Flanders (i) Magazine #28 - Spring 2014

TAKE 28 | SPRING 2014 | E 3.99

BAS GOES

BERLIN GENERATION PRESENTS BAS DEVOS'S VIOLET

SOFIE BENOOT'S FASCINATION WITH THE US

Hollywood Bowl of

CAVIAR

N

IN BERLINALE

MONA LIZE

LIZE FERYN DEBUTS IN IN FLANDERS FIELDS

SUPPLÉMENT EN FRANÇAIS

DIRK BROSSÉ CLARA CLEYMANS GEOFFREY ENTHOVEN HANS HERBOTS LENI HUYGHE NICOLAS KARAKATSANIS JAN MATTHYS NICOLAS PROVOST DEBEN VAN DAM STIJN VAN DER VEKEN FELIX VAN GROENINGEN HANNES VERHOUSTRAETE

Flip flanders(i) and discover the inaugural edition of flanders ( , a brand new magazine that talks about non-theatrical single-screen content. Add to this the French-language flanders and you now have three magazines in one! And when you switch to the digital edition for iPad or go to issue.com you also get full access to extras such as trailers and scenes.

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C NTENT I TAKE 28 16

Nicolas Karakatsanis Besides The Drop and The Loft, the cinematographer still makes small arthouse films such as the Berlinale Generation selected Violet and even finds time for his true passion: photography

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Hans Herbots The Treatment, the director’s new feature, follows a psychologically disturbed cop as he tries to track down a child molesting serial killer

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Geoffrey Enthoven The director of Come As You Are is back with a new feature, Halfway

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Dirk Brossé Composing for the screen is the least predictable, explains the composer

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En annexe vous trouverez le supplément en français avec Peter Krüger, Geoffrey Enthoven ainsi que des informations au sujet d'une collection de 12 ultracourts en commémoration de la Première Guerre mondiale

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Influence Bas Devos

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12 Minutes about Peace To mark this year’s Centenary of the beginning of the First World War, a collection of 12 ultra-short animated films on the theme of peace will be presented later on this year

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Bert Hamelinck Belgian production powerhouse Caviar recently surprised the Hollywood community when it threw a late night big party to celebrate the opening of its chic new LA headquarters, including production facilities. Looking at their plans, they will need the space

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Peter Krüger This year's Berlinale Forum unveils N - The Madness of Reason, the director's first cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction

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Sofie Benoot The director’s fascination for the USA this time takes her to the source of America’s identity

4 Talent Matters I 10 iOpener Labyrinthus flandersimage.com

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BELGICA UP NEXT FOR FELIX VAN GROENINGEN .

Drama Belgica has been confirmed as the next feature from Oscar-nominated helmer Felix van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown). The project recently received production money from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). Principal photography is set to start this autumn.

Just before this issue went to press, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced that van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown is among this year’s Foreign-language Oscar nominees.

‘I just got done crying,’ said the director after he had

heard the news. ‘This nomination is the cherry on the cake. I am so proud. We noticed at screenings in Los Angeles that the film had an effect on people. We saw that it has a life of its own.’

In the meantime, van Groeningen has also unveiled what is to become his fifth feature. Scripted by Arne Sierens and the director, Belgica tells the story of the deteriorating relationship between two brothers while running a popular pub-turned-club in Ghent. The more successful their joint enterprise becomes, the more alienated the two become from one another. A large part of the film is set in what the director calls ‘that hazy night-time world’ and contains some elements he witnessed while his dad was running a club, combined with things that happened after two brothers took over from his father.

In a way, says van Groeningen, this film will also be a metaphor for what’s currently happening in Belgium.

‘But let me be clear: It’s in no way my intention to make a political film or a political statement. But there are some striking parallels to draw between Belgium’s recent history and the story of Belgica – it’s often funny and not always coincidental.’

There won’t be any room for bluegrass songs this time though. Instead the director will work together with Stephen and David Dewaele of 2Manydj’s to serve up a sparkling mix of 20 years of dance music.

Casting of the main parts was still ongoing at the time of publication. Dirk Impens of Menuet who produced van Groeningen’s previous films is back in the producer’s seat. Impens also produced the Oscar-nominated Daens. HW

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH..

Director Deben Van Dam made The Way of all Flesh, a black comedy, as his graduation film from the RITS film school in Brussels. It went on to win an audience award at the Ghent Film Festival, then public and jury prizes at the Leuven International Short Film Festival, where it also secured one of the coveted VAF Wildcards.

In The Way of all Flesh, Tibo works as a nurse in the palliative care ward of a hospital. He is surrounded by people waiting to die, and he is dying too, of boredom. He passes the time laying bets with his co-workers on which of the old people will croak next, but he is a poor judge of mortality and the game is emptying his wallet.

When a female colleague wants to avoid sitting with a lecherous patient through his last day before submitting to voluntary euthanasia, Tibo agrees to take on the task for €50. Former taxi driver Frans Claeskens is a repulsive human being, with no family or friends willing to see him off. Yet Tibo is resigned to making Frans’ last day as bearable as possible, whatever that may involve. Meanwhile the sombre business of the hospital continues remorselessly around them.

Tibo is played by Flor Decleir, son of great Flemish actor Jan Decleir, with a hangdog expression that exudes misery and resignation to the task he has taken on. Opposite him Sam Louwyck (Bullhead, The Fifth Season) is the embodiment of sleaze, yet with a last hint of humanity just showing through all his insulting behaviour. IM

VIVE LA FLANDERS!.

While Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown became the all-time highest grossing Flemish film in France – at the time of going to print the film, released as Alabama Monroe, had passed the 200,000-admission mark – Flemish acting talent is increasingly courted by gallic helmers. Johan Heldenbergh and Sam Louwyck are just two examples of Flemish actors making waves across the border.

Johan Heldenbergh (The Broken Circle Breakdown) stars alongside Ludivine Sagnier, Reda Kateb and Tchéky Karyo in Fred Grivois’ La résistance de l’air.

