Flanders (i) Magazine #26 - Summer 2013 by Flanders Image

TAke 26 | SuMMeR 2013 | € 3.99

Jeroen PerCeVal

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MATURING AS A TREE

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eurydice Gysel the co-producer of a prestigious BBC series and a Cannes Competition entry

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Jeroen Perceval the actor will walk the red carpet at Cannes this year

Marina Stijn Coninx and the dardenne brothers have come together to recount the early years of singer rocco Granata in the early Sixties

team spirit the company Hendrik Verthé and Kobe Van Steenberghe built

wild at Heart who are this year’s VaF Wildcard laureates?

ellen de waele looks for the right balance between working with first-time and experienced filmmakers

dogs to the rescue Walking the dog picked up work on ari Folman’s Cannes Fortnight entry the Congress that others had found too demanding

Bart Van den Bempt what inﬂuenced the director of 82 days in april?

He’s back! Gilles Coulier returns to Cannes with Mont Blanc

caroline strubbe about her second feature I’m the same I’m an other

animation nowe the Flemish animator who was involved in the making of the oscar-winning Paperman

6 i-Opener nymphomaniac I 19 shortissimo norman I 54 Monitor Crimi Clowns I www.ﬂandersimage.com

JeroenPerceVal

From

BullHeaD to BorgMan

IT HAS TAkeN A LITTLe WHILe, BuT JeROeN PeRCevAL IS BeGINNING TO FeeL THe BULLHeAD eFFeCT. AFTeR PLAYING OPPOSITe MATTHIAS SCHOeNAeRTS IN THe OSCARNOMINATeD FILM, THe OFFeRS HAve BeeN ROLLING IN. ‘IT TOOk ABOuT A YeAR, BuT THeN A LOT OF PeOPLe STARTeD CALLING,’ He SAYS. THANkS TO ONe OF THOSe CALLS He WILL WALk THe ReD CARPeT IN CANNeS FOR THe WORLD PReMIeRe OF ALex vAN WARMeRDAM’S BorgMAn. teXt Ian Mundell

Other calls led to smaller roles in the French film Son épouse by Michel Spinosa, shot in India with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Yvan Attal, and Die andere Heimat, the conclusion of edgar Reitz’s epic series exploring German history. The shifts in accent and language of this international work have been rewarding. ‘Some actors like to stay close to themselves, but I like to change.’ Perceval comes from a theatrical family. After graduating in 2001 from the Herman Teirlinck Studio in Antwerp he took to the stage as both as a writer and performer. His feature

PortraItS FIlIP Van rOe

film debut followed in 2006 with Felix van Groeningen’s with friends Like These, in which he plays one of a group of young people wrestling with the responsibilities of adult life. van Groeningen and Perceval shared theatre connections, but it was seeing the director’s debut feature Steve + Sky that made Perceval want to work with him. ‘I thought: here is a guy who is going to say something new.’ Shooting the film was exhilarating. ‘Everyone had a passion for the movie,’ he recalls. ‘I think that’s what being a director is about sometimes. You have to be able to make your whole

The Ardennes

Perceval prepares for his roles alone, letting a character sink into his consciousness. This proved essential on Bullhead, since Roskam rehearsed very little. ‘You have to do your homework, make it grow in yourself, sleep with it and make it live.’ This contrasted with the experience of working with van Warmerdam on Borgman, in which Perceval plays a husband whose wife is drawn into a bizarre power game with a stranger. ‘He’s completely different from Michaël and Felix. He is a painter. He tells you how to say the line, where to look. He’s very technical. You have to give yourself over to him completely.’ Working with Roskam also revived the idea of filming Perceval’s first play, The Ardennes. Several directors and producers had expressed an interest since it was staged in 2003/4, but Roskam was more committed. He suggested that Perceval should develop the script, which he did at the Binger Writers’ Lab in Amsterdam. The plot involves two brothers, with the younger trying to

Borgman

people

cast and crew enthusiastic. You have to light a fire, and Felix does that.’ He had a similar feeling about Michaël R. Roskam after seeing his short film Carlo. ‘I thought: Wow! For the first time there’s someone in this country who can do it, who has this grimy but still funny tone.’ He followed Roskam’s progress and little persuasion was needed when the call came to audition for Bullhead. ‘I knew this would be a great film.’

talk the older out of his criminal tendencies on a trip to the countryside. The older brother has other things on his mind. Adapting this for the big screen meant opening up the claustrophobic setting of the play into something closer to a road movie. ‘The core of the play was good, but there was not enough story,’ he admits. ‘I found that by digging into the characters’ histories.’ Once the Bullhead effect kicked in, however, it looked as if The Ardennes might be put on hold. Roskam remained committed, but rather than wait for his schedule to clear they agreed to bring in another director. Perceval thought doing it himself, but was concerned about his lack of experience. ‘Directing my own movie is another of my dreams, but first I need to make some shorts and get some skills.’ Instead they chose Robin Pront, who had already worked with Perceval on the short films Plan B and Injury Time. ‘He is a very intuitive director and very talented,’ Perceval says. ‘He’s still very young, but we all believe in him.’ As well as Perceval, the cast is likely to include Schoenaerts and Jan Bijvoet, who plays the mysterious stranger in Borgman. The schedule for shooting The Ardennes still depends on lining up everyone’s diaries. In the meantime Perceval is preparing to act in Plan Bart, a romantic comedy from Roel Mondelaers, followed by Paradise Trips by Raf Reyntjens, billed as one man’s journey into contemporary psychedelic culture. Meanwhile another of his plays, Liebling, is set to become the feature debut of rising young cinematographer David Williamson and his co-director Jozefien Schepers, although this time Perceval is neither acting nor writing for the production. 

Bullhead

Injury Time

With Friends Like These

‘Jeroen lives to act. He breathes it. He is not scared to show his insecurities and incorporate these into his acting. For me he’s at his best when playing on that vulnerability. But he can do anything. He works hard and, besides being an actor he’s also a gifted musician and writer. So he’s a true storyteller who brings along a lot of ideas’ – Felix van Groeningen

6 i

-opener

nymPHomanIaC Lars von Trier’s nymphomaniac stars Charlotte Gainsbourg as a self-diagnosed sex addict, recounting her erotic journey through life to a man who has found her slumped in an alley, badly beaten. Through Flemish co-producer Bert Hamelinck, of Caviar in Brussels, the film was able to draw on support from VAF’s Film Fund and the Belgian Tax Shelter. von Trier and his team shot several scenes in Flanders, particularly in the city of Ghent. Meanwhile Flemish actors Michaël Pas, Lien van De kelder and Ivan Pecnik will appear in supporting roles. Due for release later in 2013, international sales are handled by TrustNordisk. 

From Mont Blanc to CanneS GILLeS COuLIeR’S MONT BLANC, THe YOuNG DIReCTOR’S SeCOND SHORT FILM TO SCReeN IN CANNeS, IS THe STORY OF A LAST WISH AND THe LINGeRING HOSTILITY BeTWeeN FATHeR AND SON. AS THeY TRAveL BACk FROM A THWARTeD JOuRNeY TO MAke THe FATHeR'S WISH COMe TRue, ALL THe SON'S eMOTIONS COMe TO THe SuRFACe.

TexT Ian Mundell

PORTRAIT krIs dewItte

Inspiration for the Cannes Shorts competition selected film came from the director's own life, although he is quick to point out that he has a great relationship with his own father. But there was a time in his teens when things were not so smooth, and he wondered how it would be if that feeling had endured. 'What if you hate the man who is your father, for the rest of your life?' His way into the story was to imagine the father making a dying wish, asking to be taken back to a place of better family memories. 'As a son, I don't think you could say no. You would have to do it. But that doesn't make everything alright.' Initially conceived as a road trip to the Alps, Coulier found that the story only came alive after father and son had reached the mountains. 'Once they arrive at Mont Blanc, or rather at the wrong place, you start to wonder what will happen next, when they drive back,' he says. This is when the characters' relationship is stripped bare. 'Not a lot is said, but in that way many things are said. In that moment, the fact that they don't talk is what is interesting'. From the outset, Coulier had Wim Willaert in mind for the role of the son, having worked with the actor on his student shorts Iceland and Paroles. 'I love the way he acts. I really believe his performances.'

Finding someone to play the father was harder, since he did not want to cast a well-known face. 'I always have a problem when I see the actor rather than the character,' he explains. So he looked for people with the right presence, regardless of their acting experience. When he saw a picture of Jean-Pierre Lauwers, he knew this was the one. 'He looks so innocent, so likeable. He has an old, lived-in face... but on the other hand you never know what a person has done in his life.' This ambiguity is important, and in the film Coulier is careful not to reveal exactly what has driven father and son apart. 'You don't need the back story. When you look in his eyes you see a good person, but you have the feeling that something has happened. You ask: why would you hate your father?'

De Wereldvrede (The World Peace) with actor Gilles De Schryver, best known internationally for Come As You Are. His first project will be to produce and direct Bevergem, a nine-episode Tv series for Belgian public Tv. 'It's a comedy. I describe it as a mix between Breaking Bad and Lilyhammer.' Meanwhile he is working on his first feature film, Cargo, about a family fishing business that turns bad in harsh economic times. 'It's the story of three brothers who are extremely different, trying to work towards the same goal, but who really fuck it up.' Coulier is collaborating on the script with Tom Dupont, co-writer of Peter Monsaert's Offline. He hopes to cast Willaert and Sam Louwyck as two of the brothers. 

De Wereldvrede

Shooting Mont Blanc took a week, travelling between locations in Austria, France and Belgium. 'It was also very interesting for us, with a little team, to experience their journey.' That team included David Williamson, who has been director of photography on all of Coulier's films. 'David and I started in the same year at Sint-Lukas film school and we graduated in the same year. I've always done his photography and he's always done mine. In the first place, I love his images, but the other good thing is that we don't need to talk a lot on set. I can really give all my time to the actors rather than worry about on the technical side.' This is Coulier's first professional production, supported by the vAF Wildcard award won for Iceland. He was coached in the project by Felix van Groeningen (The Misfortunates, The Broken Circle Breakdown) and the film was produced by Dirk Impens of Menuet. 'Mont Blanc's selection at Cannes is not only beautiful for me, but it's also a big endorsement for the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (vAF),' Coulier says. 'It proves that the vAF Wildcards work and that we are really on the right track in Flanders.' In fact it’s not his first Cannes selection. Coulier’s 2010 student short, Iceland, was shown in the Cinéfondation competition. The future already looks busy for the young director. He has recently set up his own production company,

Mont Blanc

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Mont Blanc

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tHe BrOtHers

'MARINA, MARINA, MARINA / TI vOGLIO AL PIu PReSTO SPOSAR.' THe CHORuS OF ‘MARINA’, AN INTeRNATIONAL HIT FOR ROCCO GRANATA IN THe eARLY 60 S, SPeAkS THuS ABOuT MARRIAGe. THe DARDeNNe BROTHeRS AND STIJN CONINx HAve COMe TOGeTHeR TO ReCOuNT THe eARLY YeARS OF ROCCO GRANATA IN MArInA, AND TO TuRN HIS POPuLAR HIT INTO A HYMN IN PRAISe OF IMMIGRATION. TexT aleX MassOn

PORTRAIT danny wIlleMs

Marina

The alliance between Stijn Coninx and the Dardenne brothers, that also goes back some time. 'We met Stijn at the beginning of the 90s. Dirk Impens, one of his producers, had worked on Je pense à vous, our second film, and we became co-producers of Daens. Since then, we have always followed what Stijn was doing. He talked to us about Marina, sent us the script, and we took it from there. But we already had a link with the project, since we used Rocco Granata's song on the soundtrack of The Promise.' The new film by Stijn Coninx deals with Granata's youth, when he emigrated from Calabria to Belgium at the end of the 1940s to be reunited with his father, a coal miner. But it was the universal side of the story rather than its biographical details that inspired the director. 'In fact, when Rocco called me at the beginning of 2007 I was thinking of other projects, notably a film on immigration and undocumented migrants. He was thinking about writing his memoirs and wanted to know if I was interested in making a documentary about his life. At our tenth meeting, I told him that what interested me in his career was the universal story of a child who becomes a foreigner. It is only chance that turns him into a successful singer. We never assumed that the whole world knew Rocco Granata. It would be dishonest to sell it that way. Besides, we quickly decided to call the film Marina and not Rocco. I couldn't see the point of making a film about a celebrity, although at a certain moment we also asked ourselves, why not tell the story of Salvatore Adamo? He is much better known around the world than Rocco and their career paths

are quite similar. But the difference is that Adamo's father agreed that his son should go into show business, so there wasn't that family conflict that existed between Rocco and his father.'

