great setting because it evokes the isolation of a village nestled somewhere deep in the ardennes,' says brosens. 'it’s a rural community surrounded by meadows and fields and overlooked by a big dark forest. perfect for storytelling.' even though it was close to home, the directors still carried out the kind of ethnographic work that informed khadak and altiplano. 'We did just as much research here as we

'We want viewers to experience the films not only as "story" but as something beyond the narrative lines, like music. listening to music is subjective and very private.'

did in mongolia and peru,' says Woodworth. 'We had a belgian university professor from liège, françoise lempereur, helping us with certain historical and folkloric aspects. We combed through archives and museums. We talked with our neighbours who are farmers about their daily life and their anxieties. but we were not so bound to facts this time, because it is a hypothetical situation that takes place in the near future.'

snow

in addition to local inspirations, the pair cite a broad range of influences for the film, from the music of georges gurdjieff, Johann sebastian bach and nick cave to the paintings of pieter bruegel the elder, goran djurovic and michaël borremans. cinematic references include czech new Wave masterpiece marketa lazarová and the films of Theo Angelopoulos and andrei tarkovsky. 'and then there is this great quote from Werner herzog,' recalls brosens. '"What have we done to our landscapes? We have embarrassed our landscapes!"' shooting in belgium also produced familiar hardships. 'it was bloody cold,' Woodworth recalls. 'We shot all four seasons in the dead of winter. the summer scenes posed a challenge. the actors were frozen to the bone in their shorts and t-shirts. and it started to snow hard during the summer barbecue scene, which caused a huge panic on set.'

sense of wonder

their own working method has changed little over the three films. 'It simply works. It’s quite normal to us,' says brosens. 'We make all decisions together,' the fifth season

nter view i

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rIVErS rETurN rivers return started life as a series of station idents, 15-second videos that played betWeen programmes on the franco-german channel arte during 2011. the 27 short scenes Were conceived With a narrative in mind and noW their creator, Joe vanhoutteghem, has brought that MOrE ON FLaNDErSIMaGE.COM

story to the fore in a 12-minute short film that screened at the locarno film festival in august. 'i came up with all kinds of images where people went through transitions,' he explains. 'Then I found I wanted to tie all these fragments together into a work of fiction, a kind of looped world that lets the viewer discover that everything is connected.' these transitions include children who change before our eyes into old men and back again, men who change into women, and costumes that shift colours and styles in the blink of an eye. some of this is achieved digitally, but vanhoutteghem is also an expert at theatrical sleight of hand, staging the changes in real life and capturing them on film. the looping narrative not only brings events full circle, but says something about the cycle of life: birth and death, love and loss, the headlong rush of modern society and our renewal through nature. The visually rich film was shot on location in Slovenia by Vanhoutteghem and rising Flemish cinematographer nicolas karakatsanis (bullhead, the loft). music is provided by icelandic multi-instrumentalist Ă&#x201C;lafur Arnalds. The film is produced by Czar.be. ď Š ian mundell

Mother and child Germaine

each film. 'The children were mirrors for my main characters, or they represented the still clean, naive world that the adults had lost,' she explains. 'All of my stories became the stories they are because of the involvement of children. So I decided, if these children are so important, why don't I try to make a film in which they are the main characters?' The result is Kid. Set in rural Flanders, it tells the story of a seven-year-old boy struggling to replace the lost love of his mother. Text Ian Mundell

nter view

Someone Else's Happiness and Unspoken, they play an essential narrative role in

While children only appear on the periphery of Fien Troch's previous features,

Portrait Maria Dawlat

The story Troch chose this time explores the way in which children deal with emotional trauma. 'I wanted to convey how children are still flexible in the way they get bad news, that they can survive it just because they are kids, they can play and so on, and how long it is before that play doesn't work any more.' The children in Kid are central to the drama and also determine what we see on screen. 'They are always in the room or involved in the situation. You never get a private moment with the adults,' Troch explains. 'You don't get any information that the children don't get. That creates an interesting tension because, of course, as an adult you understand some things better than the children or concentrate on other things.' Limiting what the viewer knows about a situation is one of the hallmarks of Troch's approach to storytelling. 'I like to avoid being so obvious in what I show, or to restrict what I give away. This was ideal, because I could say: the kids only understand that part of the story so you only get that part of the story.'