‘I’m playing a bit of a devil,’ says Heldenbergh. ‘My character is both charming and wicked. It’s every actor’s dream to be offered a role like this.’ Shooting takes place in the first months of 2014.

Sam Louwyck (Bullhead, The Fifth Season) has been cast in Stéphane Dumoustier’s feature debut Terre battue, which also includes Olivier Gourmet, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Xavier Beauvois, and set in the world of tennis. ‘It was a wonderful experience,’ says Louwyck. ‘It was great to work with Olivier, and expectations are high as Stéphane is considered one of France’s emerging filmmaking talents.’

Johan Heldenbergh It’s not only the French who have discovered Louwyck though. He’s also starring alongside Monica Belluci as a bee keeper in Italian-Swiss-German coproduction Le meraviglie

by Corpo celeste helmer Alice Rohrwacher. The film’s theatrical release is scheduled for this summer. HW Sam Louwyck

PS SÃO PAULO. Two men wander through a city at night.

They are discussing mundane subjects, such as the economy and fruit, but then their talk turns to death and the idea of heaven and hell. It’s the kind of conversation that might take place between two lost souls.

Leni Huyghe has already made a name for herself as a director of fiction shorts, with St James Infirmary enjoying festival success in Flanders and Matteus winning a place at the Cannes Cinéfondation in 2012.

Both were made during her studies at Sint Lukas film school in Brussels, which she completed in 2013 with the graduation film Do You Know What Love Is. PS São Paulo also comes from her student days, but is completely different in tone and approach. Billed as a ‘video-letter’ from the Brazilian metropolis, which she visited as part of a student exchange, the film is constructed from documentary footage of the city at night.

The darkness is profound, broken only by street lamps, shop windows and the searchlights of passing police helicopters.

As well as tracking through the streets, her camera lingers on apartment windows, watching silhouettes of people going about their daily lives. Everyone seems distant, living close together but out of contact with each other.

Meanwhile the conversation between the two men continues, related in Portuguese by a third-person narrator, his voice weaving in and out of a soundscape of ambient noise and music. It is only towards the end that we see two figures walking the streets. Are these the men whose story we have been following, or just two more of the city’s lost souls?

Poised between documentary, fiction and experimental video, PS São Paulo has been selected for Visions du Réel in Nyon. IM

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JAN MATTHYS WAS GUEST OF HONOUR AT THE FIPA INTERNATIONAL AUDIOVISUAL FESTIVAL IN BIARRITZ THIS JANUARY, IN RECOGNITION OF HIS ACHIEVEMENTS IN TV DRAMA. PART OF HIS SUCCESS IS DOWN TO A KEEN EYE FOR ACTING TALENT. HERE HE INTRODUCES TWO OF HIS MOST RECENT DISCOVERIES: CLARA CLEYMANS FROM THE AWARD WINNING SERIES QUIZ ME QUICK AND LIZE FERYN FROM IN FLANDERS FIELDS, WHICH PREMIERED AT FIPA.

CLARA CLEYMANS..

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My first impression on meeting Clara was ‘Gosh, she’s intelligent!’. Then that she was smaller and frailer than I expected her to be. At the beginning she also kept a cautious, professional distance.

I got the feeling she was standing back, perhaps trying to work me out.

I cast her as Monica in Quiz Me Quick for the sake of her enigmatic, mysterious qualities. For her self-confident gaze and her talent for exuding superiority in a natural way, without ever appearing arrogant. She could bring the right class and style to the character, but also suggest a deeper loneliness.

Our collaboration went very well, once we had ‘found’ each other. She works very rationally, while I’m more intuitive, so we met somewhere in the middle.

That was very instructive for both of us.

She takes her responsibilities very

seriously. Her point of departure is that the text is not necessarily definitive, and she likes to fine-tune her dialogue. That’s a great thing to see, and almost always justified. Her timing is great and she is a stickler for precision. And her dry sense of humour makes her a favourite of the crew.

Her acting is spot-on. Her diction is very nuanced, very precise, and there is great originality in her phrasing. This ‘little bird’ has lots of charisma. She may not take up much space in reality, she has a particular (and sometimes unpredictable) effect when she is on camera. More than usually intelligent, she avoids clichés like no other actress and invests her characters with many layers.

In the future I would very much like to see her play a stupid character, not in

We spent a long time casting the role of Marie and saw lots of people. We called Lize back seven times. I wanted to be absolutely certain that she had the potential to grow throughout the series. She has to go through an evolution of four years, from an adolescent to a young adult, with the war as a catalyst.

I cast her because I had a strong intuition that she would be able to feel and understand Marie’s world extremely well.

I also felt that she had the talent to bring out Marie’s inner life, without using words. Her eyes provide a very open window on her soul.

I also cast her because of her spontaneity, because she was a blank page, without past associations as an actress, and because of her solid West Flanders reliability. And, thanks to her career as a model in Milan and New York, she also has a harder, streetwise quality.

On set she was extraordinarily well prepared. On the first day of shooting she knew all of her lines - all 10 episodes! - inside out. And while she put her trust in me entirely, she also dared to be critical and to ask questions. She watched over her character very closely.

As an actress she has tremendous non-verbal skills, capable of bringing lots of layers to a character but without becoming mannered. It’s as if you can see her innermost thoughts. She has wonderful concentration and focus, to a degree I’ve rarely seen in my 20-year career.

She is multi-talented: besides acting she also has an amazing singing voice and a talent for drawing. And she has a lot of comic potential, which few people realise. I can say with complete confidence that she has the talent and the attitude to build an international career.