part of Belgian history

A story of father and son, the working class... a connection to the cinema of the Dardenne brothers starts to become clear. Jean-Pierre Dardenne: 'Inevitably we were attracted to Marina because of its themes, but also because it was Stijn. It was because he proposed it that we were interested in reading the script, and after that we noticed certain similarities, not the other way around.' 'evidently it means something that we were touched by the relationship between Rocco and his father,’ Luc adds. ‘And then, without being explicit, the film also recounts a part of Belgian history. Of all the films that we produce, we are most interested in those that have something to say about our country. In a way Marina also does that by being a co-production between Wallonia and Flanders. Daens was

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'Simply making a period drama doesn't interest me. It must be linked to current events, to the present, otherwise it is nothing but a reconstruction, which makes it difficult for the audience to identify with, and to see in it the smallest details of their daily lives. that has always been my motivation for making films’ – Stijn Coninx already a sort of collaborative exchange between the two communities. However, be it 20 years ago or today, there is nothing intentional in that. Beyond any ideas of language, it's a personal story that connects us to Stijn. We met him, he interested us, we interested him and that's all. And in any case, the story of immigrant miners in Belgium is the same whether they came to Flanders or Wallonia. When we sent the script to the secretary of the French-speaking film commission, he responded enthusiastically because the story spoke to him as a Belgian.' Stijn agrees: 'My films, like those of Jean-Pierre and Luc, are never Manichean, nor are they all black or all white. That's probably down to our characters: that desire to show the complexity of humanity through its different aspects and, above all, not to rush to judgement. Marina is more than just the story of Rocco Granata. That's why I wanted to draw a parallel between the relationship he has with his father and that linking the grocer and his daughter, because in its own way this shows another facet of our country. Above all Rocco's story has allowed me to tell people that there was a time when foreigners were asked to come here to do jobs

we did not want to do ourselves, and that this contributed to making Belgium a wealthier place.'

contemporary feelings

Without doubt, Coninx and the Dardennes are on the same wavelength, and the director is full of praise for his producers. 'Co-producers!' they say, by way of correction, 'the real producer is Peter Bouckaert. We believe strongly in the project, but it was he who said "off we go!". Our work consisted of working together with the director, telling him "well, that isn't entirely clear" or "that seems a little bit long" but not "you have to do it that way". It's all a question of good will and knowing how to listen to one another. We collaborate with auteurs; we are not there to replace them. If you work with people who have no point of view, evidently yours will tend to take over, but that doesn't interest us. We wouldn't be able to make a film like Daens, with all those extras and costumes. But Stijn knows how.' Coninx also knows how to make Marina resonate beyond its evocation of the 1950s. 'Simply making a period drama doesn't interest me,’ he explains. ‘It must be linked to current events, to the present, otherwise it is nothing but a reconstruction, which makes it difficult for the audience to identify with, and to see in it the smallest details of their daily lives. That has always been my motivation for making films. I've got better things to do than reconstruct the 1950s or the past simply for the pleasure of it (laughs). There are elements

WorDS anD MuSiC

Marina

of Marina that come from things people have told me about their lives now and not from Rocco's life. That was one of the starting points for the film: to incorporate contemporary feelings and pre-occupations into the appearance of the 1950s. That also comes through in respecting Rocco's mother tongue. A good deal of Marina is in Italian, because that corresponds to one of the ideas in the film that remains current: how can we communicate in life when we speak different languages?' 'Marina inevitably says something to me about immigration today: this boy who leaves behind his country, his childhood, always thinking that he will return,’ explains Luc. ‘Then there is the fact that he becomes someone else, going against his roots and his father's values. It's very painful for both of them to clash over the dream they share of going back to Italy. There is something tragic in this relationship between this father who has sacrificed himself for his family and this son who takes another path. One of the things that touched us deeply in the scenario is that, as well as pushing towards a reconciliation of father and son, the international success of 'Marina' is also a sort of reconciliation with immigration. When Rocco sang this Italian song in New York, all the immigrants, whether they were Italians in Belgium, Canada or elsewhere, were with him. In a way this success justified immigration. It's a victory for the people who have worked hard, in terrible conditions, without any kind of social recognition.' 

Before Marina, there was Sister Smile, the previous film of Stijn Coninx, another story linked to an enormously successful popular song. Jean-Pierre Dardenne: 'I like it that Marina is also a tribute to popular song. even if we disparage it sometimes, it remains an art and a form of work, a craft that endures. knowing how to play the accordion like Rocco or his father, even to sing, isn't something you pick up over night.' More than this common interest in music, Marina and Sister Smile seem to be linked by the insight Coninx has into his characters, both of whom take control of their own destinies. 'Making a film is about being headstrong, about believing in a story. Characters such as Sister Smile and Rocco are perfect for that. Now I think that there are enormous differences between the two characters: Rocco always had his father's voice in his ear, saying: "you have to have a dream to get on in life." It's a way to surpass oneself when one is dogged by bad luck.' Before finding out whether or not the public will make Marina a success, there was one spectator in particular who had to be convinced: Rocco Granata. Stijn is already reassured on this point. 'I think he was afraid that Marina would be like other biopics of singers. He came to a screening with his wife and his two children, and I was struck by seeing their sons sit either side of them, as if the children were ready to console their parents in case of disappointment. After the screening, he took me to one side because a detail was bothering him: in one scene, you see a record label that is not right. I said to myself that the rest must have been alright for him (laughs).'

StIJn ConInX (°1957)* (2013) - Marina (2009) - SiSter SMile (2007) - to Walk again (2003) - FurtHer tHan tHe Moon (1998) - WHen tHe ligHt CoMeS (1990) - koko Flanel (1987) - HeCtor * selected filmography

Hendrik verthé (l) and kobe van Steenberghe (r)

Call t H e a te a M

HeNDRIk veRTHé AND kOBe vAN STeeNBeRGHe DIDN'T WANT TO HANG AROuND

AFTeR FILM SCHOOL, SO THeY SeT uP THeIR OWN COMPANY, A TeAM PRODuCTIONS. FOuR YeARS ON THeY've PRODuCeD SeveRAL SHORTS, INCLuDING THe MuLTI-AWARD WINNING LAND OF THe HeROeS, AND THeY HAve JuST WRAPPeD SHOOTING ON THeIR FIRST FeATuRe PRODuCTION, IMAge. TexT Ian Mundell

The pair met at the RITS film school in Brussels and worked together on several projects, including their respective graduation films. 'At the end Hendrik said: let's start a company. And I said: that's a great idea,' recalls van Steenberghe. 'It was a bit naive, maybe, but we didn't want to work all the time on little jobs and then only do something 10 years later. We decided just to do it ourselves, start the company and see how it goes.' A decisive step was buying a Red digital camera. 'We were able to shoot short films on very small budgets because we had our own equipment and did everything in-house, such

PORTRAIT Bart dewaele

as the editing and the grading,' says van Steenberghe. 'That way you can see all the money on screen.' As a production team, they have complementary interests and skills. Verthé handles the financial side and acts as line producer when projects are under way, while van Steenberghe takes on a role as creative producer, which covers everything from being script consultant to assistant director on set and handling colour grading in post-production. Their first projects came from people they had known at film school. First there was Pim Algoed with the extravagantly

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titled short How to enrich Yourself By Driving Women Into emotional and Financial Bankruptcy, then a documentary by Bram Conjaerts, called The Circle, about the Large Hadron Collider, a massive nuclear physics experiment taking place underground on the Swiss-French border. every summer for four years Conjaerts returned to the area to trace the 27km path of the experiment over ground, talking to people he met along the way about its goal of unravelling the secrets of the universe. The resulting film has just been completed and screened this spring at Hot Docs in Toronto and the Doxa Documentary Film Festival in vancouver. Next came Sahim Omar kalifa's Land of the Heroes, a darkly comic tale of three Iraqi kids playing at 'Saddam' while their mothers are busy cleaning weapons that the children have collected from near-by battlefields. Selected at more than 100 film festivals around the world it has gathered a score of awards, including Best Short in the Berlin Film Festival's Generation programme.

VAF Wildcards

Algoed, Conjaerts and kalifa are all past winners of vAF Wildcard awards for their student films. By taking them on, a team has been able to build a portfolio of short and medium-length films by talented young directors and to get an inside track on funding. verthé sees an advantage in having young directors and producers working together. 'We are working at the same level, whereas if they go to a bigger producer, as a young director they are always just a beginner.' And when the films succeed, it shows that the young producers know what they are doing. 'After Land of the Heroes I think we proved that,' says van Steenberghe. Wildcard awards are generally meant to support a short film, establishing a young director's professional credentials, but recent winners Adil el Arbi and Bilall Fallah have bigger ambitions. They decided to make a feature, Image. 'That's a little bit what attracts us to them,' says verthé. 'We had the same thing, that after school we said: we are just going to do it.' The story concerns eva, a Flemish television journalist who recruits a young guy of Moroccan origin, Lahbib, to act as her guide to inner city Brussels. The directors'

The Circle

Land of the Heroes

'We always think: what do we want to do, what do our directors want to do, and what is for the best' – Kobe Van Steenberghe

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Image

enthusiasm not only convinced the producers, but it also attracted some big names to the cast. Laura verlinden (Ben x, Loft) plays eva, while Geert van Rampelberg (The Broken Circle Breakdown), Wouter Hendrickx (The Misfortunates, Oxygen) and Gene Bervoets appear in supporting roles. Meanwhile Lahbib is played by Nabil Mallat, one of the stars of their vAF Wild Card winning short Brothers. Despite the limited means, the directors set out to make a

film that looks as polished as possible. 'They said: we don't have any money but we are not going to shoot it handheld. We want to shoot it like a movie should be shot,' van Steenberghe recalls. 'They wanted tracking shots and all the camera movements, which was a bit insane because of the way we had to shoot it, but the crew - and especially Robrecht Heyvaert, the cinematographer - pulled it off.' Now editing, the film should be ready early in 2014. 'You could pitch it as a festival film - it's directed by two

Baghdad Messi

Moroccan guys, it's their first film, it's set in the 'hood’ - but actually it's more of a commercial movie,' says verthé. 'The production values are very high.' An additional vote of confidence in its commercial potential has come through the involvement of Flemish major eyeworks, which lined up Tax Shelter funding for the project and will handle domestic distribution. 'The movie will have the best chance it could have,' says van Steenberghe.

work hard

Looking forward, a team has recently completed a second short film with Kalifa, once more going to Iraq to shoot a story that combines kids and conflict. Baghdad Messi is about a football-mad 10-year-old whose future on the village team depends on his father's Tv working during a Barcelona championship match. But getting a TV fixed in war-torn Iraq is no easy matter. By now the producers are used to the demands of shooting in Iraq. 'For a short film we have maybe 11 or 12 shooting days, where normally it would be five or six,' says Verthé. 'But you really have to relax. You learn that you can only shoot two scenes a day.' Now Kalifa is working on his first feature film. This began as an a team project, but the director wanted to work with scriptwriter Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem (Oxygen, Brasserie Romantique) and so it made more sense for van Rijckeghem to produce as well. A team bears no grudge. 'It was the right decision,' says van Steenberghe. 'We always think: what do we want to do, what do our directors want to do, and what is for the best.' Meanwhile the company has a number of documentaries in the final stages of editing and post-production. There are two projects from Ruben vermeersch, a mediumlength documentary called The Applause Man, about 90s cult figure Antoon De Pauw and a documentary titled What About eric, about a Congolese rapper who lives in the Flemish backwater town of Izegem. Then there is a documentary by Jason Boënne (another vAF Wildcard winner) who is following a trainee matador in Spain. 'The boy is giving his life for the sport, but it is something that is not popular any more,' says verthé. 'So in a way he has chosen the wrong dream.' The next fiction project will be De vijver (The Pond), a horror short directed by Jeroen Dumoulein and written by Michel Sabbe. This will shoot in January. But before then they are trying something different, taking on a season of eyeworks’ popular Tv crime drama Vermist (Missing Persons unit). This involves coming full circle, since both of them started out as runners on the series, with van Steenberghe going on to become a regular assistant director and writer. 'It's a little bit funny that in the first season we were the trainees, and now he's one of the directors and I'm the producer,' says verthé. 'Now we can say to the trainees: you see, if you work hard you will get there!' 