intelligent kids

As a setting, she chose the Kempen region in the north east of Belgium. 'My mother is from there, and part of my family is still there,' she says. 'I wanted to shoot there because I wanted to have that countryside and a farm.' She looked locally for her young actors, partly to minimise the daily travelling to the set, partly to make the local accent a feature. 'The casting took me a while,' Troch recalls. 'I kept meeting the few children that I liked, and then we would meet for the clothes, for the hair, then talking with the parents.' This also helped her develop the scenario. 'That was an inspiration. Just observing them, to see how they dressed themselves, how they treated their clothes. I tried to use these little things.' In the end she cast Bent Simons as Kid and Maarten Meeuwsen as his slightly older brother Billy. Rehearsal was minimal, more a matter of explaining to the boys what was going to happen on set. 'I was lucky to have very intelligent kids,' Troch says. 'They immediately understood what I was saying, and that was a big step forward.' Even so she had some sleepless nights worrying that they might lose interest or start to resent spending their school holiday shut up with a film crew. 'But after a week I was reassured. I thought: these are actually two adults in small bodies. They were really cool and really calm.' Their emotional intelligence took her by surprise. 'At the beginning I treated them like kids, saying: you're really scared and you are standing there... But at the end I could say: you remember what we talked about when you were scared? You feel like that, but you don't want to show it. It was like talking to adults, and they got the point and did what I asked. I guess kids are much more intelligent than we think, but I was also very lucky.'

Kid

'i like to avoid being so obvious in what i show, or to restrict what i give away'

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PASSInG IT On Fien Troch began teaching at Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels simply to earn some money between projects. Initially she was a little resentful that it was distracting her from her own work, but that soon changed. 'even if it's really hard work, or it takes up two or three weeks constantly doing exercises with students, i know that afterwards i'll have so much more inspiration and be so much happier to be writing than if i just sat there everyday trying to write.' The creative energy of the students is contagious. 'It's the same as seeing a good film, hearing a song or reading a good book,' she says. 'it challenges me to make something beautiful myself.' Working with young filmmakers has also taught her to question her own creative choices. 'If I ask a student to tell me why they decided to do something i should be able to do the same, and that has been really hard.' It is not all positive, though, and she's been taken aback by the way some students resist difficult films. 'Sometimes I'm surprised that they don't have the courage to look at films that aren't that easy to sit through, and I'm not talking about my own films â&#x2C6;&#x2019; I don't even know if that's difficult for them.' The surprise is when they balk at watching something like a Robert Bresson film, or just scan key scenes on their computers. 'Maybe it's another generation and another way of watching films,' she says. 'I don't want to be too old-fashioned, but when they say things are hard or slow, I tell them: nobody ever died from watching a difficult film.'

nter view

having cast local children, troch decided to cast local non-professionals in most of the other roles. 'i thought: if i start putting professional actors in here this place won't be the same anymore. it will become like a studio.' most of these roles were for women between 40 and 60 years of age, which she thought would be difficult to fill, but people were keen to take part. The style of the film also lent itself to working with non-professionals. 'The way I tell the story is very calm and there is not much dialogue, so that was perfect. people don't have to show a new emotion in every scene.' simply showing the way people carry out simple tasks can be very telling, and Troch was keen to explore the power of these 'non-moments' in the film. 'In the way someone dresses a child, for example, you can tell that she's not their mother.' the one part not cast locally was that of the boys' actual mother. 'one of the inspirations for the story was a picture of a mother and son sitting on a couch, and the mother had such a sad, special face. I thought I would never find that face.' but then she saw it among the dancers in the peeping tom company, based in brussels. this was gabriela carizzo, co-founder of the company and one of its main choreographers. the only problem was that carizzo, originally from argentina, spoke french rather than dutch. 'a lot of people said to me: if that's the woman you really want to work with, then she just has to learn dutch.' even this became an asset. 'the mother stands alone in the story,' Troch explains. 'She's almost a mythical figure or a metaphor for something, so it was ok if her language was a bit weird. she doesn't really communicate with people, so it fell into place.' carizzo's background showed in subtle ways. 'she doesn't dance, but you can see that she is physically very aware of what she does,' troch says. 'she is very physical in the film. She doesn't do that much, but she is there, and just being there she has a strong presence.'