In the future I would even like to see her play an ‘ugly duckling’, with her slender stature expressing clumsiness and awkwardness. IM SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY (2014) - MISSING PERSONS UNIT (2014) - ASPE (2014) - IN FLANDERS FIELDS (2013) - THE WHITE QUEEN 4 March1993 179cm /5 ft 10 in EYES brown LANGUAGES Dutch native, fluent English, French (basic) She sings, draws, writes and practices calligraphy DATE OF BIRTH HEIGHT

TALENTMATTERS

LIZE FERYN.

a sketch show, but in a serious movie or TV series. She is bursting with talent and technique, and could easily rise to this challenge.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY (2013) - DE RIDDER (TV SERIES) (2012) - QUIZ ME QUICK (TV SERIES) (2011) - CODE 37 (TV SERIES) (2011) - GERMAINE (2008) - HAPPY TOGETHER 5 January 1989 156cm / 5 ft 1 in EYES green HAIR strawberry blonde LANGUAGES Dutch native, fluent English, French (basic), German (basic) She sings, plays the piano and violin, and draws.

DATE OF BIRTH HEIGHT

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28 RUE BRICHAUT.......

Marry Me

PRODUCTION UPDATE..

A series of new features have recently gone into production or are scheduled to start production in the next few months. Here are six projects that have recently received production money from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF).

• Vincent Bal (Nono the Zigzag Kid) is preparing what should become the first feature-length musical made in the northern part of the country: Brabançonne. Scripted by Pierre De Clercq, the film is about the competition between two brass bands, one from Flanders and the other from the Walloon Provinces of Belgium. But there’s of course also a love story too. Production company is Eyeworks.

• Kadir Balci (Turquaze) and Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem (Brasserie Romantique) wrote the script of Marry Me (Trouw met mij), a tragi-comedy about a divorced Turkish woman who marries a Flemish guy. Production company is A Private View.

• Bavo Defurne (North Sea Texas) has been selected for this year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market for Souvenir, his new feature project for which he wrote the script together with Jacques Boon and Yves Verbraeken. It’s the story about the love between a forgotten Eurovision Song Contest singer and a young man who could be her son. Souvenir was also among the top three favourites of last year’s Paris Projects. Production company is Indeed Films.

• Gust Van den Berghe (Blue Bird) concludes his trilogy with Lucifer, about a mysterious stranger who falls from the sky and soon comes to be considered to be the devil by the locals. Production company is Minds Meet.

• Pieter Van Hees (Dirty Mind) is in the process of finishing his third feature, The Waste Land, starring Jérémie Renier, who plays the role of a tormented policeman who can’t deal with the fact that he is going to become a father, and who spends his nights roaming around Matongé, Brussels’ African quarter. Production company is Epidemic.

• Hilde Van Mieghem (Madly in Love) is to direct Speechless (Sprakeloos), the big-screen adaptation of Tom Lanoye’s bestselling novel. Bert Scholiers and Van Mieghem wrote the script, which tells the moving story of the life and death of the author’s parents, particularly his mother. Production company is Caviar. HW flandersimage.com

Beginning with an address, 28 rue Brichaut in Brussels, Hannes Verhoustraete follows connections in time, place and memory to create a poetic documentary rich in associations. The house is his own, and he explores it through his own eyes and through the memories of a previous resident, who attempts to map the layout from memory and to identify its features in family photographs.

Through him, the story goes even further back, to a grandfather who left the house to fight in the First World War. This leads to events that happened in the house while he was gone and to the tragedy of the battlefields. Meanwhile, in the present, the remains of this conflict are being unearthed and laid out in a new museum.

These memories and images of remembering combine with scenes from contemporary life in and around the house, drawing in present residents and new neighbours. In addition to filming his surroundings, Verhoustraete draws in period reconstruction, archive photographs and documents, and satellite images of the street available on the internet.

‘A history is not only a narrative of things past, it is also a mode of belonging together, a way of sharing individual and collective experiences, as well as the forms and signs that give them shape,’ he says in his statement of intent for the film. ‘Every history is an arrangement of silent testimonies and discursive traces, an intertwining of different times and places, objects and gestures, allowing us to be where we were not.’

The film is Verhoustraete’s graduation project from the KASK, the Ghent academy of art. It won a VAF Wildcard award and has been selected for the Visions du Réel documentary festival in Nyon in 2014. IM

PROVOST’S ILLUMINATION. LIGHTS UP GALLERIES. Visual artist and filmmaker Nicolas Provost (The Invader) has got off to a flying start in 2014. After finishing his Plot Point trilogy, consisting of shorts candidly shot in New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo, he will be unveiling new work at a solo exhibition and at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Illumination is the centrepiece of a new solo exhibition opening at the Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp (30 January-15 March). ‘This work is the result of a completely different intention,’ explains Provost. Filming people’s reactions to fireworks in Manhattan, he was hoping that the reflections of the fireworks on their faces would create an emotion without showing what they were actually witnessing. But it did not work out the way he anticipated. A few days later he found a crowd on 46th Street lining up to see a musical. ‘The reflection of the setting sun through the window of a neighbouring building was so strong that people could hardly see ahead of themselves.’ Shot in slo-mo, the film reveals in detail ‘how the light slowly caresses the body parts appearing out of the darkness. It exposes the intensity of this volatile moment in time where light, colour, movement, set and character are dramatically layered in a way that almost seems as if it’s been choreographed.’

In addition to a re-run of one of Provost’s early works, Papillion d’amour, Rotterdam will premiere The Painters and The Dark Galleries. The latter is a ‘fascinating hall of mirrors,’ explains IFFR curator Edwin Carels. ‘Provost elegantly exploits the rules of editing to create an imaginary museum visit. He guides us through living rooms and picture galleries of 1940s and 1950s noir crime thrillers, gothic melodramas and ghost stories. HW

DoP Stijn Van der Veken got invited to join the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). Van der Veken garnered international acclaim with Tom Van Avermaet’s short Death of a Shadow that was nominated for an Academy Award and won the European Film Award in December. Another recent film, Yasir Al-Yasiri’s Murk Light earned him the Black Pearl award for Best Cinematography at the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival. He also lensed the 10-part TV series In Flanders Fields by Jan Matthys whom Stijn is a frequent collaborator with. The series debuted mid January on Flemish television with a staggering 56% market share. HW

timvanlaeregallery.com eyefilm.nl nicolasprovost.com

STIJN VAN DER VEKEN..