CorMan oF araBia The combination of working in Iraq with Sahim Omar kalifa and stretching a vAF Wildcard budget as far as it would go to make Image has given a team an idea: why not make low-budget feature films in the desert? Although shooting can be challenging, the results are spectacular. 'The light is beautiful, you have a lot of texture,' says van Steenberghe. 'All the people, the faces, the buildings - everything is alive.' In addition, the films would immediately have an international dimension. The idea is to invest money from their own company rather than tap the subsidy system for this kind of projects. Budgets would be around €200,000 per film, with an emphasis on giving new directors and starting crew members a break rather than making movies below market rate. 'We would be saying to young directors: we want to shoot the movie with you, we can provide you with a very small budget, you have to write a screenplay that is really commercial... let's talk about it!' says van Steenberghe. This is broadly modelled on the American approach that produced stylish genre films in the 1960s and 1970s and gave early breaks to directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. 'It's Roger Corman, but with good scripts!' says verthé.

On the set of Image On the set of Land of the Heroes. From left to right: Sahim Omar kalifa, Zana Gandi, Ahmed Nisret, Jochen Struyf and kobe van Steenberghe

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nOrMan ROBBe veRvAeke’S HIGHLY exPReSSIve ANIMATeD SHORT norMAn IS SeLeCTeD FOR COMPeTITION AT THIS YeAR’S ANNeCY INTeRNATIONAL ANIMATeD FILM FeSTIvAL IN JuNe. PRODuCeD BY CINNeMON eNTeRTAINMeNT, IT IS THe YOuNG DIReCTOR’S FIRST PROFeSSIONAL FILM AFTeR GRADuATING IN 2008 FROM THe ROYAL ACADeMY OF FINe ARTS IN GHeNT. Norman looks at things too intently. He stares. Then he has to get even closer. In the street, he crawls on his hands and knees to scrutinise a shrimp tail discarded on the pavement. In a café, he follows a man into the toilets just to get a closer look at his sandaled feet. No wonder people think Norman is weird. even though it has no dialogue, Robbe vervaeke’s short animation film norman is highly expressive. each frame is composed with oil paint on glass, photographed, and then repainted before the pigment dries. When Norman walks through the streets, the air around him seems disturbed and buildings register traces of his passing. When he stares, his emotions are visible in the shifting paint of his face. It’s not just the materials in norman that come from the art world. There is a touch of van Gogh in the swirling textures and the people who follow Norman’s strange progress resemble those described by the German expressionists. The suggestion of isolation and madness couldn’t be stronger, yet it is unclear from the story whether Norman is a threat to society or merely a harmless voyeur.  IM

The

Queen of

Czar Text Ian Mundell Portrait THOMAS VANHAUTE

THe SeRIeS ONe OF THe MOST AMBITIOuS PROJeCTS IT HAD eveR ATTeMPTeD. IT IS THe SeCOND MAJOR BRITISH Tv SeRIeS TO SHOOT IN FLANDeRS IN ReCeNT YeARS, FOLLOWING IN THe FOOTSTePS OF WORLD WAR ONe DRAMA PARADe'S eND. PRODuCeR euRYDICe GYSeL OF CZAR BeLGIuM PuT TOGeTHeR THe PACkAGe THAT PeRSuADeD THeM THAT FLANDeRS COuLD DOuBLe FOR 15TH CeNTuRY eNGLAND. AND THeRe'S MORe: CZAR IS ALSO A CO-PRODuCTION PARTNeR IN ALex vAN WARMeRDAM'S CANNeS

COMPeTITION eNTRY BorgMAn.

nter view

WHeN THe BBC ANNOuNCeD THe WHITe QueeN AT THe BeGINNING OF 2012 IT CALLeD

On the set of The White Queen: Rebecca Ferguson (top) and Faye Marsay (bottom left)

The story of The White Queen is set during the War of the Roses, when competing dynasties fought for the english throne. Based on the novels by Philippa Gregory, who also wrote The Other Boleyn Girl, the narrative brings out the important role played by women in one of the most glamorous periods in english history. Jan Vrints who put together the finance package for Parade’s end, introduced eurydice Gysel to series producers Company Pictures. At that point several countries were being considered for shooting the series, including Ireland and Hungary. The financial advantages of coming to Belgium were clear, but more was required to make it a contender. ‘They knew about our Tax Shelter and they wanted to know about locations, so we did two weeks of scouting all over Belgium for castles and so on,’ Gysel recalls. ‘Because of those locations and the Tax Shelter they decided to shoot here.’ Outside locations were found around the cities of Bruges and Ghent, while a studio in Bruges was refitted for interior work on the series. Meanwhile the financial package was completed, with a Tax Shelter contribution from the BNP Paribas Fortis Film Fund, co-production funds from Flemish public broadcaster vRT and support from the vAF Media Fund. A bid has also been placed for the Screen Flanders fund, which aims to attract foreign co-productions to the region.

Veerle Baetens

The series shot for 120 days, with around 80 people on set every day. Naturally most of the cast is British. But Flemish actress veerle Baetens (The Broken Circle Breakdown) also has an important role as Margaret of Anjou, a formidable French noblewoman who married england's king Henry vI. A number of smaller parts are also filled by local actors.

Company Pictures brought its own line producer and, being new to the country, was cautious about delegating technical roles to foreign crew. ‘In the beginning I had to fight a little bit,’ Gysel says. ‘I didn't want it just to be the english coming over and just using us, and in that way it was sometimes a tough discussion. But in the end it worked out very well.’ Sound was always going to be handled locally, but as time went on Flemish crew took on more responsibility in the camera department, art department and in assistant director positions. Given the nature of the production, costume was also an important department. ‘Initially they wanted to bring everything from england,’ Gysel recalls. ‘Then we made some costumes here and convinced them we could do it.’ This is Gysel's first experience of a large TV production, although her background in both feature films and advertising means that she was not intimidated by the scale. ‘Sometimes the money for one commercial is the same as for a feature film, only you shoot it in a few days, so in a way you know how to handle the demands, how to handle the budgets.’ Czar already has further Tv projects lined up. A second collaboration with Company Pictures is under discussion. This will be another literary costume drama, which could shoot in 2014/5 if everything falls into place. In-house Czar is developing an idea for a Tv series that it hopes to coproduce with France and Denmark. ‘We want to make something with international appeal, like Twin Peaks or The kingdom, something you want to follow,' she says. ‘It should also be, for the directors, something that is more intriguing and visually interesting than regular Tv.’ On the set of The White Queen: Max Irons (bottom)

‘our directors demand a lot so you have to be creative with your budgets. In the end I'm always surprised by the results, and that pushes me to go further’

Czar label

Czar Belgium was created in 1999 by director koen Mortier as an affiliate of production company Czar Netherlands. The aim was to give him more creative control in pitching and making commercials in Belgium, and also to provide a platform to develop fiction projects. His debut feature film ex Drummer was completed in 2007, followed in 2010 by 22nd of May. Meanwhile Czar expanded, attracting like-minded filmmakers working creatively in advertising and nurturing occasional fiction and documentary projects. Gysel was invited on board as a producer in 2000, first handling advertising and then taking over the fiction department. In 2010 she became executive producer and managing director of the whole company. Advertising remains the bedrock of Czar's business, driven by the creativity of its directors. ‘They don't see commercials as just a way of making money,’ Gysel explains. ‘They work hard and, if they think we need to film in a certain way to make a better commercial, then they fight for that.' At the same time Czar helps its directors realise their ambitions in fiction, beginning with support in developing scripts for short and feature films, then helping put together a production. Recent shorts include Rivers Return by Joe vanhoutteghem, a looping narrative about the cycle of life, which was screened

Koen mortIer As well as being Czar's founder and one of its main directors, koen Mortier acts as the company's creative producer. ‘In the company he's the one who reads projects and helps to develop those he recognizes the hand of an author in,’ Gysel says. He also has two feature projects of his own underway. The first is an adaptation of Haunted, a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the cult uS author whose Fight Club was brought to the big screen by David Fincher. Haunted is about 17 writers who commit to a three-month retreat in the hope that one of them will emerge with the great American novel. Mortier and Gysel acquired the rights in 2008, but it has been a long journey to secure finance to make the film in the USA. Indus Media & Entertainment finally bought production rights this year. Mortier has written the script, which is currently being polished by Brock Norman Brock. ‘We want to have the final version ready for Cannes to sell to distributors, sales agents and especially actors,’ says Gysel. All being well, the film should shoot in the fall or winter of 2013/4. Meanwhile Mortier has also bought the film rights to Dimitri Verhulst's Monologue of Someone Who Got used to Talking to Herself, about the mysterious death of a Belgian cycle racer in Senegal. The story is loosely based on the sudden death of one of the biggest cycling talents Belgium ever generated: Frank vandenbroucke. This will be the second story by verhulst to get the big screen treatment after Felix van Groeningen's The Misfortunates.

at the Locarno Film Festival in 2012, and Perfect Drug by Toon Aerts, a genre-bending flight of fancy that was in competition at this year's Clermont-Ferrand film festival. Both directors are now thinking about follow-up projects, with vanhoutteghem working on the script for a feature.

Torino Filmlab

Other projects under way include a short film from kevin Meul, which will shoot in the summer, to be followed by his debut feature My First Highway. This dark teenage movie shows how a young boy learns about love and life in the cruellest way possible. In 2012 the project was the first by a Flemish director to be selected for the Torino Filmlab's prestigious Script & Pitch programme. Meanwhile it received production support from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (vAF). Following in his footsteps is Kenneth Mercken, whose first feature project Coureur has been selected for the Torino programme this year. The film explores the life of a young professional cyclist, driven to use performance enhancing drugs by the pressure to win. ‘It's about being crazy, doping and cycling, and not winning,’ Gysel says. ‘It's also about the relationship between him and his father.’ Alongside Mortier's current projects (see box), Czar's next big feature production is Waste Land, the third by Pieter van Hees after Left Bank (2008) and Dirty Mind (2009). This tells the story of a Brussels cop who becomes obsessed with a murder in the city's African quarter, letting it slowly take over both his professional and personal life. The lead will be taken by Dardenne brothers protégé Jérémie Renier (The kid with a Bike, Cloclo), who has learned Dutch in order to play the bilingual role. Natali Broods (Hotel Swooni) plays his wife. Shooting started in April, with Bac International on board to handle international sales. The company is also involved as a co-production partner in both Alex van Warmerdam’s Cannes Competition entry

Borgman and etrange couleur des larmes de mon corps by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. While Gysel's role as a producer is more about the money than the content of the films, it's the creativity of Czar that makes the work so rewarding. ‘Our directors demand a lot so you have to be creative with your budgets. In the end I'm always surprised by the results, and that pushes me to go further.’  Waste Land (top), Borgman (bottom)

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edition française

on ConnaiT La CHanSon Les Frères Dardenne et Stijn Coninx se sont associés pour raconter les jeunes années de Rocco Granata dans Marina et faire du tube éponyme un hymne aux vertus de l'immigration. PROPOS RECUEILLIS PAR Alex Masson PHOTO Danny Willems « Marina, Marina, Marina, Ti voglio al piu presto sposar ». Le refrain de 'Marina', tube international de Rocco Granata qui a bercé le début des années 60, parle de mariage. L'alliance entre Stijn Coninx et les Frères Dardenne, quant à elle, ne date pas d'aujourd'hui. « Nous avons rencontré Stijn au début des années 90. Dirk Impens, un de ses producteurs, avait travaillé sur Je pense à vous, notre second film, et nous sommes nousmêmes devenus coproducteurs de Daens. Depuis, nous avons toujours suivi le travail de Stijn. Il nous a parlé de Marina, nous a envoyé le scénario, et c'était parti. Il y avait déjà un lien : la chanson de Rocco Granata figure dans la bande son de La Promesse ». Le nouveau film de Stijn Coninx relate la jeunesse de Granata, un Calabrais

émigré en Belgique à la fin des années 40 pour rejoindre son père mineur de fond. Au-delà du biopic, c'est la dimension universelle de cette histoire qui a inspiré le réalisateur. « Je pensais à d'autres projets, notamment un film sur les sanspapiers et sur l'immigration, quand début 2007, Rocco m'a appelé. Il envisageait d'écrire ses mémoires et voulait savoir si j'étais intéressé par un documentaire sur sa vie. À notre dixième rencontre, je lui ai dit que ce qui m'intéressait dans son parcours, c'est l'histoire universelle d'un enfant qui devient un étranger. D'ailleurs on a assez vite décidé d'intituler le film Marina et non Rocco. Je me suis posé la question de l'intérêt de faire un film basé sur une célébrité. Pourquoi ne pas raconter plutôt l'histoire d'Adamo ? Il est beaucoup plus connu que Rocco

et leurs parcours sont assez similaires. La différence est que le père d'Adamo approuvait le fait que son fils se lance dans la chanson, du coup il n'y avait pas la dimension conflictuelle qu'il y a entre Rocco et le sien ».