sad face

unsettling

in keeping with its subject matter, kid has a different visual style from troch's previous films, in particular moving away from the claustrophobic feeling of unspoken. 'i really wanted it to be much more open and much brighter, with much more breathing space.' at the same time she wanted to avoid creating seductively attractive images of the countryside. 'it wasn't that they had to be ugly, but there had to be a kind of roughness or hardness, or a non-aesthetic quality,' she says. 'if anyone from the crew said something looked beautiful we would change it!' among many inspirations for this approach, one touchstone was rainer Werner fassbinder's fear eats the soul. 'he also had shots which felt very unheimlich [unsettling] or hard in a way. but then fassbinder never makes it easy for you.' Looking back over her first three features, Troch feels that kid marks the completion of a trilogy. 'There's a recurrent theme about difficulties in communicating and showing emotions, and maybe i'm done with that, although i still can't imagine making a film where everyone just talks as if it is normal,' she says. 'I'm already writing something new, and children are involved, but I feel that I have finished something with these three films.' 

FIEn TrOCH (°1978)* (2012) – KId (2008) – UnSPOKEn (2005) – SOMEOnE ELSE’S HAPPInESS

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* selected filmography

becoming

Elise 32

and then a movie. 'Hannah is very aggressive and very emotional, but completely blocked,' she explains. 'She has a lot of hate and she wants revenge.' Her new role, Elise in Felix van Groeningenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Broken Circle

Breakdown, is much more open, encompassing great pain but also great love. 'She goes through so many things during the movie,' Baetens says. 'Pure happiness, pure passion for a guy, the birth of her child. She is so

nter view

vice cop Hannah Maes in Code 37, first a successful Flemish TV series

Veerle Baetens has spent much of the past four years playing tough

wrapped up in emotions. I really bonded with her.' Text Ian Mundell

That connection was already apparent when Baetens saw the play on which the film is based, the tale of a perfect couple torn apart by grief. 'It was funny and tear-jerking,' she recalls. 'It reminded me a little of how I felt when I saw Dancer in the Dark. Some people really hate the film because it is so emotional, but I love it when people get to that point.' Her admiration for the play, and for the performance of its cowriter Mieke Dobbels as Elise, made her think twice before accepting the invitation to try out for the film. 'I was such a fan of how she played the part, at first I said I wouldn't do the audition. I found it a little bit rude. But then people told me: this is another director, and it's normal for the director to choose his actors.' She also realised that the change in medium would transform the play. Instead of telling their stories on stage, Elise and her partner Didier would live them out on the screen. 'I could do things my way without going back to the play all the time,' she says. But first she had to get through the audition with director Felix van Groeningen and Johan Heldenbergh, already cast to reprise his stage role as Didier. 'Felix was very severe,' she recalls. 'He wanted to see more and for me to go further, but I thought: I'm going so far! In the end I was hitting Johan. That was an experience on its own, but I didn't think I had the role.' If van Groeningen had reservations, it was that her aggression in the audition would spill over into their professional relationship. He had also heard she was a combative presence on the set of Code 37. 'I explained that I had been on Code 37 from the beginning and I'd brought a lot to Hannah's character,' she says, 'so it's normal that you fight more over things. I wouldn't do that in an auteur piece.' And she got the part. Before shooting began there was a one-month rehearsal period. 'That's really a luxury for actors and directors in Belgium,' she says. This allowed her to work with Heldenbergh on her version of the character. 'We were searching for an Elise that fitted with him as well, instead of Mieke.'

emotional intensity

One of the reference points that van Groeningen gave her was Kate Winslet's performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 'He wanted a character with a little twist. She had to be