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L ABYRINTHUS A 14-year-old discovers a computer game that is being played with real children, uploaded in the game's labyrinth. In a race against time, he starts to search for the evil creator in order to free his friends. Labyrinthus is Douglas Boswell’s feature debut, starring Spencer Bogaert, Emma Verlinden, Felix Maesschalck, Ivan Pecnik and Tine Embrechts. Pierre De Clercq signed for the screenplay of this SFX heavy adventure.

DoP is Reinier Van Brummelen, with Jan Hameeuw attached as editor and Kurt Rigolle as art director. Flemish producer is Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film (Bullhead), in association with Eyeworks. ď Š

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BRING ON THE TEXT IAIN MUNDELL PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

IF HANS HERBOTS HAS A DARK SECRET IT IS THAT HE LIKES DARK SECRETS. 'A LOT OF THE FILMS THAT I'VE MADE HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE LIGHTER THAN I INITIALLY EXPECTED,' HE SAYS. 'IN SCRIPTS I WAS ALWAYS ATTRACTED TO THE DARK SIDE OF THE CHARACTERS, BUT USUALLY THERE WAS ALSO A LIGHTER STORY INVOLVED AND SO THAT BECAME THE OVERTONE OF THE FINAL FILM.' BUT THERE IS NO CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING WITH HIS LATEST FEATURE FILM, THE TREATMENT, WHICH FOLLOWS A PSYCHOLOGICALLY DISTURBED COP AS HE TRIES TO TRACK DOWN A PAEDOPHILE SERIAL KILLER. The Treatment (De Behandeling) is based on the first two Jack Caffery novels by renowned British crime writer Mo Hayder, rolling together the backstory of Birdman and the subsequent plot of The Treatment. This will be the first time her dark, complex fiction has been brought to the big screen.

Herbots was shooting international thriller series The Spiral in Copenhagen when he was asked to read an adaptation of Hayder’s novels by Carl Joos (Memory of a Killer, Dossier K.). The connection was immediate.

‘First of all it’s a good story. When you start to read it you want to know how it ends, and it really carries you along, but it also deals with things that I find interesting, such as trauma, guilt and the way abuse spreads through its victims,’ Herbots explains. ‘That all comes together in Jack Caffery, or Nick Cafmeyer in our story.’

Cafmeyer is haunted by the disappearance of his brother when they were both children, an event he thinks he witnessed but was unable to prevent. Now a police inspector, he is obsessed with finding out what happened on that fateful day. When another case of child abduction lands on his desk, Cafmeyer is convinced that he sees connections with his own dark history. But are they real, or is his obsession now running out of control?

perfect leading man

Herbots was concerned that the story should be authentic and not drift into exploitation. Nothing could be rushed.

‘We had a lot of time to prepare and to rehearse,’ he recalls.

‘We could do thorough research on the psychology, on trauma and how to deal with it. So it was a very nice journey to take with the lead actor, Geert Van Rampelberg, to really have the opportunity to dig deep.’

The Treatment is a change of pace for Van Rampelberg, who is best known for supporting roles, such as the deceived husband in Hotel Swooni or the dependable friend in Time of My Life. This is the first time he and Herbots have worked together. ‘I was looking for somebody who was able to combine the intensity of the story with an appeal to a wider audience, and I think Geert is the perfect leading man for that kind of film,’ the director says.

The fact that he has no history of playing characters like Cafmeyer was also an advantage, and throughout the casting Herbots has gone for faces that carry no past associations for viewers. ‘I chose a lot of actors who work in theatre rather than television and film, because I wanted to breathe some authenticity into the film. I just wanted the characters to be themselves.’

Examples include Dominique Van Malder, Michael Vergauwen and Ina Geerts, who plays Cafmeyer’s enigmatic boss. ‘She’s an example of someone who’s maybe lesser known to a wider audience,’ Herbots says.

a world apart

In place of the south London locations of Hayder’s book, Herbots chose to shoot in and around Antwerp. The Rivierenhof neighbourhood provides the sinister park that is central to the plot, a zone which is neither the city nor the country, where homes stand alongside woods or wasteland, hotels or factories. ‘The choice of locations fell into place very quickly, and they really help to tell the story and make it more intense,’ Herbots says.

The weather also played its part, with low clouds and persistent rain turning what was meant to be a bright summer shoot into something altogether more oppressive.

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'In a way it is a new kind of genre. 'It's not at all a horror movie, but it's a thriller that has these elements of the dark woods and the past coming back'

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BOXING WITH HOLLYWOOD Hans Herbots has been attracting attention in the USA, thanks to international TV series The Spiral and domestic drama The Divine Monster, which is under discussion for a remake. He has an agent in Los Angeles and has been sifting through scripts, looking for gold.

All stills The Treatment

‘All of a sudden we had this rare situation where you have the green of the summer, with all the leaves on the trees, but grey and wet. I think that made the film much grimmer.’

He recalls the first three weeks of the shoot being rather claustrophobic, since only Van Rampelberg was involved in front of the camera. Even when the other cast members arrived, it remained a world apart, particularly when shooting stretched across day and night. ‘There was not a lot of interaction with the rest of the world, which intensified the process.’

‘I had a project which was almost getting there, but then The Treatment came along and I had to take a step back,’ he says. ‘It takes time, but it’s interesting and I’m looking forward to taking that up again, and also to presenting this film over there to see how it will do.’

Hollywood likes to put directors in boxes and Herbots’ recent work places him in the thriller category. ‘All of the scripts I’ve been sent have been in that genre,’ he says. It’s frustrating, he admits, but not fatal. ‘That’s the way it works over there. If you want to play the game, at least at the beginning you have to play along and see where it takes you,’ he says. ‘But with the ideas and projects that I take there myself, I make sure that their roots are in the right box but they grow somewhere else. You smuggle something in.’