des frères, un ﬁls, son père et un pays

Une histoire de filiation, le monde ouvrier... une passerelle avec le cinéma des frères Dardenne s'esquisse. JeanPierre Dardenne : « Le projet Marina nous a attiré par sa thématique, mais aussi parce que c'était Stijn. Il nous a proposé le scénario, on a eu envie de le lire, et on s'est aperçu de certaines similitudes. Pas l'inverse. » Luc rajoute « Mais il n'est évidemment pas anodin que le rapport entre Rocco et son père

interview

Marina

nous ait touchés. Mine de rien, ce film raconte aussi un pan de l'histoire de Belgique. Nous produisons autant que possible des films qui parlent de notre pays. Marina est une coproduction entre Wallons et Flamands. Daens était déjà un échange collaboratif entre les deux communautés. Mais ça n'a rien d'intentionnel, c'est une histoire personnelle qui nous lie à Stijn. On l'a rencontré, il s'est intéressé à nous, nous à lui, tout est là. De toutes façons, cette histoire de mineurs immigrés en Belgique, qu'elle se soit passée en Flandre ou en Wallonie, c'est kif-kif. On a fait lire le scénario au rapporteur de la commission francophone, il était enthousiaste parce que cette histoire lui parlait en tant que Belge ». Stijn acquiesce : « Les films que je fais, comme ceux de Jean-Pierre et Luc, ne sont jamais manichéens, rien n'est tout noir ni tout blanc. C'est sans doute dans nos caractères, cette envie

de montrer la complexité de l'espèce humaine, dans ses différents aspects. et surtout de ne pas trop vite la juger. Marina dépasse l'histoire personnelle de Rocco Granata. Je tenais par exemple à mettre en parallèle la relation entre Rocco et son père et celle entre l'épicier et sa fille, qui évoque une autre facette de notre pays. Le parcours de Rocco m'a surtout permis de rappeler qu'il y a eu une période où on a demandé à des étrangers de venir ici pour faire des choses que nous ne voulions plus faire. et que ça a contribué à la richesse de la Belgique ». Pas de doute, Coninx et les Dardenne sont sur la même longueur d'onde. Le réalisateur ne tarit d'ailleurs pas d'éloges envers ses producteurs. « Coproducteurs ! » rectifient Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne, « le vrai producteur c'est Peter Bouckaert. Nous étions acquis au projet, mais c'est lui qui a dit ‘on y va’. Notre travail consiste à

travailler en équipe avec le réalisateur, à lui dire : ‘Ça, on ne comprend pas très bien’ ou ‘Ça, ça nous parait un peu long’. Mais pas ‘Il faut faire comme ça’. Il faut être à l'écoute. Nous collaborons avec des auteurs, nous ne sommes pas là pour les remplacer. Si vous travaillez avec des gens qui n'ont pas de point de vue, forcément le vôtre aura tendance à prendre le dessus. Mais ça ne nous intéresse pas. On serait incapable de faire un film comme Daens, avec toute cette figuration, ces costumes. Stijn, lui, s'en délecte ». Il sait aussi faire résonner Marina audelà de son évocation des années 50. « Faire un simple film d'époque ne m'intéressait pas. Il doit être lié à l'actualité, au présent, sinon ce n'est qu'une reconstruction, auquel cas il est difficile pour le spectateur de s'identifier, de voir le moindre rapport avec son

interview

quotidien. J'ai autre chose à faire que reconstituer les années 50 ou le passé pour le simple plaisir de le faire (rires). Il y a des éléments dans Marina qui viennent de ce que des gens m'ont raconté de leur vie actuelle. C'était un des points de départ du film : derrière la façade des années 50, incorporer des émotions, des préoccupations contemporaines. Ça passe aussi par le respect de la langue natale de Rocco. Marina est en grande partie parlé en Italien, parce que ça correspond à une des idées du film qui reste d’actualité : comment communiquer dans la vie quand on parle des langues différentes ? ». Luc Dardenne : « Marina parle forcément de l'immigration d'aujourd'hui : ce garçon qui laisse derrière lui son pays, son enfance, persuadé qu'il y retournera un jour. Mais il est devenu un autre, en opposition avec les racines et les valeurs de son père. C'est très douloureux pour l'un comme pour l'autre de s'affronter autour d'un rêve qu'ils avaient en commun : retourner en Italie. Il y a une Marina

part de tragique dans la relation entre ce père qui s'est sacrifié pour sa famille et ce fils qui prend une autre voie. Une des choses qui nous touchait beaucoup dans le scénario, c'est qu'au delà de permettre une réconciliation entre un père et son fils, le succès international de ‘Marina’ constitue aussi une réconciliation avec l'immigration. Quand Rocco chante cette chanson italienne à New York, tous les immigrés, qu'ils soient italiens en Belgique, au Canada ou ailleurs, sont avec lui. Ce succès a en quelque sorte rendu justice à l'immigration. C'est une victoire pour ces gens qui ont travaillé dur, dans de mauvaises conditions, sans reconnaissance sociale ».

Marina

paroles et musique

Avant Marina, il y a eu Sœur Sourire, autre film de Stijn Coninx centré sur l'histoire d'un énorme tube populaire. Jean-Pierre Dardenne : « Marina est un hommage à la chanson populaire, ça me plaît, car même si on la décrie parfois, la chanson reste un art et une forme de

travail, d'artisanat, qui perdure. Chanter, jouer de l'accordéon comme Rocco ou son père, ne s'apprend pas du jour au lendemain ». Au-delà de la musique, Marina et Sœur Sourire ont en commun le regard que Coninx porte sur ses personnages, qui prennent tous deux leur destin en main. « Pour faire un film, il faut être volontaire, croire à une histoire. Des personnages comme Sœur Sourire ou Rocco sont parfaits pour ça. Ceci dit, il y a d'énormes différences entre eux : Rocco a toujours à l'esprit les mots de son père : ‘ Il faut avoir un rêve pour avancer dans la vie ’. C'est une manière de se surpasser quand on est poursuivi par la malchance ». en attendant de savoir si le public fera la fête à Marina ou non, il y avait un premier spectateur à convaincre : Rocco Granata. Stijn est rassuré sur ce point : « Sa crainte était que Marina ressemble à d'autres biopics de chanteurs. Il est venu à une projection avec sa femme et ses deux enfants. J'avais l'impression que les enfants étaient prêts à consoler leurs parents en cas de déception. Après la projection, Rocco m'a pris à part car un détail le chiffonnait : dans une scène, on voit sur un disque un label qui n'est pas le bon. Je me suis dit que le reste devait lui convenir (rires) ».

rencontre

La reine de Czar Lorsque la BBC a annoncé la production de The White Queen au début de l'année 2012, elle a décrit la série comme l'un de ses projets les plus ambitieux. Il s'agit de la deuxième grande série télévisée britannique tournée en Flandre ces dernières années, après Parade's End, la série sur le thème de la Première Guerre mondiale. La productrice Eurydice Gysel de Czar Belgium a réuni les arguments nécessaires pour convaincre la BBC que la Flandre pourrait être le décor de l'Angleterre du 15e siècle. Czar est également l'un des coproducteurs de Borgman d'Alex van Warmerdam, en compétition officielle au Festival de Cannes cette année. PAR Ian Mundell PHOTO Thomas Vanhaute L’histoire de The White Queen se passe pendant la Guerre des Deux-Roses, lorsque des dynasties rivales se sont battues pour le trône d'Angleterre. Inspirée des romans de Philippa Gregory, qui a également écrit Deux sœurs pour un roi (The Other Boleyn Girl), l'intrigue met en avant le rôle important que les femmes ont joué pendant l'une des périodes les plus prestigieuses de l'histoire de l'Angleterre.

Jan Vrints, qui a réuni les financements nécessaires pour Parade's end, a présenté eurydice Gysel aux producteurs de série de Company Pictures. À ce moment-là, plusieurs pays étaient pressentis pour tourner la série, dont l'Irlande et la Hongrie. Les avantages financiers que présentait la Belgique étaient évidents, mais il en fallait davantage pour en faire une véritable concurrente. « Ils étaient au

courant de notre régime fiscal dit de 'Tax Shelter', et ils voulaient connaître des lieux potentiels de tournage. Nous avons donc parcouru la Belgique pendant deux semaines à la recherche de châteaux, etc. », se souvient Gysel. « Compte tenu de ces endroits et de notre régime fiscal avantageux, ils ont décidé de tourner la série ici. » Des lieux de tournage en extérieur ont été trouvés dans les villes de Bruges et

rencontre

« Nos réalisateurs ont beaucoup d'exigences, donc il faut faire preuve de créativité avec le budget disponible. Au final, je suis toujours étonnée par les résultats, et cela me pousse à aller plus loin »

Sur le plateau de The White Queen en Flandre: Rebecca Ferguson (ci-dessus) et Faye Marsay (dessous)

de Gand, tandis qu'un studio à Bruges a été aménagé pour les scènes de la série tournées à l'intérieur. entre-temps, le budget de la série avait été bouclé, avec une contribution au titre du Tax Shelter du BNP Paribas Fortis Film Fund, des fonds de coproduction de la chaîne publique flamande VRT et le soutien du Fonds audiovisuel de Flandre (vAF). une demande a également été introduite auprès du fonds Screen Flanders, qui cherche à attirer des coproductions étrangères dans la région.

Veerle Baetens

La série a été tournée en 120 jours et près de 80 personnes étaient présentes tous les jours sur le tournage. Bien entendu, la plupart des acteurs sont britanniques, mais l'actrice flamande Veerle Baetens (The Broken Circle Breakdown) incarne un rôle important, celui de Marguerite d'Anjou, une redoutable noble française, épouse du roi d'Angleterre Henri vI. Plusieurs autres petits rôles sont joués par des acteurs locaux. Company Pictures a détaché son propre producteur éxécutif et, vu qu'il s'agissait de sa première expérience dans le pays, il a fait preuve de prudence dans la distribution des fonctions techniques à des professionnels étrangers. « Au

début, j'ai dû me battre un petit peu », indique Gysel. « Je ne voulais pas simplement que les Anglais débarquent et nous utilisent, et il a donc parfois fallu discuter fermement. Mais finalement, tout s'est très bien passé. » Il était prévu depuis le début que le son soit traité localement, mais au fil du temps, l'équipe flamande a assumé plus de responsabilités parmi l'équipe image, l'équipe artistique et au niveau des postes d’ assistants réalisateurs.

rencontre

Waste Land

Compte tenu de la nature de la production, l'équipe des costumes était également importante. « Au début, ils voulaient tout faire venir d'Angleterre », se souvient Gysel. « ensuite, nous avons réalisé quelques costumes ici et nous les avons convaincus que nous pouvions nous en charger. » Il s'agit de la première expérience de production télévisée à grande échelle de Gysel, même si son expérience en matière de longs métrages et de publicités fait qu'elle n'a pas été intimidée par l'ampleur de la tâche. « Parfois, le budget consacré à une publicité est le même que celui d'un long métrage, à la différence que le tournage ne prend que quelques jours ; on sait donc comment gérer les exigences et le budget. » La société de production Czar a déjà d'autres projets télévisés en attente. une deuxième collaboration avec Company Pictures fait l'objet de discussions. Il s'agira d'une autre série télévisée littéraire en costumes d'époque, qui pourrait être tournée en 2014/5 si tous les paramètres sont réunis. en interne, Czar cherche à développer un concept de série télévisée qu'elle espère coproduire avec la France et le Danemark. « Nous voulons un projet à vocation internationale, comme Mystères à Twin Peaks ou L’Hôpital et ses fantômes (The kingdom), une série qu'on a envie de suivre », dit-elle. « Selon les réalisateurs, elle devrait également être plus intéressante, sur le plan visuel notamment, que ce qu'on voit habituellement à la télévision. »

Le label Czar

Czar Belgium a été créée en 1999 par le réalisateur Koen Mortier en tant que filiale de la société de production néerlandaise Czar Netherlands. L'objectif était de lui donner plus d'influence créative sur le pitching et sur la réalisation de publicités en Belgique, et également de mettre sur pied une plate-forme de production

Borgman

de projets de fiction. Son premier long métrage, ex Drummer, a été achevé en 2007, suivi, en 2010, par 22nd of May. Progressivement, Czar s'est développée, attirant des réalisateurs qui partagent les mêmes idées et travaillent de façon créative à la réalisation de publicités et, occasionnellement, de projets de fictions et de documentaires. Gysel a rejoint l'équipe en tant que productrice en 2000. elle a commencé par la gestion des productions publicitaires, pour ensuite diriger le département des fictions. En 2010, elle est devenue productrice exécutive et directrice générale de toute la société. La publicité reste à la base des activités de Czar, grâce à la créativité de ses réalisateurs. « Ils ne voient pas les

publicités seulement comme une façon de faire de l'argent », explique Gysel. « Ils travaillent dur et s'ils pensent que nous devons filmer d'une certaine façon pour faire une meilleure publicité, ils se battent pour défendre leur point de vue. » Parallèlement, Czar aide ses réalisateurs à concrétiser leurs ambitions dans le domaine de la fiction, en commençant par les soutenir dans la rédaction de scénarios pour de courts et longs métrages, puis en les aidant à les produire. Parmi les derniers courts métrages, citons Rivers Return de Joe vanhoutteghem, une intrigue en boucle sur le cycle de la vie, diffusée au Festival du film de Locarno en 2012, et Perfect Drug, de Toon Aerts, une œuvre fantaisiste qui transcende la notion

rencontre

de genre, sélectionné au festival du film de Clermont-Ferrand de cette année. Les deux réalisateurs pensent à présent à des projets de suivi, vanhoutteghem travaillant au scénario d'un long métrage.