Portrait Thomas Dhanens

On the set with Felix van Groeningen

Watch The Broken Circle Breakdown teaser

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LIVInG

OFFLINE like many flemish directors, peter monsaert did not rush into his first feature film. after graduating film school, he Worked in theatre and video arts until he Was handed a proJect he couldn't resist. he re-Wrote the script over four years before shooting. 'i'm convinced that i Was only noW ready to make a feature film,' the 37-year-old says. 'i think i’ve made a better film noW than i Would have made 10 years ago.' text LISa BraDSHaW

portrait BarT DEWaELE

Peter Monsaert's first feature is called Offline, a reference to how difficult real life can be compared to the safety and distance of the internet. the main character rudy (Wim Willaert) is a man just released from prison who wants to re-connect with his family. 'because of what has happened in the past, that is nearly impossible,' says monsaert, 'but he still believes that he can.' Things don't quite go Rudy’s way, and he finds an unlikely escape: a young woman working on a webcam sex site. but it isn't what you think. rudy and the girl, vicky, connect in every way except sexually. they talk regularly, give each other advice, form a real friendship. 'you get two plotlines,' explains monsaert, 'the virtual one, and the real life world'. the character of vicky (anemone valcke) doesn't only come to us online; we see her in the real-life world, too. she's trying to escape a small-town life of boredom and poverty by enrolling in university in the city of ghent, but she has to pay for her studies. hence, the web-cam job. 'she thinks that it’s an easy job, easy money; she can just do it at night,' explains monsaert. 'but it's really harder for her than she wants to admit. then she meets rudy online, and he’s different from all the other guys, and that confuses her.' Whether Vicky and Rudy will ever meet 'offline' is one of the film’s big questions. monsaert worked on the script for four years before shooting last year in his hometown of ghent. the script originally developed as a collaborative project with a social-artistic platform called victoria Deluxe. But eventually the organisation handed the entire script over to Monsaert to finish. 'At a certain point, they told me that the project was becoming too big for them and that we should find a producer.' They found one in Lunanime, producer of such successful films as Dorothée van den Berghe’s girl in 2001 and the oscar-nominated a cat in paris. With lunanime on board, the project really began to move forward and was shot in 37 days last autumn.

video art to feature films

Monsaert went to film school in his 20s and made a few shorts, but he waves them away as projects from a previous life. It was his installations, video art and mixed media that have paved the way to film directing, he says. 'I think that everyone who starts film school thinks they're going to make feature films. But by the time I finished, I really had more of an urge to make smaller projects that I could really finish. For me, film back then was too long, too much, too big.'

nter view i Victoria Deluxe Director Peter Monsaert has participated in several projects of Victoria Deluxe, a social-artistic platform for co-operations between artists and ordinary locals in Ghent. Victoria Deluxe in particular works with working-class and immigrant neighbourhoods and with specific target groups that benefit from social contact in creative endeavours, such as substance abusers, the mentally ill, the chronically unemployed, immigrant youth and elderly people. It was Monsaert's video work that attracted the attention of the platform when it launched in 2004. He had put together an installation together with dozens of people from his neighbourhood for a city-sponsored project designed to get citizens more involved with the arts. 'People sit in their living rooms and watch television and don't seem to have much contact with their neighbours anymore at night,' says Monsaert. 'My idea was to take our televisions and put them in front of our windows with the screens facing outside. I made 30 or 40 little films with all of these people in my neighbourhood, using the enemy of social life â&#x20AC;&#x201C; television â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as a way to connect with each other.' Since then, Monsaert has worked on film projects for Victoria Deluxe. It was that organisation that first brought him the script for Offline. 'We meet a lot of people with a lot of stories, so the idea was to get some of these stories into a script.' Victoria Deluxe eventually contacted him to direct the film and get his thoughts on the script. He got more and more involved as a cowriter and after a few more years of re-writing and re-plotting, Monsaert was finally satisfied. 'It's come a long way from the original story to this story,' he says.

www.victoriadeluxe.be

WaTCH THE TraILEr

besides video art projects, he began writing and directing theatre, a medium much more in keeping, he says, with that kind of attitude. 'you sit on a chair, and you say: "i’m in a forest," and you're in a forest. For me, that was a release. I didn’t want to be a third assistant on a film and then second and then first. I didn’t see that as my way towards making films.'