Back in Europe, he has a feature film in development.

The Breath of God involves an investigator at OLAF, the European Union’s anti-fraud office, and unfolds in the world of European politics that centres on the Belgian capital.

‘I think Brussels is a very good basis for a story, maybe in English, that begins here and then takes us to America or Eastern Europe, a bit like the Bourne films,’ he says. ‘It’s a richness we have here that is not used very much.’

He has similar ideas for a project centred on NATO, which also has its headquarters in Brussels. ‘There’s really interesting material there to work with. I’d love to dig deeper into that over the coming years.’

GETTING THE TREATMENT The Treatment fits in with the mission of Eyeworks Belgium to produce films that combine a distinctive vision with audience appeal, that do more than simply tick genre boxes. ‘Instead of being a plot-driven whodunit or whydunit thriller, this is about someone who has a trauma that has never healed, who is drawn into that trauma again and who starts malfunctioning,’ says producer Peter Bouckaert.

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For the visual style, Herbots and cinematographer Frank Van den Eeden drew on Let Me In, Matt Reeves’ remake of the Swedish urban vampire movie Let The Right One In. ‘It has a very distinct, decisive way of telling its story. We took a lot of inspiration from that film.’ Another visual reference was the gangster movie Killing Them Softly, directed by Andrew Dominik.

‘Framing is very important for Frank, and it really helped this film as well. Sometimes it’s more important what you don’t show in the image.’

Together with a sound mix which layers up music and the sound of wind, rain and the trains that play a pivotal role in the plot, the atmosphere becomes particularly intense.

‘In a way it is a new kind of genre,’ Herbots says. ‘It’s not at all a horror movie, but it’s a thriller that has these elements of the dark woods and the past coming back. It’s a very interesting genre, and it was nice to explore that.’

Hayder has written five more novels featuring Jack Caffery, so the potential exists for further films involving Nick Cafmeyer. Herbots pauses when asked if he would want to go back into this world. ‘I think so,’ he says eventually. ‘It’s a dark place, but it’s nice to be in a dark place with good people.’ 

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good people

He was also drawn to the film as a response to the highly aestheticized violence of movies such as Seven or The Silence of the Lambs. ‘Crime isn’t like that,’ he says. ‘It’s your next-door neighbour, not some fascinating, super-intelligent creature. It’s someone who is mentally ill, and who has been let down by a society that is more and more individualised.’

The idea of adapting The Treatment was a longcherished project for writer Carl Joos. ‘We worked together on it for five years,’ Bouckaert says. They were not alone, however, and when they approached Hayder for an option on the books they found other bidders on the field, including two from the USA. Unable to match their dollars, they tried another approach. ‘We asked for three months to write a treatment of how we saw the film and we sent that over to Mo Hayder. She said: ‘This is the book I wrote and this is the film I want to see.’

Hayder also came to the set during the shoot. ‘She was very warm and very much interested in the whole process. ‘And before we could send her the trailer of the film she had already traced it down on the internet. “Wow!” was the reaction she sent us via email.’

HANS HERBOTS* (2014) – THE TREATMENT (2011) – THE DIVINE MONSTER (TELEVISION SERIES) (2010) – BO (2006) – STORM FORCE (2005) – LONG WEEKEND (2001) – FALLING * selected filmography

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A CONVERSATION WITH CINEMATOGRAPHER NICOLAS KARAKATSANIS HAS

QUICKLY

BECOME

ONE

OF

THE

BRIGHTEST

STARS

IN

THE

FIRMAMENT, HAVING WORKED ON RECENT OSCAR NOMINEE BULLHEAD, MICHAËL R. ROSKAM’S US-SHOT FOLLOW-UP, THE DROP, AND ERIK VAN LOOY’S AMERICAN REMAKE OF HIS THRILLER, THE LOFT. BUT HE STILL MAKES SMALL ARTHOUSE FILMS IN BELGIUM AS WELL AND EVEN FINDS TIME FOR HIS TRUE PASSION: PHOTOGRAPHY.

Karakatsanis, whose family is of Greek origin, has worked on films such as Small Gods, directed by his brother Dimitri, which premiered in Venice in 2007 and Caroline Strubbe’s Lost Persons Area, which was part of the 2009 Cannes Critics’ Week. Besides The Loft, which stars Wentworth Miller, James Marsden and Matthias Schoenaerts, and The Drop, which stars Tom Hardy, the late James Gandolfini and Schoenaerts, the busy Director of Photography also wrapped filming on two upcoming Belgian titles: horror film Cub from Jonas Govaerts and Bas Devos’s arthouse drama Violet.

I meet Karakatsanis in December at his home in Brussels, which is still being renovated. We sit in the large lounge area, which has one very long rectangular wall made entirely of glass that looks out onto the skyline of Brussels beyond the vacant lot opposite the house. Even without knowing the occupation of the owner, the scene looks like a large, impressively composed widescreen shot. When we meet, Karakatsanis has just come back from the US, where he shot a Super Bowl commercial, worked on a short with two Australian brothers and opened an exhibition of his photographs. He’s home for the holidays but will fly back to Los Angeles in the New Year to start color grading The Drop.

TEXT BOYD VAN HOEIJ PORTRAIT ERIC DE CNODDER

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‘I’ve been working in the US for several years,’ the cinematographer explains, ‘mainly in advertising but films are becoming more prominent now and ideally, I’d like to do one or two features a year, if there are interesting projects available, and to alternate that with advertising shoots and my own projects.’ He then says something that he’ll repeat several times during our interview: ‘Alternating different things is fun.’

Besides the diverse projects he does as a Director of Photography, Karakatsanis also finds time for his work as a photographer. Before his show in New York, he already had three in Brussels that attracted significant attention. ‘Photography is something I perhaps take the most pleasure in at the moment,’ says Karakatsanis. ‘With cinema, I feel like I’ve constructed a solid technical base and have worked on different types of films. Photography is radically different and the challenges on a creative level are much bigger and scarier; I’m the director, in a way.