Torino Filmlab

Un court métrage de Kevin Meul figure parmi les autres projets en cours. Il sera tourné en été, et sera suivi de son premier long métrage, My First Highway. Ce film sombre d'adolescents montre comment un jeune garçon apprend l'amour et la vie de la plus cruelle façon. en 2012, le projet

Tournage de The White Queen en Flandre

a été la première œuvre d'un réalisateur flamand à avoir été sélectionnée pour le prestigieux programme Script & Pitch du Torino Filmlab. Entre-temps, il a bénéficié d'une aide à la production du Fonds

KOEN MORTIER

en plus d'être le fondateur et l'un des principaux réalisateurs de Czar, koen Mortier est également le producteur artistique de la société. « Au sein de la société, c'est lui qui lit les projets et qui aide à développer ceux dans lesquels il distingue l'œuvre d'un auteur », affirme Gysel. Il a également deux projets de longs métrages en cours. Le premier est une adaptation de A l’estomac (Haunted), un roman de Chuck Palahniuk, l'auteur culte américain dont l'ouvrage Fight Club a été porté au grand écran par David Fincher. Haunted parle de 17 auteurs qui décident

audiovisuel de Flandre (vAF). kenneth Mercken poursuit sur la même voie. Son premier long métrage, Coureur, a en effet été sélectionné pour le programme du festival de Turin de cette année. Le film présente la vie d'un jeune coureur cycliste professionnel, incité à utiliser des substances pour améliorer ses performances et gagner. « Cela parle de la folie, de la drogue et du cyclisme, mais sans la victoire », explique Gysel. « Cela traite également de la relation entre son père et lui. » en plus des projets de Mortier en cours (voir encadré), la prochaine grande production de Czar est Waste Land, le troisième long métrage de Pieter van Hees, après Left Bank (2008) et Dirty Mind (2009). Le film raconte l'histoire d'un policier bruxellois obsédé par un meurtre survenu dans le quartier africain de la ville, et qui finit par laisser celui-ci submerger progressivement sa vie tant professionnelle que privée. Le rôle principal sera assuré par le protégé des frères Dardenne, Jérémie Renier (Le Gamin au vélo, Cloclo), qui a appris à parler néerlandais pour pouvoir jouer son rôle bilingue. Natali Broods (Hotel Swooni) incarne sa femme. Le tournage a commencé début avril. Bac International se chargera des ventes internationales.

La société participe également en tant que coproductrice du film d'Alex van Warmerdam, Borgman, en compétition officielle à Cannes, et du film étrange couleur des larmes de mon corps d'Hélène Cattet et Bruno Forzani. Si le rôle de Gysel en tant que productrice consiste davantage à gérer l'aspect financier que le contenu des films, c'est la créativité de Czar qui rend le travail aussi gratifiant. « Nos réalisateurs ont beaucoup d'exigences, donc il faut faire preuve de créativité avec le budget disponible. Au final, je suis toujours étonnée par les résultats, et cela me pousse à aller plus loin ».

de partir en retraite pendant trois mois dans l'espoir que l'un d'eux écrive le grand roman américain. Mortier et Gysel ont obtenu les droits de l'œuvre en 2008, mais la réunion des financements nécessaires pour tourner le film aux États-Unis aura demandé beaucoup de temps. Indus Media & Entertainment ont finalement acheté les droits de production cette année. Mortier a écrit le scénario, qui est actuellement finalisé par Brock Norman Brock. « Nous voulons que la version finale soit prête pour Cannes pour la vendre aux distributeurs, aux agents commerciaux et surtout aux acteurs », indique Gysel.

Si tout va bien, le film devrait être tourné en automne ou en hiver 2013/4. entre-temps, Mortier a également acheté les droits de l'adaptation cinématographique du livre de Dimitri verhulst, Monologue of Someone Who Got used to Talking to Herself, qui traite de la mort mystérieuse d'un coureur cycliste belge au Sénégal. L'histoire s'inspire quelque peu de la mort soudaine de l'un des plus grands coureurs cyclistes que la Belgique ait jamais connus : Frank vandenbroucke. Ce sera la deuxième fois qu'un ouvrage de verhulst sera porté au grand écran, après The Misfortunates, de Felix van Groeningen.

Max Irons dans The White Queen

ShortiSSimo

norman Le court métrage d’animation Norman de Robbe Vervaeke est en compétition au Festival international du film d’animation d'Annecy qui se déroule en juin. Produit par Cinnamon Entertainment, il s'agit du premier film professionnel de Vervaeke, depuis que ce dernier a obtenu son diplôme en 2008 à la KASK, l'Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Gand.

Norman observe les choses trop attentivement. Il les regarde fixement. ensuite, il doit encore s'en rapprocher. Dans la rue, il rampe à quatre pattes pour examiner la queue d'une crevette jetée sur le trottoir. Dans un café, il suit un homme jusqu'aux toilettes juste pour regarder de plus près son pied dans une sandale. Pas étonnant que les gens trouvent que Norman est étrange. Même sans dialogue, le court métrage d'animation Norman de Robbe vervaeke est très expressif. Chaque image se compose d'une peinture à l'huile sur verre, photographiée, puis repeinte avant que les pigments ne sèchent. Quand Norman parcourt les rues, l'air qui l'entoure semble troublé et les

bâtiments gardent une trace de son passage. Quand il regarde fixement les choses, ses émotions sont visibles dans la peinture changeante de son visage. Les matériaux de Norman ne sont pas seuls à venir du monde de l'art. On retrouve une touche de van Gogh dans les textures tourbillonnantes, et les personnages qui suivent le parcours étrange de Norman ressemblent à ceux décrits par les expressionnistes allemands. L'évocation de l'isolement et de la folie ne pourrait être plus forte, et pourtant, l'histoire ne dit pas clairement si Norman constitue une menace pour la société ou s'il est simplement un voyeur inoffensif. Par Ian Mundell

Martin Scorsese expo

• Joseph Plateau Awards Competition • Films from around the world • Belgian cinema today • Focus on: - independent cinema - American paranoia • Out of the box: the best television drama on the big screen • Film music concerts

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WIld

at Heart Ian Mundell TALkS TO THe LATeST BATCH OF vAF WILDCARD LAuReATeS: SIx ReCeNTLY GRADuATeD FILMMAkeRS, SeLeCTeD BY A JuRY, WHO ReCeIve BeTWeeN €25,000 AND €60,000 PLuS COACHING FROM THe FLANDeRS AuDIOvISuAL FuND (vAF) TO MAke THeIR FIRST ASSIGNMeNT IN THe ReAL WORLD. ALL SIx vAF WILD CARD WINNING SHORTS WILL ALSO Be SHOWN AS PART OF THIS YeAR'S SHORT FILM CORNeR IN CANNeS.

Michael Van ostade emilie Verhamme

Aad Verstraelen

Bram Cartigny Jeroen Broeckx Hans galle

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lIttle ryan

ALL HuMAN LIFe CAN Be FOuND IN THe MODeST 30M 3 SPACe OF THe LOCk-uP GARAGe, FROM DINNeR PARTIeS TO PING-PONG, FROM BAND PRACTICe TO TAxIDeRMY.

LITTLe RYAN LIveS ON TOP OF AN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TOWeR AND DReAMS OF FLYING AWAY. BuT He IS A YOuNG BIRD AND HASN'T QuITe GOT THe kNACk OF FLYING.

Curiosity inspired Jeroen Broeckx to investigate the secret life of garages. 'When I used to ride around on my bike I always rode a bit slower to see what was inside,' he recalls. 'I found what happened in all these garages a bit poetic. People do everything but park a car in them.' He started out by asking friends and family whether they knew of anyone who used their garage in an unusual way. Then, as the project gathered speed, he contacted local newspapers, radio and Tv stations, who put out requests for suggestions. In the end he visited around 50 garages before making a selection. 'I think that everyone in Flanders knows someone with a strange garage.' After such an intensive research period, the shooting was relatively straightforward. He visited roughly two garages a day over a period of two weeks, filming what was going on. 'Always opening the door, closing the door, from the inside, from the outside,' he recalls. 'It was a very simple concept.' And although he interviewed the garage owners, he decided to leave that material to one side. 'I discovered that the garages themselves say a lot about these people,' he says. 'It was stronger without explaining what they were doing.' Instead, he asked a friend to compose music to match the feeling of the images; at one point in the film you can see her playing the score (where else) in a garage. Since graduating from the RITS film school in Brussels, Broeckx has been working for Tv production company Woestijnvis, doing reports for topical entertainment show Man Bites Dog. He will start looking for inspiration for his next documentary in the months to come. 'It will be similar in style, but not in subject. Something deeper, about society,' he says.

When birds take their first flight, they risk their lives. Yet they have to do it. 'That's a little bit the moral of my story,' explains Aad verstraelen. 'If you want to achieve something in life, if you have a dream, you have to take a risk and conquer your fears.' From that starting point he came up with the novel setting of an airport, the cheeky name Little Ryan and a classic cartoon conflict with an air traffic controller. 'It's a feelgood movie,' he says. 'I want the audience to follow the story and enjoy what they see on the screen.' In order to do that he adopted a traditional style. 'I grew up with American animation. It's a little bit commercial, but I like that style and it worked with my script,' he says. 'It had to be understandable, colourful and with simple characters, but still appealing.' His training at the katholieke Hogeschool Limburg had been in 2D animation, but he made the switch to 3D computer animation for his graduation project. That meant learning new software skills, but it was worth it. '3D animation has always been more interesting for me, so I chose to specialise. There's also more work in 3D animation, so I wanted to present myself in that way to the outside world.' The move paid off and since graduating verstraelen has been working at Walking The Dog, a Brussels animation studio currently busy on the French feature film La Mécanique du Cœur (Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart). When that assignment ends in the summer, he will think about his own follow-up project. 'I want to take that experience with me to make my own film, and take it to a much higher level.'

Jeroen BroeCkx I DoCuMentary, 18’

aad VerStraelen I aniMation, 4’

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Maturing aS a tree

nIGredo

A FILMMAkeR TeLLS A FRIeND ABOuT THe MOvIe He IS TRYING TO MAke, AND HOW He keePS GeTTING DISTRACTeD BY RANDOM BuT BeAuTIFuL IMAGeS THAT DON'T FIT INTO THe PLAN.

SARAH'S TeeNAGe SON HAS DIeD IN AN ACCIDeNT, BuT THe kNOWLeDGe HASN'T ReGISTeReD YeT. AS SHe MOveS AROuND THe FAMILY HOMe, SIGNS OF THe PAIN TO COMe GATHeR AROuND HeR.