psychological drama

because the script for Offline was developed with an organisation that works with a number of at-risk or marginalised populations, the two central characters are both people struggling with their place in society. but monsaert is quick to emphasise that it's no social drama. 'most of rudy's problems are with his inner circle. the source of his problems is inside him,' he explains. 'so it's more of a psychological drama than a social drama. the same story could have been told in a wealthy family. the basics of the story are the personalities.' Of course Monsaert had to find just the right actors to play Rudy and Vicky, since they carry the film almost entirely. Wim Willaert, who plays rudy, is in nearly every scene. Willaert is a character actor in Flemish film and television, rarely playing a lead role. He may even be better known in France, after the film in which he starred, Quand la mer monte (When the sea rises), won two césars in 2005. Although he has had roles in high-profile Flemish films such as Koen Mortier's ex drummer and 22nd of may, the bearded, long-haired Willaert is rarely recognised when he walks in the street or sits in a pub. Which is exactly what monsaert was looking for when casting. 'i had this romantic idea that we were going to find people on the street and make a film full of unknowns,' says Monsaert. 'But finally, I had to be honest with myself. As a first-time director, I was making it harder on myself, with all these uncertainties with actors who have never been on a film set.' in the end, Willaert had not only the experience and talent monsaert was looking for, but also the look. Willaert's other job as a singer and pianist also helped him fit the role of Rudy, who is a huge fan of classic rock. monsaert did in fact hold open auditions for Offline; posters hung around ghent ensured that amateurs as well as professionals would have the opportunity to audition. anemone valcke, who has had important roles in such award-winning Flemish films as moscow, belgium and oxygen,

nter view i Offline

auditioned for Vicky, and there was no question once Monsaert saw her that she was the one. 'When Anemone came in, I saw Vicky sitting there. Actually, she does have traits in common with her character. A big mouth but a very sensitive heart.'

rock'n'roll Rudy

Monsaert wanted the soundtrack for Offline to match Rudy's interests, so he hired Belgium's most famous blues rock band, Triggerfinger. The band wrote all original compositions for the film. It's the first time that the band, founded in 1998, has ever worked on a film score. 'Rudy is the guy who listened to blues rock in his time and to early Black Sabbath and Cream and all these 1970s and 80s rock bands,' says Monsaert. 'Triggerfinger are the modern incarnation of classic rock, so I thought that would work. And it really does. There are some passages where Rudy is listening to his old cassette tapes, and Triggerfinger composed a Jimi Hendrix song and a Black Sabbath song that really sound like lost songs of those bands. Hopefully some of the fans will really question it: Is this an unknown Black Sabbath number?' Another pro on Monsaert's set was Ruben Impens, the director of photography, who brings a naturalistic approach to Offline in the same way he did to Moscow, Belgium (2008) and The Misfortunates (2009). 'I really like that Ruben is more than just a guy who makes a nice picture,' says Monsaert. 'He has comments to make on the script, on the acting; he really thought a lot alongside me. Because he is really into the script and the characters, he chooses his shots starting from them.' The entire process of shooting his first feature was easier than he imagined it would be, says Monsaert, 'because I surrounded myself with professionals. The team was so strong that all I really had to think about was directing. There was just one thing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it was Wim who said it. One day he said, "Peter, it's like you're making your 10th film, the only thing that gives away that you haven't had any experience is your shoes." It was pouring down rain, and my feet got soaking wet. Everyone else was standing there in full rain gear, and I was in jeans and tennis shoes. So that day, I was the laughing stock of the crew.' ď Š

www.offlinedefilm.be

'Anemone does have traits in common with her character. A big mouth but a very sensitive heart'

The seed for Ouverture was planted when counter-tenor Serge Kakudji was asked to record the soundtrack for Futur simple, a short film about young people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 'As well as singing we let him dance and gave him a lot of freedom to express himself,' says filmmaker Ibbe DaniĂŤls. The resulting images also found their way into the film. 'He intrigued us.' Text IAN MUNDELL