This makes it a bigger challenge and even more fun.’

But both his photography and cinematography have things in common, including a preference for minimal (if very precise) lighting that often makes the images dark and mysterious. But his photographs are not planned or staged and the multi-talented image-maker likes to just walk around with his camera to steal images left and right, so there’s no photographic equivalent of a screenplay or storyboard. ‘The added value of photography is in what’s unplanned,’ Karakatsanis explains. ‘Besides a recent studio project, photography has been about liberty for me, about finding myself in front of a subject by chance and then immortalizing it while at the same time allowing my own aesthetic ideas to capture the subject in a certain way.’

‘One thing my photos have in common with my cinematography, and perhaps it’s the only thing except for the technique involved in creating an image,’ he continues, ‘is that I like to alternate different things. I’m still exploring what I find attractive stylistically and in terms of subject matter and I try to find variety within what could be defined as my own style.’

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alternate

eclectic

‘I think Violet might be the most beautiful film I’ve shot so far. Some shots, such as the final, eight-minute sequence, are visually very arresting’

This is also clear from Karakatsanis’s eclectic filmography: ‘I did Cub over the summer. I’m not a big horror fan but working on a genre film is fascinating because the type of narration, for example, is different from regular films. I kept ‘my’ dark look but hopefully I’ve avoided clichés. Visually, Cub’s similar to the Spielberg films of the eighties, with a lot of the cutting actually done in-camera, though it has a contemporary edge.’

Karakatsanis’s first US film was shot two years ago but hasn’t been released yet: The Loft, a remake of one of the biggest hits in Flemish film history. The original director, Erik Van Looy, also helmed the US version. ‘I didn’t actually know Erik when he called,’ says the cinematographer.

‘The Loft interested because I’d never done this

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Bullhead

The Loft

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Cub

Violet

kind of slick thriller before and I’d been working on commercials stateside for several years, so it seemed like a logical next step. Half of the crew and shoot was Belgian and there was no studio involved, so Erik really could make the film he wanted and it was quite a smooth transition for me.’

Working with a US crew with union contracts on a film with a $14 million budget presented both new challenges and experiences for Karakatsanis: ‘Having to learn how crew, actors and production people work in the States was a fascinating learning process. In the beginning, I thought it was very restrictive to have to follow all these union rules but the longer I’ve worked there, the more I see the advantages of the system and realize that in some respects, Belgium — France is different— is still the Far West in terms of protection, the way they’re organized and what people are paid. But people can be more flexible in Belgium, so a mixture of the two would be great!’

Karakatsanis had seen the original film but didn’t want to go back to it when preparing the Englishlanguage version: ‘I wanted to use the new script as my starting point, see the locations and then take it from there. It had to get its own identity. I’m more of a realist than the original’s cinematographer and though I like striking compositions and beautiful light, we come from different places, stylistically speaking.’ He continues: ‘With US productions, most of the heads of department get involved quite late, maybe six weeks before filming. In Europe, with its different rounds of financing, you might have more than a year to think about a project, so your ideas have matured much more by the time you shoot. But Erik is someone who knows exactly what he wants and has made the film in his head before he starts.’

‘Michaël (R. Roskam), for example, works very differently. He likes to work with the actors on set to find the most natural way to shoot a scene. The Drop is a lot more sober in style than The Loft, it’s closer to realism and we try to place a fictional story within that.’

NICOLAS KARAKATSANIS*

(2014) – CUB (2014) – THE LOFT (US REMAKE ) (2014) – THE DROP (US) (2014) – VIOLET (2012) – PERFECT DRUG (SHORT) (2011) – RIVERS RETURN (SHORT) (2011) – BULLHEAD (2010) – THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF ROCKY (SHORT) (2009) – LOST PERSONS AREA (2009) – SIEMIANY (SHORT) (2008) – LEFT BANK (2007) – SMALL GODS

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The last film Karakatsanis, whose family is of Greek origin, has in the pipeline is Violet, about a teenager in mourning. Bas Devos, the director, is a friend of the cinematographer, who also shot his short, The Close: ‘Bas is someone who likes to communicate emotions mainly through visuals,’ Karakatsanis says as a way to sum up Devos’s style. ‘This might seem obvious but you’d be surprised how often the emotions are dictated by the dialogue or the music. In Bas’s film, the images and sound design are much more prominent. Some audiences aren’t used to this and find this difficult, though I’d argue his films are actually more accessible, as everything is on the surface.’

Though a small film with a matching budget, the visual style promises to be very elaborate. Explains Karakatsanis: ‘There’s a kind of neutral narration, which we shot on Alexa, there are YouTube-like videos, which were shot separately by Herman Asselberghs, we’ve got CCTV-like footage and we even shot images on 65mm.’

The latter proved to be especially challenging and the D.o.P. gets all excited about the various technical challenges: ‘We also wanted to show what’s going on inside the protagonist’s head, so the idea was born to shoot in the highest possible definition that could reflect a kind of emotional reality.

But I didn’t want the harshness of video, so we decided on 65mm. The film’s shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio and we needed a 65mm camera that could handle that. I finally found an unused camera on eBay, asked Kodak to produce the film we needed and found a laboratory in Paris that could print it, though they needed time to actually put their machinery in use so we had to wait nine months before we could develop our footage. During that time, the editor had been working on the film using footage from an iPhone we’d mounted on the camera! I think it might be the most beautiful film I’ve shot so far. Some shots, such as the final, eight-minute sequence, are visually very arresting.’

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eBay

* selected filmography

inspiration

Now that he’s becoming something of a name cinematographer, Karakatsanis can choose the projects he’d like to work on, though that doesn’t mean he tries to impose his vision: ‘The starting point for any film is the director and what he wants to do.

Of course I need to be able to find myself in the directors ideas but it’s my challenge to translate a director’s vision into images.’