Hans Galle's experimental film Maturing as a Tree is a reaction to the way he had been taught at KASK, the film school in Ghent. 'Because we were all trained in professional filmmaking, I felt that we were following a model,' he says. 'Sometimes it's a good thing to question that.' His previous attempts to make conventional short fiction films had certainly been unsatisfactory. 'I still wanted to work with that material, but I decided to approach it in another way,' he explains. 'I wanted to create flexibility, a way that anything that happened or anything that I produced was useable.' Images from past projects, fragments of script and video messages from people wanting to be in his films all went into the mix, along with other sequences filmed on trains, in lifts and in the countryside using the cameras in mobile devices. Then he recorded himself explaining to a friend what he was doing, including his indecision and susceptibility to distraction. 'I was looking for a way to connect everything and when I had the voice-over I knew that it would all fall into place for the spectator. That was kind of exciting.' The result is a portrait of the filmmaker at work - or not at work, depending how you look at it - in which the beauty of chance images finally wins through. Galle is not yet sure how he intends to use the vAF Wildcard award, nor what kind of films he wants to make in the future. 'I'm sure that I want to find this liberty in any project that I do, but it doesn't mean that it needs to be filmed on an iPad,' he says. 'In this case it was the right answer.'

Michael van Ostade was drawn to loss as a universal theme, but decided to explore an aspect of it rarely touched on in films. 'I wanted to know what happens in that really short period just after you've heard something bad has happened,' he explains. Focusing on this time of denial meant getting a controlled performance from lead actress Ina Geerts. 'I wanted her to be very cold and distant,' he says. Meanwhile, events such as a bird crashing into a window (a tricky special effect) show that death is close. 'A lot of other things try to wake her up to the fact that something has happened. It is only at the end of the movie that she finally breaks.' He chose to film in a wide-screen, cinematic way, which meant paying more attention to locations, lighting and set dressing. 'I love the fact that my characters can disappear into the decor,' he says. This was time consuming, but also a boon. 'It gave us time to figure out how Ina would move throughout the scene,' he says. 'I want the framing to be perfect and all the space to be used.' Nigredo was van Ostade's bachelor project at Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels. Now he's working on his graduation film, Songs from the Outside, described as a fantastical science fiction musical. His inspiration comes from films such as Punch Drunk Love and Close encounters of the Third kind, with its famous five-note alien message. 'I love this way of using music in a narrative sense, so the movie will be built on that. It won't be Les Misérables.' Beyond that, he already has ideas about how his vAF Wildcard award project should look. 'It will be Bullhead, but with a Twilight Zone twist.'

HanS Galle I experiMental, 23’

mICHael Van oStade I FiCtion, 23’

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tSJernoByl HeartS

WHeN BRAM CARTIGNY WAS A SMALL BOY HIS FATHeR LeFT THe FAMILY WITHOuT exPLANATION. NOW ABOuT TO LeAve HOMe HIMSeLF, THe DIReCTOR DeLveS INTO A FAMILY SeCReT TO ReveAL A PeRSONAL TRAGeDY. OR PeRHAPS NOT.

TeeNAGeRS JuLeS AND ADRIeN RevISIT THeIR OLD HOMe, ONLY TO FIND THe NeW OWNeRS kNOCkING DOWN WALLS. ALTHOuGH PeRFeCTLY POLITe, THe YOuNGSTeRS SeeM IN NO HuRRY TO LeAve, TO THe DISCOMFORT OF ALL CONCeRNeD.

Cartigny's aim is to nudge viewers into questioning the constant stream of images presented to them as true. 'I think it's dangerous that people don't think about what they see,' he explains, 'so the idea was to write a personal story where I deceive the audience. It's a dangerous line to cross, but I wanted to see how far I could go.' His family was happy to cooperate, even though the film presents a rather lurid picture of their lives. 'I explained what I wanted to do and they said it was no problem,' Cartigny says. Meanwhile the film had to look the part. 'It is kind of clichéd, but that's what convinces the audience that it is a genuine documentary.' And although the quest for his father is false, there is a thread of genuine emotion running through the film. 'The movie is also about loss, and there are some true stories in there.' Placing the film in a category still causes Cartigny some difficulty. 'If I say it's fiction, a lot of what I want to make clear to people is lost, but if I say it's a documentary I'm kind of lying,' he says. 'It should be watched as a movie, not as fiction or documentary per se.' He intends to move more towards genuine documentary once he graduates from Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels. Before then he has to complete his master project, which once again lies between documentary and fiction. Over the course of a night, it follows three young men making their way in business, one of whom is already questioning his goals and expectations. 'They are real, and they play themselves in a fictional story,' says Cartigny. 'So it's still on the borderline.'

Tsjernobyl Hearts is a film about the way social codes are embedded in society. 'I wanted to explore that on a physical level,' explains emilie verhamme. 'I started with the concept of boundaries: if my property ends here, at a certain point, then your property starts there. But can we also push those boundaries?' Although the concept of unwanted visitors has a long and disturbing history in cinema - think of Funny Games - verhamme did not want to go to extremes. Her idea was to create a situation of social unease rather than menace. 'The threat in underneath, it's unconscious.' She also built boundaries into the way the film was shot, drawing up a Dogme-style list of rules: only one lens could be used, with available light and no focus puller. Then it was up to cameraman Michael van Ostade (a vAF Wildcard winner in his own right) to work out how to respond. 'I wanted Michael to search for the boundaries that were there and to cross those boundaries, or not.' She also worked with the actors in a way that built unease. 'I would tell something to one actor but not the other, and it was interesting to see the reaction and the response.' Tsjernobyl Hearts is Verhamme's bachelor film at Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels, but she is already on a fast track after her short film Cockaigne was selected at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Offered a place at the prestigious Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam, she decided to skip the usual master degree and start work on her debut feature film. She doesn't want to discuss what it will be about yet, but hopes to shoot it 'as soon as possible'.

BraM Cartigny I DoCuMentary, 30’

emIlIe VerHamme I FiCtion, 21’

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THe OSCAR NOMINATION FOR DeATH of A SHADow IS OPeNING DOORS FOR PRODuCeR eLLeN De WAeLe, ATTRACTING NeW TALeNT AND BRINGING OFFeRS FOR INTeRNATIONAL CO-PRODuCTIONS. MeANWHILe HeR COMPANY, SeReNDIPITY FILMS, IS ABOuT TO ReLeASe ITS FIRST FICTION FeATuRe, 82 DAyS In APrIL. 'IT'S A veRY exCITING TIMe,' SHe SAYS. 'We HOPe TO START DeveLOPING MORe PROJeCTS, TO GROW AND ALSO Be MORe ACTIve ON THe INTeRNATIONAL LeveL. IT'S SOMeTHING I'M ReALLY LOOkING FORWARD TO.'

CoMing out oF tHe sHadOw

TexT Ian Mundell

PORTRAIT Bart dewaele

Death of a Shadow

De Waele studied journalism and anthropology, but found neither entirely satisfying. Journalism was too shallow and the immersion required for field anthropology was too intense. So she set out to explore the possibilities of using visual means to popularise anthropology. 'I started falling in love with stories and especially the view on reality you get from documentary,' she recalls. 'That was really what I wanted to do.' After an initiation into film production in South Africa, she returned to Belgium and in 1999 found work producing commercials with Roses Are Blue (a company which evolved into Caviar). From there she moved to Czar, again working on commercials, before helping set up its documentary and fiction label CCCP. Here she worked on the early shorts of MichaĂŤl R. Roskam (Carlo, The one Thing To Do), Blush by choreographer Wim vandekeybus and ex Drummer by koen Mortier. But she wanted more scope to choose projects that appealed to her on a personal level, and so in 2006 she set up on her own as Serendipity Films. 'As an independent producer suddenly I had this liberty to make my own choices, 'she says'. I could put a lot more of who I was into my projects.' These first productions reflected her interest in Africa. One was the award-winning grande Hotel by Lotte Stoops, a portrait of the people living in the shell of a once luxurious hotel in Mozambique. Then there was Boyamba Belgique, by Dries engels and Bart van Peel, which attempted to track down the Congolese man who had stolen the king of Belgium's sword on the eve of the country's independence in 1960. Closer to home she produced the acclaimed epilogue by Manno Lanssens, an intimate film where he follows a 50-year-old terminally ill woman through the last year of her life when she sets about making funeral arrangements and ushering her husband and three children through the grieving process. It was only afterwards that she wondered about the attraction these stories held for her. 'It's not the misery of Africa, it's not the suffering of a woman in the last stages of her life, it's more about people's strength,' she says. 'For me, that's the thread that connects them: we are all human, at certain moments we suffer, but our inner strength allows us to overcome.' The fact that these were all first-time directors was a coincidence. 'They just came with good stories and good ideas,' she says. But it meant that more was required of her as a producer, particularly since their proposals were ideas rather than fully formed film projects. 'It takes time and coaching, but at the same time you are more involved in developing these good ideas into captivating films.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

challenging project

From the outset De Waele had planned to produce fiction films as well as documentaries, beginning with a feature by Bart van den Bempt. They had worked together on advertising projects and De Waele was production manager of his short film 15' Metromania.

ellen De Waele and Tom van Avermaet on the red carpet at this year's Academy Awards ÂŠ A.M.P.A.S.

'it's always thrilling to discover new talent, but for the future i'd like to get more of a balance between first-time and experienced directors.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; 'When he talked about this film he wanted to make about a couple travelling to Istanbul to reconstruct their son's last journey after his death I thought: "oh, yes!" It was a great idea and a film that I really wanted to see made.' She knew that funding the project would be challenging. 'Bart has a lot of audiovisual experience and you see that immediately, but it remains a first film.' Then the global economic crisis broke. 'We started 82 Days in April before the crisis and had a lot of interest, which then disappeared.' It has taken much longer than planned, but their tenacity has paid off and the film is in the final stages of post-production. 'editing is one of the most exciting moments, but also the most scary,' she says. 'You see the strengths and the weaknesses, and then it's a matter of making the right decisions.' In the case of 82 Days in April that has been relatively easy. 'We were basically on the same wavelength, and then seeing the impact of our decisions on the edit showed us we were on the right track.'

Oscar exposure

82 Days in April

Meanwhile a chance appeared for Serendipity to make a rather different kind of fiction debut. Tom Van Avermaet had won a VAF Wildcard for his student short Dreamtime and embarked on the follow-up with a Dutch producer. De Waele was to co-produce, but when funding fell through in The Netherlands she made the project her own. The story concerns a soldier killed in the First World War who has made a bargain with a mysterious collector of souls. If the soldier gathers 10,000 deaths, capturing their shadows using a special camera, he will get a second chance of life and a way back to the girl he loves. De Waele was attracted by the magic realism of the story and van Avermaet's vision. 'He had prepared the universe that he wanted to create for his film very well. When you read the script, you could already see the movie,' she says. 'I also liked the fact that it was really a story and not 20 minutes out of what could be his first feature film.' The rest is history. With Matthias Schoenaerts in the lead role, Death of a Shadow was nominated for the 2013 Oscars in the live-action short film category. This has opened lots of doors for Van Avermaet. 'Tom is very much in demand at the moment in the States, and people

Boyamba Belgique

Grande Hotel

nter view

are proposing scripts to him,' De Waele says. 'I think that, for the genre of films he wants to make, it's the best market to be in.' In the short term she hopes Serendipity will be involved as a co-producer, but initiating a new project with him may take longer. 'He has concentrated all his time on Death of a Shadow so he doesn't have a script in the draw at the moment, although he does have a lot of ideas.' For De Waele, the Oscar exposure has increased the number of people who want to work with Serendipity. 'I'm getting quite a lot of propositions at the moment, including from more experienced directors,' she says. 'It's always thrilling to discover new talent, but for the future I'd like to get more of a balance between first-time and experienced directors.' She also hopes the Oscar will open the door to more co-productions. 'Within europe we can’t do without co-productions, but now there is a very keen interest out of the States in co-producing with europe. Flanders has a perfect climate for that at the moment, so let them come!' However, it will be a little while before she can announce anything concrete. 'We have a few projects in the pipeline, but nothing advanced enough to talk about. But it looks really thrilling.' 