Voice of

PORTRAIT Bart Dewaele

the future

docs

to be dreaming, he thinks he's already made it. She says: "No, you have to finish school and get your grades." And he listens to her.' The contrast between the dream of becoming an opera singer and the more mundane challenges of leaving home, such as finding an apartment and earning money, is something Vidal and Daniëls wanted to capture in the film. Above all, they wanted to avoid suggesting Kakudji was

'That day was really important,' adds journalist Koen Vidal, whose book was the inspiration for the short film. 'First of all it was a nice day, with a very good atmosphere. At the same time he had prepared some pieces about children and we heard him singing. And so we started to talk with him.' Kakudji's story was fascinating. Here was a young African, only in his twenties, who had fallen in love with opera while listening to cassette tapes as a child. He had come to Europe to train as a singer, but remained connected with the Congo, with plans to start projects there combining opera with African arts. 'On the one hand it's a small story, in that it's about one person, but on the other it's a big story,' Vidal says. It was also an auspicious moment to tell that story. 'He's in a crucial period of his life. I sometimes get the impression that, for him, it is all or nothing.' Daniëls and Vidal set out to make a documentary about Kakudji, charting a year of his life. This style of portrait film is not as easy as it sometimes seems. 'You have a kind of script in your head that you cannot reveal to the person you are following, because you don't want to direct them,' Daniëls explains. 'And that was the most difficult thing with this movie: hoping that you've chosen the right moments in his life and that he will be open at the moment when you arrive with the camera.'

football match

The style is on-the-shoulder, but with a Redcam to produce a superior image quality. 'We stay very close to Serge all the time, with the camera following him through the city,' Daniëls says. Each new place − Brussels, Lubumbashi, Paris, Turin, Madrid − is introduced with shots from high above the city. 'This gives some structure to the film. It's as if you fall into the city and can see where he is moving.' The first part of the journey was to the Congo, where the filmmakers met Kakudji's family and friends. 'His parents are very proud, but they admit that when he was practicing singing opera all the time they were really worried about his future,' Vidal recalls. Meanwhile the enthusiasm for Kakudji's singing was astonishing. 'The reaction to opera was like a football match!' In Europe they followed his lessons and auditions, culminating in a first professional role, at the Madrid Opera House. Although a confident performer, Kakudji was sometimes less at ease with the camera in Europe. 'He wanted to be in control and I was not always allowed to film that desire to control,' Daniëls recalls. 'For example, he was not proud of living in a small, expensive room in Paris, and talking about that was difficult.'

godmother figure

An important factor in balancing the story was the contribution of American opera singer Laura Claycomb, who has become a kind of godmother figure to Kakudji. 'She puts him in his place,' Daniëls says. 'We needed that kind of person in the film, because sometimes Serge seems

Ouverture

living some sort of fairy tale. 'We don't want to make an "American dream" story,' says Vidal. 'The film doesn't end with him making it. It's an important year for him, but there's still a long way to go.' The filmmakers hope that Ouverture (which is still a working title) will also go far, finding an audience at festivals as well as on TV. They are particularly keen to take it back to the Congo. 'It's a different story from those that are usually told about the Congo and Africa,' Vidal says. 'I think it is opening up something between Europe and Africa, and I'm curious to see how people react on both sides.' 

www.offworld.be

Under the Influence more on Brasserie Romantique

Joël Vanhoebrouck is clear where his inspiration as a filmmaker comes from. 'I'm not someone who goes to a lot of art museums or reads books about photographers,' he says. 'I watch movies and I watch actors. That's what fascinates me.'

Joël Vanhoebrouck Text IAN MUNDELL

As a teenager he picked up an old Super 8 camera and began to experiment, but his father suggested video would be a more practical approach. 'In the first weeks we had the camera I made a lot of movies,' Vanhoebrouck recalls. 'I think that's when I realised this is what I wanted to do.' He enrolled at RITS film school in Brussels and found that he had, in fact, already covered a lot of iconic film makers. 'I didn't know that Taxi Driver was this huge classic movie, I just thought it was a cool movie with Robert De Niro.' One revelatory moment was seeing John Cassavetes' film Opening Night. 'I was amazed by the actors. The characters are so intense, and Gena Rowlands is magnificent,' he recalls. 'Since then I understood that my movie focus would be actors. It made sense to me.'