For inspiration, Karakatsanis doesn’t necessarily look at the competition, though: ‘My references are often paintings and photography because other films are tricky, since you could be tempted to copy something that already exists. For Bullhead, for example, we looked at Flemish landscape painters such as Permeke and for The Drop, which was shot in Brooklyn, we were inspired by the work of George Bellows.

His world was like a logical extension of the screenplay and this is how I like to get inspired and try to create a certain look for a project.’

Like for his photographs, in Karakatsanis’ cinematography there has to be an element of chance, of recording something that wasn’t planned: ‘I’m not someone who likes to prepare a lot,’ admits the artist. ‘I’m afraid that if you prepare too much, the result won’t be as interesting. Some things need to be discovered on set, though I’ll admit not all directors like that! I prefer the creative process to happen while filming, not only in pre-production. I think it’s probably because the creative process is, in the end, the only thing that really interests me, otherwise I would be just a technician. That’s why I like handheld shots, because I can still adjust what I’m doing even while I’m filming. It’s all about seizing the moment.’ 

'Gold Face' © N.Karakatsanis

'Concrete' © N.Karakatsanis

'Body' © N.Karakatsanis

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L AUG H T ER IN THE DARK GEOFFREY

ENTHOVEN

SELECTS

STORIES

FOR

THEIR

UNIVERSAL

APPEAL, WHICH MADE THE ENTHUSIASTIC INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO COME AS YOU ARE (HASTA LA VISTA) ALL THE MORE SATISFYING. 'IT WAS OVERWHELMING,' HE SAYS. 'EVERY DIRECTOR MAKES MOVIES TO REACH AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, AND WHEN COME AS YOU ARE SUCCEEDED THAT WAS A REALLY GREAT EXPERIENCE. I HOPE IT WILL ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS.' HERE HE TALKS ABOUT HIS NEWEST FILM, HALFWAY. TEXT IAN MUNDELL

PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

The tale of three young disabled men who embark on a road trip to Spain with the secret goal of losing their virginities has collected awards at numerous festivals and found distribution in over 40 countries. At the end of 2012 it was named the People’s Choice at the European Film Awards, and remakes are under discussion in several territories.

Above all, the success tells Enthoven that he has found the right balance between dark and light, between humour and the serious themes of life. ‘I think I’ve found the tone that allows me to tell stories in my own way.’

On a more practical level, the film’s success unlocked funding from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), which allowed Enthoven to move quickly to a new project when work on his international co-production Winnipeg had to wait a year.

buddy movie

He and producing partner Mariano Vanhoof raided their list of ideas and selected a story about a man who moves into a new house, only to find it occupied by the ghost of the previous owner. A script was developed by Pierre De Clercq, writer of both Come As You Are and Winnipeg, in the second half of 2012.

Casting was finished early 2013 and Halfway was shot in the summer.

‘I think it’s the dream of every filmmaker to work that fast,’ Enthoven says. ‘It felt really fresh.’

The story appealed because of its humour, taking the idea of a dispute between neighbours to extremes.

‘This idea of enemies who become friends in the end is also a thing for Pierre,’ Enthoven explains. ‘So in a way it is a buddy movie, and that appealed to me too.’

There were also deeper themes that Enthoven wanted to explore. ‘It’s about where you are in your life, what your responsibility is towards others, and whether it is sometimes too late to forgive people.’ Both Stef, the new home owner, and Theo, the ghost, have unfinished business with the people they love. At first it seems that they will only get in each other’s way, but their affairs become so entangled that they become allies.

Finding the right house was very important. ‘In the early drafts of the scenario the house was like something out of Dallas, big and white, with a swimming pool. But every time we visited that kind of house there was no magic at all,’ Enthoven recalls. ‘And we didn’t want a ghostly house, because then we would be pushing towards a kind of thriller or horror movie.’

Then one house, a large Art Deco mansion in the Flemish Ardennes, caught his eye. ‘I thought it wasn’t right for the movie, but I wanted to visit it because it was so beautiful,’ he says. He wasn’t alone.

‘It attracted everyone, so Mariano said: just change the story, it has to happen here.’

‘In a way, Halfway is a buddy movie, and that appealed to me’

COME AGAIN? Plans are already underway to remake Come As You Are in the Netherlands, after it was optioned by Amsterdam production company BosBros. But all eyes are on the possibility of a US version. John Baca, Barrett Stuart, and Hans Canosa acquired the rights for the remake and are currently packaging talent with Ted Field from Radar Pictures.

Hans Canosa (Conversations with Other Women) will be the director.

Enthoven decided not to get involved with this remake, preferring to concentrate on new projects. ‘I wasn’t open to doing it myself,’ he explains. ‘There are so many new stories that I want to tell that I didn’t want to invest my time in doing the same story again.’

But he does not rule out such a move in the future, thinking of it as a transition rather than repetition. ‘Listening to the stories of colleagues about how tough it is to work in the States, I think it would be nice to have your own movie, which you know was successful, which you can do again. Then you can concentrate on all the things that are new and different, and you will be better prepared for the next project.’

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All stills Halfway

parts

Stef is played by Koen De Graeve, best known for his roles in Time of My Life and The Misfortunates. Usually cast in likeable roles, he takes a different path in this story. ‘At the beginning of the film I wanted Stef to be a real asshole, someone egocentric who thinks he can arrange everything with money,’ Enthoven explains. ‘I was afraid people might sympathise with him from the beginning, whereas I wanted him to evolve in that direction. And that worked really well.’

Theo is played by Jurgen Delnaet whose main film role to date is the lovelorn truck driver in Moscow, Belgium. Their

different personalities and acting styles colour the relationship on screen. ‘It was a case of opposites attracting.’ Enthoven says. ‘Koen is a modern guy and Jurgen has something old fashioned and classic about him.’