epiloque

auguSt FolloWS april With 82 Days in April nearing completion, Bart van den Bempt is already writing a follow up feature. Called A year from August, it involves a family that always takes its annual holiday at the same house deep in the woods. But time behaves strangely in this place, running ahead for some members of the family, while slowing for others. 'Once again it's a metaphorical story about the cycle of life - about birth, death, love and loss - but in a different way,' De Waele explains. It also touches the love of magic realism that drew her to Death of a Shadow. Future documentary productions include two more films from Manno Lanssens. In The Beguine Project he follows a group of women building a new beguinage in Bochum, part of a revival in this tradition of women's communities dating back to medieval Flanders that is currently taking place in Germany. Meanwhile Victims will focus on women's lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and will dig into the lives of people, or their next of kin, who were victims of a crime. Women also feature in The eye of the gazelle, a documentary about a women's refuge in the Moroccan city of Oujda. The film will be directed by Caroline Van Gastel, who is embarking on her documentary debut as an author. Finally Serendipity is branching out into art cinema with the co-production Dr fabre will Cure you, directed by Pierre Coulibeuf. 'It's a fictitious portrait of the Belgian artist Jan Fabre, based on his performances and visual works, on his muse Antwerp and his personal diaries,' says De Waele. 'It has turned into an amazing film, a fairy tale that projects Jan Fabre into his own imaginative universe, set in the midst of the city of Antwerp.'

ellen de Waele (°1973)* (2007) - naDine (co-producer) (2008) - JaCk, tHe BalkanS & i (co-producer) (2010) - tHe aViatrix oF kazBek (co-producer) (2010) - BoyaMBa BelgiQue (2010) - tHe neW Saint (co-producer) (2010) - SHe’S not Crying, SHe’S Singing (co-producer)

(2010) - granDe Hotel (2011) - BroWnian MoVeMent (co-producer) (2011) - epilogue (2012) - guerrilla grannieS (co-producer) (2012) - DeatH oF a SHaDoW (2013) - 82 DayS in april * selected filmography

On tHe

run

TexT Ian Mundell PORTRAIT tHOMas VanHaute

WHeN CAROLINe STRuBBe PICkeD uP HeR SCReeNWRITING AWARD IN CANNeS FOR LoST PerSonS AreA SHe WAS HIDING A GuILTY SeCReT. 'I HAD SuCCeSS WITH THe

MOvIe, BuT I WAS THINkING: I DON'T eNJOY THe PROCeSS AT ALL, I HAD STRONG DOuBTS ABOuT WANTING TO Be A DIReCTOR.' BuT GIvING uP WASN'T AN OPTION, HOWeveR, SINCe

LOST PeRSONS AReA WAS JuST PART OF THe STORY. SHe HAD TO TeLL IT ALL. ‘MY uRGe TO COMe TO TeRMS WITH “A BAD MeMORY” IS JuST STRONGeR THAN THe PROCeSS.’ FORTuNATeLY THe ReCeNTLY COMPLeTeD I'M THe SAMe I'M AN OTHeR HAS BeeN A MORe POSITIve exPeRIeNCe.

Rather than determine a style for the film in advance, it emerges from the interaction of the actors and the location, using just the available light. 'The camera will capture the energy of the actors emerging from the scene, and that will be the style.' The film she set out to make in 2008 had been conceived as a trilogy, but then compressed into a story combining the present and flashbacks to the past. 'I started to shoot and all the scenes were three times longer than I expected,' she recalls. 'So when I had shot the flashback story, there was no time or film left for the other parts. So I stopped, I started to edit and it made a whole film.' Having just a third of the expected film could have been awkward, but then the result - Lost Persons Area - was selected for the Critic's Week at Cannes and picked up an award into the bargain. 'Happily I had this Cannes moment and now I can be freer. In the beginning I had to fight, because it was my first feature and everyone tries to teach you how to do it “right”. Now I can do what I want.' She decided to combine the remaining two parts of the trilogy into a single film, but once more the characters asserted themselves and reclaimed the story. 'It happened

nter view

‘in the beginning i had to fight, because it was my first feature and everyone tries to teach you how to do it “right”. now I can do what I want'

'For the first time, we had fun,’ Caroline Strubbe admits. ‘I was so relieved that was possible.' One difference was that she switched from a film camera to digital, and so could work with a smaller crew. More importantly, the crew believed in her method. 'The people were a lot younger and were really into this way of working.' Strubbe's method is one reason that more of the story remained to be told. 'My way of shooting is very organic,' she explains. 'I don't have a decoupage [shot list], I shoot chronologically and the cameraman has to follow the action of the actors. They can go anywhere, so in that way it is like a documentary.'

I'm the same I'm an other

again. It was better without the third part, so finally it will be the trilogy that I wanted to do in the first place.' Lost Persons Area involves a passionate but self-absorbed couple whose nine-year-old daughter Tessa is left to run wild, creating a world of wonders in the industrial no-man's land where the family lives and works. 'It's a story about how we are marked by things that happen in our childhood, how we deal with that and how our relationship with our parents determines our later relationships.'

personal connection

I'm the same I'm an other picks up the story with Tessa fleeing the family home with Szabolcs, a Hungarian engineer who worked for her father. They do their best to disappear, travelling to england by ferry and renting a holiday apartment in a run-down seaside resort. In this enclosed space, Szabolcs and Tessa test the limits of their relationship. The title comes from a poem by Gianluca Manzi, read by celebrated jazz trumpeter Chet Baker on one of his final recordings. 'Because of meeting someone you change, even if you are still the same,' Strubbe explains. As in Lost Persons Area, the story has a personal connection. 'It's about searching for a father figure,' Strubbe says. 'I always wanted to be adopted by another family. I wanted someone to say: I really want to be your father, please come into my family. And I had moments like that, which were very nice moments in my life.'

From another angle it touches on Stockholm syndrome, in which someone starts to identify with a kidnapper, and other unequal relationships. 'For me it says a lot about the relationship between men and women as well, even if Tessa is only a girl. It says a lot about the female condition. From a very young age girls step into a certain roleâ&#x20AC;Ś' kimke Desart reprises her role as Tessa. At 11 she is noticeably older than in the first film, but Strubbe feels this is an advantage rather than a problem. 'I think it's important for the film to have this ambiguity of a child who is becoming a young woman,' she explains. 'At a certain moment Tessa has to seduce Szabolcs, in a way, and that ambiguity is not easy to play. kimke could do it immediately. That was good to see because it is one of the themes of the film, this seductive side that girls have and that men misinterpret.' Meanwhile Szabolcs (Zoltan Miklos Hajdu) has to make sense of the relationship into which he has fallen. 'He is afraid to be loved, afraid that this girl wants something from him. It's an exercise in pushing away, coming back, and finally accepting. They accept the roles they are going to play, in that it is some kind of love story.' This also represents a slight change in character from Lost Persons Area. 'Szabolcs is a very good guy in the first movie, and here the line between angel and devil is very thin. He is on the line, and takes the decision to be a good man.'

I'm the same I'm an other

digital camera

Strubbe used the same shooting method as before, letting the actors dictate the style and set the pace. The main difference was the setting, which was much more confined than for Lost Persons Area. 'Tessa is always in this apartment, which was very small, so although the idea was the same we couldn't move that much.' using a digital camera gave her even more freedom to let the actors explore. 'We could shoot a lot and wait for the right moment,' she says. Once again she wrote as she went along and changed details as the situation evolved. 'Your crew has to like this way of working,' she explains. 'It's like improvisation in music. You have to know your notes very well, and I know my script very well after five years of working on it.' Her previous director of photography, Nicolas Karakatsanis, was not available for the film so his place behind the camera was taken by David Williamson, a young filmmaker much in demand among his peers as

nter view i

a DoP. 'There was much more interaction with the whole crew. everyone was concerned about the movie, not only about their specific departments. We spent much more time together and they are part of the whole process. And the same also happened with my editor David verdurme after the shooting. We had a very intense collaboration. Or with my producer Tomas Leyers who accepts the whole concept and who understands that the way you work in will also determine or influence the final result. I think it’s something you don’t find that much in a producer nowadays.' Now it only remains to make the final part of the trilogy, Deep in a Dream of You, a title also derived from a Chet Baker song. This will explore Tessa's meeting with Szabolcs several years after the second’s film dramatic denouement. exactly what that will involve remains to be seen. 'In making these two films, I've changed,' Strubbe says, 'so maybe the characters will change as well.' 

darK and lIGHt In addition to completing the trilogy that began with Lost Persons Area, Caroline Strubbe has several other projects in mind. One involves returning to Leysdown-on-Sea, the dilapidated resort in the Thames estuary where she shot the english sequences of I'm the same I'm an other. 'The people are extremely poor but amazingly friendly,' she says, recalling the casting sessions involved in finding extras. 'They have so many stories, so I want to go back for a documentary or to do something with them acting.' Another documentary project concerns three women artists linked by suicide, and in particular by their decision to jump to their deaths. 'Now I'm investigating the link between them all,' Strubbe says, explaining that a common factor seems to be their partners' jealousy. 'That aspect of it fascinates me.' To balance this darkness she has also written a comedy, a tale of misunderstanding and mishap on the first weekend an absent-minded father is given custody of his infant child. As the mother goes off for her first days and nights of freedom in five years, the child slips through the front door and also heads off into the city. Paths cross and confusion grows, but everything comes good in the end. 'It's a gentle comedy, something light,' Strubbe says, comparing it to Miranda July's You and Me and everyone We know and Martin Scorsese's After Hours. 'I want to work more with actors and dialogue, the opposite of what I'm doing now,' she goes on. 'Now that I've written the script I'm curious to see what the style will be. How can I make a comedy with this same way of shooting?'

anImatIon noWe

PAPeRMAN, THIS YeAR’S BeST ANIMATeD SHORT ACADeMY AWARD WINNeR, IS A CHARMING, IMAGINATIve YARN ABOuT AN OFFICe WORkeR DeSPeRATe TO Be ReuNITeD WITH THe BeAuTIFuL YOuNG WOMAN He MeeTS ON A MeTRO PLATFORM. FLeMISH ANIMATOR MARLON NOWe WAS ONe OF THe CReATIve TeAM ON THe DISNeY-MADe MOvIe, exeCuTIve PRODuCeD BY JOHN LASSeTeR. TexT GeOFFrey MacnaB

‘We had just finished our movie Tangled and we had a couple of months when we had no real production going on,’ Nowe recalls how Paperman came into being. He and his colleagues at Disney came up with the idea of making a short ‘to fill the gap time’. John Kahrs, the animation supervisor on Tangled, pitched the idea for Paperman and ended up directing it. Several animators from the crew of Tangled, Nowe among them, worked on the project. ‘I took care of the animation. That basically means that

once the character is designed and ready for animation, we take it from there - we make the characters move, act, talk if they talk. Pretty much anything that moves, that’s what we did.’ Paperman is shot in black and white but has flashes of colour. The art director Jeff Turley originated the sleek 1950s-style monochrome New York. ‘What I think is cool about that is that usually our films are very warm in terms of colour. This time, we actually chose the opposite...

the only colour in the film is the lips (of the girl).’ Oscar night ended up being a big cause for celebration. The Paperman team celebrated their Academy Award with as much enthusiasm as you would expect. Disney hosted a Special Oscar party for the animators. ‘This year, we were up for two Oscars - one for wreck-It ralph and one for Paperman,’ the animator points out. ‘The Oscar win on Paperman was very special since we did something very unique. We knew we had something that had never been done before.’

artistic ambitions

Nowe acknowledges that it is a long way from kASk, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, where he studied, to the backlot at Disney. ‘When I started art college in Ghent, they were very much focused - and they still are - on the 2D side of things. They’re very much into drawing and those foundations which are really important,’ Nowe recalls. He told his tutors that he wanted to specialise in computer animation. At that time, there was only one computer in the entire faculty. ‘They were kind of

happy that someone was using it.’ He startled his tutors even more when he told them he wanted to work at Disney. The school was focused on the artistic, less commercial side of animation. Nowe’s father is a musician and his family supported his artistic ambitions. ‘The problem was, back in the 1990s, the path to a successful animation career in europe wasn’t clear at all. The industry was very small, especially in Belgium, and paid very badly.’ Once he left college, he began working on commercials but, all along, his goal was to get to LA. In 2000, he was hired by Blur Studio, an animation, design and vFx company in venice Beach. Five or so years later, he moved on to Disney when the studio was hiring for its computer animated feature Bolt.