Claude Lelouch

Another enduring influence has been Claude Lelouch, who Vanhoebrouck concedes is an unfashionable director to like. 'He has always had a lot of criticism, but some of his movies are good because of the natural play of the actors.' As examples he cites Jacques Brel and Lino Ventura in L'aventure, c'est l'aventure and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Itinéraire d'un enfant gaté. A third formative influence was Woody Allen. 'His actors are great and natural. It's people talking normally, not playing a part. Especially in his 80s period.' Getting this natural feel is not something that a director simply decides to do, as Vanhoebrouck found during his first exercises at film school. 'I realised very quickly that you need to work with an actor and let them bring in ideas from the beginning.'

Six Feet Under

After graduation Vanhoebrouck built up an impressive list of credits, first as a location manager and then as assistant director. He worked on both Flemish and French-speaking productions, with directors ranging from Bouli Lanners and Philippe Blasband to Tom Barman and Jan Verheyen. Working with Verheyen on Gilles (Buitenspel) resulted in an offer to join the film and TV series Missing Persons Unit (Vermist), initially as assistant and then as episode director.

PORTRAIT Bart Dewaele

On board from the beginning, Vanhoebrouck was able to influence its style, for instance bringing The Bourne Identity to the table. 'It's a cool action movie but it feels totally European and thus recognisable,' he recalls. He was also able to draw on a love for American cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, gritty, realistic films such as The French Connection, Serpico, and Bullitt. After Missing Persons Unit, Vanhoebrouck directed episodes of crime series Code 37 before being given a chance to steer a series on his own. Double Life is a character-based drama set in Mechelen, a small city between Brussels and Antwerp. Modelled on imports such as Cold Feet and Six Feet Under, the main influences for the project remained closer to hand. 'The actors are going to tell the story, and that's what people relate to first,' he explains. 'Then the locations start to tell you something about the style of the series.'

Magnolia

Vanhoebrouck is currently completing his first feature film, Brasserie Romantique, a romantic comedy about several couples meeting in a restaurant on Valentine's Day. Written by Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem and Pat van Beirs (the team behind Moscow, Belgium), the film has a small budget and a single location. Even so, the cast includes some of Flanders' best-known faces, such as Barbara Sarafian, Koen De Bouw and Filip Peeters. 'Because I've only got one location I have to have excellent actors and maybe also people audiences might want to relate to, whose stories you want to follow.' Preparing the movie with DoP Ruben Impens, Vanhoebrouck looked at Magnolia for its visual style and at Gosford Park for its ensemble cast and limited location. 'But there's always a point where I don't want to watch things any more. I just want to let the movie happen organically,' he says. 'It was while I was shooting that I discovered the movie I was making.' For the future, Vanhoebrouck is discussing two more TV projects with Philippe De Schepper, the 'show-runner' behind Missing Persons Unit and Double Life. Meanwhile he hopes he can take his time developing a more personal movie project.

These are some of the works Joël Vanhoebrouck currently gets inspired by:

Music

nfluence

inspirational

Water On The Road, by Eddie Vedder

Book

Il était une fois en France, by Fabien Nury and Sylvain Vallée

Film

Sur mes lèvres, by Jacques Audiard

His inspiration here is Jacques Audiard, whose Sur mes lèvres is among his favourite films. 'When I saw it I thought: this is exactly what I want to do,' he recalls. 'It's the perfect mix of an auteur film and a mainstream film. It's a gangster movie, but it's filmed and acted with such intensity and such a naturalistic feel. It's the Dardenne brothers meet Michael Mann. If I could maybe do a tenth of what Audiard is doing I would be happy.' 

Borgen

cons

This time our photo album takes you to a rainy Cannes and to an equally wet Karlovy Vary

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enaerts s Scho Matthia Bone Rust & carrying nd Verdure a Arm co-star

(l.), Cotillard d Marion an s rt e a en s Scho (holding Matthia Verdure d n a rm oments A m ) d n a ’s h walk on Cotillard ir e th starting annes e before r th C arpet fo c cques d a J re f the tation o Bone presen & ’s Rust Audiard

mon i tor

scala, the young Women’s choir led by composer brothers steven and stiJn kolacny, have recorded a version of german industrial metal band rammstein’s 'engel' for the soundtrack of ole bornedal’s horror movie the possession, Which premieres late august. popular WorldWide for its trademark covers of rock and pop songs, scala’s take on radiohead’s 'creep' Was used for the trailer of david fincher’s the social netWork.

SCaLa raISE THE rOOF WITH raMMSTEIN’S aNGEL

Like the film itself, the trailer became a huge global hit after more than 250 million people saw it in theatres, on tv, or online. thanks in part to the subsequent buzz on social media, traffic to the choir’s website went through the roof. Warner music subsidiary atco records signed them, they toured north america and made their debut on us television on the conan o’brien show. and 'creep' also featured several times in the simpsons. the rest is history. but before hollywood came calling, scala had already begun to infiltrate UK and US television. ITV used their version of The police’s 'every breath you take' in a teaser for downton abbey, while in the states one of their original compositions, 'our last flight', was featured in fx’s biker series, sons of anarchy. meanwhile, their live act has evolved into a formidable multimedia experience featuring custom-made video projections, animation, light shows, and electronic sampling. they attract a far more varied audience than they did in their classical days – now classical fans young and old mix with rock fans and indie kids, with gig venues being anything from churches over rock temples to huge outdoor performances and music festivals. they have played to 50,000 people in germany and 40,000 last year in Québec and for large and appreciative audiences in russia and Japan.  henry Womersley

MOrE aBOuT BErT CEuLEMaNS' SCaLa DOCuMENTarY ON WWW.FLaNDErSIMaGE.COM

WaTCH CrEEP MuSIC VIDEO SCaLa ON FILM aND TV Creep Un poison violent (feature, FR); Hollyoaks (C4 TV, UK); The Social Network (trailer, US); The Simpsons (eps: The Ten-Per-Cent Solution; D’Oh Social Network, Fox TV, US) Engel The Possession (feature and trailer, US) Every Breath You Take Downton Abbey promo (ITV1, UK) Exit Music For A Film Nikita (CW TV, US) Last Christmas Downton Abbey Christmas Special promo (ITV1, UK) Nothing Else Matters Desperate Housewives promo (C4 TV, UK) Our Last Flight Sons of Anarchy (Fox TV, US) Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Wir sind die Nacht (feature, GER) With Or Without You Downton Abbey promo (ITV1, UK/PBS, US); Hollyoaks (C4 TV, UK)

take 24 | autumn 2012 | € 3.99 cover veerle baetens by greetje van buggenhout credits editor christian de schutter deputy editor + art direction nathalie capiau deputy editor / digital karel verhelst sub editors John adair, saidja callewaert, fabian desmicht contributors lisa bradshaw, karl meersman, ian mundell, henry Womersley photo credits p2 ©Bart Dewaele; p20 Parfitt & Stoppard ©bart dewaele, vrints & dewitte ©fabian desmicht; p22 'castle de borrekens' ©location flanders, 'de moeren' © martin dewitte; p23 'bommenvrij' ©stijn vereenooghe, 'paleis op de meir' ©paleis op de meir; p33 ©thomas dhanens; p35 sara ©vtm; p49 huyghe & verhamme ©Jacob rosseel, enthoven ©karlovy vary international film festival; p50 ©scala all other stills copyrighted by the respective producers design

print Wilda nv 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

'We could get brilliant value out of great locations, so it worked ﬁnancially and creatively, which is the perfect mix for me.' David Parfitt, Trademark Films, producer of parade’s end, a mammoth screen, bbc and hbo miniseries.

noW ucing introd EEN r the SC rS

€ E FLaNDd fun

WaTCH LOCaTION FLaNDErS PrOMOrEEL

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