John Lasseter

Nowe started with Disney five years ago, just as John Lasseter and his team from Pixar were moving in. He has noticed the Pixar boss is involved in every aspect of the creative process, from character design to the way a film looks and its story. ‘When Disney bought Pixar years ago, the deal they made was that, yes, Disney would own Pixar but Pixar in return would manage our animation department. ever since, things have gotten better tremendously.’ ‘He’s very to the point. That’s the way it should be

DVD COLLECTION ART & CINEMA "In the development of the art film, Belgium, a small country, has throughout made a contribution out of all proportion to its size. (…) Some of the most important pioneering and experimental efforts in the realm of the art film, as well as some of its most striking achievements up to the present, have emerged from Belgium." Gordon Mirams, Design Review (1950). "Ambitious and successful films such as the Belgianmade Rubens and Le Monde de Paul Delvaux have demonstrated how effectively the moving camera can guide the beholder's eye so as to focus his attention and heighten his perceptions." H.W. Janson, Films on Art 1952 (New York, 1953). "Rubens (Henri Storck & Paul Haesaerts, 1948) combines cinematically brilliant camera penetrations of the painter’s world with an attempt to drive home his predilection for gyrational movements. Note that this film is neither pure cinema nor merely a teaching instrument. It is a glamorous hybrid." Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film (Princeton, 1960).

The 1940s and 1950s can be considered as the heyday of the experimental art film. Also Belgian filmmakers such as Charles Dekeukeleire, André Cauvin, Henri Storck, Paul Haesaerts and Luc de Heusch made important contributions to the genre. This edition brings together 19 of the most important films on 3 DVD's. The accompanying book contains an essay by art historian Steven Jacobs.

3 DVD's, Total Time: ca 7 hrs 15 minutes Black & White / Color - English, French and Dutch Subtitles Book with essay by Steven Jacobs (English, French, and Dutch)

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foreign affairs good environment

- the guy has very little time. On Wreck-it Ralph, I got to work with him a little closer. I was a supervising animator on the film. He’s somebody who, if he likes something, will tell you but he focuses more on the stuff that is not working. usually, he will allow you to explore a little bit in the beginning. If you hit what the film should look like, then we’ll go with that. But as soon as he senses that things are heading in the wrong direction, he will be very clear and very decisive.’ Wreck-it Ralph was both tough and a nostalgic exercise for Nowe. Growing up in Belgium in the 1980s, he was as keen as any other kid on the arcade games that provide the visual palate for the film. ‘It was really hard to work on since we had to create so many different worlds, so many different styles. It’s something we hadn’t done before. usually, Disney movies are set in one world with one style but this had, like, four different worlds. It was very challenging. But just being part of a movie where you see Pac Man and Sonic and all those characters was definitely very special.’

For all his success as an animator at Disney, Nowe isn’t resting on any laurels. ‘It’s a very competitive industry and a lot of kids are trying to get the same job. You never really know how it will end up. There’s a saying at the studio that you’re only as good as your last shot. That is really how it is. You constantly have to stay on your toes. That’s a good environment to work in - it does keep you sharp.’ In the long run, he might like to be his “own boss,” but for the moment, his hands are very full. He’s hard at work on a new Disney feature, Frozen, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. He also knows it is foolish to look too far ahead. ‘The industry these days is changing so rapidly that it’s really hard to predict what is going to happen and where the studios are going to... are they going to be here in Los Angeles or maybe in China or India? There will be a lot of change in the coming years. It’s a matter of trying to pivot and stay ahead!’ 

aniMSQuaD Alongside his own animation work, Marlon Nowe also runs his own online animation school, Animsquad. This offers animation workshops to beginners, intermediate practitioners and to experts. The tutors are experts, they’re all supervising animators at Disney. His aim is to offer students affordable courses with state of the art technology. The school runs throughout the year. The tutors tend to work at the school in breaks between big Disney movies. All the workshops are at night, ‘after hours’. www.animsquad.com Paperman © Disney

an i mation

dOGs to tHe reSCue CANNeS HAS HIGH STANDARDS WHeN IT COMeS TO ANIMATION, SO

The Congress

WHeN THe CONGReSS WAS SeLeCTeD TO OPeN THe DIReCTORS' FORTNIGHT IT WAS AN IMPORTANT eNDORSeMeNT, BOTH FOR THe FILM AND FOR FLeMISH ANIMATION STuDIO WALkING THe DOG. TexT Ian Mundell

PORTRAIT Bart dewaele

eric Goossens (l) and Anton Roebben from Walking The Dog

The Congress

The company was introduced to director Ari Folman relatively late in the production, when he was looking for a studio capable of picking up work that others had found too demanding. He looked at examples of its 2D animation for films such as The Triplets of Â Belleville, The Secret of kells, and A Monster in Paris, but he seemed to get more agitated as the meeting went on. 'I thought: this is not going very well,' producer eric Goossens recalls. But it turned out Folman was just frustrated not to have found them sooner. 'I've never convinced a director so quickly.' Co-produced by entre Chien et Loup for Belgium, The Congress is the story of an actress who sells her image to a film studio, agreeing to retire from public life while her digitised identity continues to perform. One of the tasks given to Walking The Dog was completing the transitions from live action to animation. Folman was adamant that this should be done by eye rather than with automated techniques. 'Harmonising the two demands a lot from the skills of an animator,' Goossens says. But then a lot of the work assigned to the studio was highly nuanced. 'It's a very intimate film, where emotion has to come out small actions and close-ups. This is very challenging.' Later on, Folman asked if he could borrow some of Walking The Dog's talent to help complete the film. Eventually four senior animators made the trip to Israel. 'They stayed in Tel Aviv for three-four months after our work in Brussels was finished, until the moment the first edit was sent to Cannes.' Goossens thinks this is unlikely to be the end of the partnership. 'There was a good feeling and lots of potential to work together again, in an even more intense way than The Congress.' Meanwhile Walking the Dog is busy with Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, a 3D animated feature that it is co-producing with French giant europa Corp. It has 125 animators working on the project, many of whom will move in May to a new studio complex in Genk. ď Š

unDer tHe inFluenCe

Bart

Van den BeMPt TOWARDS THe eND OF FILM SCHOOL, ONe OF BART vAN DeN BeMPT'S TeACHeRS ASkeD THe CLASS ABOuT THeIR PLANS. MOST TALkeD ABOuT MAkING A FIRST FeATuRe WITHIN THRee YeARS. 'I SAID: WeLL, I'LL See WHAT HAPPeNS,' He ReCALLS. 'I WANT TO See A BIT OF THe WORLD FIRST AND IF IN 10 YeARS I CAN MAke SOMeTHING INTeReSTING, THeN I WILL Be GLAD.' TexT Ian Mundell

PORTRAIT Bart dewaele

InSPIratIonal

these are some of the works Bart Van den Bempt currently gets inspired by:

MuSiC

After graduating in psychology he sat the entrance examination for Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels, as much for fun as anything else, and got in. Here he encountered films that would inspire his own work, but more immediately made him want to travel. 'Film and travelling were always connected for me in those years.' For example, Aleksandr Sokurov's Days of the eclipse drew him to Central Asia. 'It's a very strange film, a very slow film, but amazingly beautiful.' He also admired the documentaries of Raymond Depardon. 'I adored his work in Africa.' After film school van den Bempt worked as an assistant director and sound engineer. 'I'd make some money and then travel for months,' he says. 'I once travelled around the world on a cargo ship, for almost a year. Those were defining moments in my life.'

Sokurov and Depardon

nfluence

His timing was a little optimistic. Almost 20 years on, van den Bempt is about to complete his first feature film, 82 Days in April. 'It's a very very late debut,' he laughs. 'But I like the path I've taken. It was a long and lingering path, but I've enjoyed myself and seen lots of interesting things.' As a young man he was passionate about photography and jazz, but for practical reasons chose to study psychology. He was already a convinced cinephile. 'I went to the cinema almost every evening and I enjoyed european cinema the most,' he says, citing Mauvais sang by Leos Carax as an early favourite.

Poppies from Kandahar by Jan Bang

inspired by travels

Travel inspired a number of projects, such as a documentary on the poet Arthur Rimbaud's life in Africa, but most remained unrealised for lack of funding or simple bad luck. Meanwhile he was persuaded to try his hand at a Tv commercial. 'Next thing you know you are seven years older and you've done dozens of commercials,' he says. Later he moved into television, making factual programmes on everything from house hunting to breeding zoo animals. This paid the rent while leaving him free to write 82 Days in April, which was also inspired by his travels. On a flight home from kyrgyzstan, he started to think about what would happen if the plane crashed. How would his parents react to his death? He landed safely at Brussels airport, but the idea remained. The film begins with a Belgian couple in their fifties travelling to Istanbul, to collect the belongings of their son, who has died while backpacking. They have never been outside europe before. The father becomes obsessed with following his son's final journey, reconstructed from a journal, tickets and other scraps left behind. The mother resists. 'The film recounts how they cope with the death in different ways, how they lose each other at first then find each other again,' says van den Bempt. Turkey is a country he knows well. 'I could set scenes in a particular landscape or a particular town that I knew. We filmed scenes in hotel rooms I stayed in when I was in my twenties.' He was also able to incorporate the seasons in the storytelling. 'As the two main characters grow towards one another, the world warms up behind them,' he explains. He shot rain in Istanbul, snow in the east near Iran and spring on the border with Syria. He chose not to look for reference films while writing early drafts. 'The inspiration had to come from my own travels and my encounters with people during those trips,' he says. He also drew on his studies in psychology, which included the mourning process.

OlĂŠ Coltrane by John Coltrane

Book

Adrift on the Nile by Naguib Mahfouz

FIlm

Arnold and Ceylan

But the music he was listening to, by Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen, crept in. 'After a while it started to influence the text,' he recalls. A casual approach to Henriksen resulted in a meeting. 'He understood what I liked about his music and how I wanted to use it, and now he is making a soundtrack for the film.' Closer to the shoot, van den Bempt sought out visual references with director of photography Rik Zang. Names that recurred included the photographers Antoine D'Agata, Jonas Bendiksen and Yiorgos kordakis, each with a particular way of looking at the world. Film influences included Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, for its allusive treatment of emotions, and the work of Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. But the main thing was to respond what they found on the ground. 'We always said: we have this as a back-up, but we will see on set what could be better.' ď Š

A Separation by Asghar Farhadi

tV VPRO documentary series Diogenes, on home recorded VHS

mon i tor CRIMI CLOWNS GOT NOMINATED TWICE FOR THIS YeAR’S MONTe CARLO INTeRNATIONAL TeLevISION FeSTIvAL (9-13 JuNe). MuCH TO THe SuRPRISe OF ITS CReATOR AND DIReCTOR Luk WYNS. IN THe MeANTIMe, THe SeRIeS ALSO HAD A THeATRICAL SPIN OFF THAT IS TO GeT A uk MAke-OveR.

crIMI clOwns taKe monte Carlo

The first series of Crimi Clowns got nominated both in the Best european Comedy and the Best International Comedy categories in Monte Carlo. ‘To be honest I was flabbergasted,’ says creator Luk Wyns. ‘Monte Carlo is an internationally renowned television festival that usually goes for the more traditional TV fare. Crimi Clowns is a daring series that plays with the classic rules of television fiction. I’m of course thrilled with the quality label and the international exposure the series will receive thanks to these nominations.’ In Crimi Clowns all starts with Wesley Tersago, a student who’s shown the door after finishing year four at the Amsterdam Film Academy. As a result he rolls into his father’s business who runs a criminal gang. After robbing an electronics store, Wesley decides to record the gang’s activities with one of the stolen cameras. What follows are

rough, but also funny and even emotional scenes. Everything is shown through so-called ‘fake found footage’ that is made by the characters in the series. After a successful run on both 2Be (Belgium) and veronica (The Netherlands) channels, Crimi Clowns also made it onto the big screen with a low-budget movie that the makers financed entirely with private means. Production costs were kept low again by using the ‘fake found footage’ procedure. Wyns recently announced a deal with Company Pictures in the UK for a British remake of the film, with several A-list names rumoured to be interested in starring in it. A co-production between Diamond Films in Antwerp and Amsterdam based Column Film, the original Crimi Clowns series stars Johnny De Mol as Wesley, Luk Wyns, Manou kersting, kris Willemsen, veerle De Jonghe and Frank Lammers.  Hw

TAke 26 | Summer 2013 | € 3.99 Cover Jeroen Perceval by Filip van Roe CReDITS editor Christian De Schutter Deputy editor + Art Direction Nathalie Capiau Deputy editor / Digital karel verhelst Sub editors John Adair, An Ratinckx Contributors Geoffrey Macnab, Alex Masson, Ian Mundell, Henry Womersley Photo credits P 17 set pictures Image © Julie Landrieu P 50-51 Bridgit Folman Film Gang - All other stills copyrighted by the respective producers Design

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