Appearance also sets them apart. While Stef is a sharp dresser, Theo’s costume consists of a pair of boxer shorts and a towel, since his untimely death took place while he was in the bath. ‘That intrigues people,’ Enthoven says. ‘If you buy a house and the first time you are there you see a guy, half naked, wet, come out of the bathroom, you really feel that your privacy has been invaded.’

nter view i The third major role is Julie, Theo’s daughter. Enthoven had been impressed by Evelien Bosmans in Germaine, but feared she would be too old at 24 to play a 17-year-old girl. ‘But when I saw her, she was just perfect. She hasn’t changed with the years, she looks so young.’

The other parts fell into place relatively easily, with Gilles De Schryver and Tom Audenaert from Come As You Are both putting in an appearance, alongside relative newcomer Ella Leyers. And naturally there was a place for Veerle Baetens, who plays Stef’s long-suffering ex-wife.

rhythm

With Halfway finished and set for a Belgian release in February, Enthoven’s thoughts now turn to shooting Winnipeg this summer.

The film is a dark comedy about a man consumed by hatred for his dead brother, who broke up his marriage and ruined his business. Then one of the brother’s old flames gets in touch from Canada, hoping to restart their relationship now she is a wealthy widow. Only she mistakes the live brother for the dead brother. Why not play along, he thinks, and take his revenge? So he sets out for Canada to break the woman’s heart and take her money.

‘It will be really funny,’ Enthoven says, ‘but it will also talk about forgiveness, the bitterness of life, and the idea that it is never too late to change.’

The Flemish cast is already in place, with Koen De Bouw (The Verdict, Dossier K.) playing the lead and Koen De Graeve his despised brother. Robrecht Vanden Thoren (Come As You Are) also appears, as a neighbour who is instrumental in setting the plan in motion.

For the future Enthoven wants to explore the opportunities to work abroad that have opened up because of Come As You Are. But he also wants to continue working at home. ‘I couldn’t do a movie like Halfway as fast and as fresh if I was working abroad. And I think that rhythm is really interesting for some kinds of script,’ he says. ‘So I hope I can combine smaller, more regional movies with bigger international productions, for an international audience.’ 

NURSE BAETENS Geoffrey Enthoven and Veerle Baetens have a running joke that every time he has to cast a nurse, she will play that part, however small. There is no nurse in Halfway, but she still has a role. ‘It’s not a big part, but it’s a really important part. It’s the reason why my main character does everything.’

Baetens plays Natalie, Stef’s long-suffering ex-wife.

She also happens to be a high-powered lawyer, not unlike the character she played recently in The Verdict. ‘It’s a coincidence, but I also think it’s funny,’ says Enthoven. ‘In The Verdict you don’t see her private life, so it easily matches.’

Enthoven would like to give Baetens even more screen time, but so far his ideas have remained on the drawing board. ‘I’m always busy with different kinds of movies, and the other projects always move faster. I don’t know why that is.’ Now, with her success in The Broken Circle Breakdown, there is a risk that Baetens will be increasingly busy abroad. ‘I hope in the future it’s not like Matthias Schoenaerts, where she is in the States and I can’t get her on the phone any more,’ Enthoven says.

‘I still hope to make a movie with her in the main role.’

GEOFFREY ENTHOVEN* (2014) – HALFWAY (2011) – COME AS YOU ARE (HASTA LA VISTA) (2009) – THE OVER THE HILL BAND (2008) – HAPPY TOGETHER (2006) – THE ONLY ONE (VIDANGE PERDUE) (2002) – CHILDREN OF LOVE (LES ENFANTS DE L’AMOUR) * selected filmography

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DIRK BROSSÉ BATON FOR HIRE TEXT IAN MUNDELL

PORTRAIT LUK MONSAERT

THE COMPOSER DIRK BROSSÉ IS A BUSY MAN, DIVIDING HIS TIME BETWEEN PERSONAL PROJECTS, CLASSICAL COMMISSIONS, STAGE MUSICALS AND SOUNDTRACKS FOR FILM AND TELEVISION. 'FOR THE MOMENT I'M WORKING ON 54 PROJECTS,' HE SAYS. 'OVER THE YEARS I'VE LEARNED ONLY TO SPEAK ABOUT PROJECTS ONCE THEY ARE DONE. WHEN IT'S A WORK IN PROGRESS, NORMALLY I SAY NOTHING. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.' Of all the work he undertakes, composing for the screen is the least predictable. ‘Deadlines are always changing, so it is very difficult to fit film projects into my agenda,’ he says. There may also be more drastic changes of direction, for example when a film director Brossé was working with suddenly decided that he would do without music altogether.

Brossé accepts this rejection with good grace, but he is still taken aback. ‘It’s amazing that, in a world where the audiovisual is so important and the impact of music on storytelling so big, a director completely ignores it.’

This was an unusual case, but the difficulties inherent in composing for the screen mean that Brossé is very selective when he considers this kind of project. ‘If I can write music with all the layers that I think could and should be there, then I’m happy,’ he says. ‘From the moment that they ask me to write wallpaper music then I say no. I make my money elsewhere, so I can always say no to a project for artistic reasons.’

He will accept a film or TV project when both the people involved and the story inspire him. ‘Even before I’ve read the script, it’s the conversation I have with the producer or the director.’

challenge

The earlier he is brought in, the happier he is. ‘I prefer starting to write music as soon as the script is there, then you are not influenced by what the actors do or how the scenes look,’ he says. ‘This is very pure in terms of finding themes. This is ideal.’

In the early nineties Dirk Brossé composed music for the Oscar-nominated historical drama Daens, about a Flemish priest who stands up for the people. Twenty years on, he took up his pen again to turn it into a stage musical. ‘I didn’t use a single note from the film,’ he recalls. ‘Writing for the stage is different from writing for film.

They are two different worlds.’

Brossé loves both worlds, and has scored musicals such as 'Sacco & Vanzetti', 'Tintin and the Temple of the Sun', 'Rembrandt' and 'Ben X', adapted from the film directed by Nic Balthazar. He has just completed another screen-to-stage transfer with 'Pauline and Paulette', based on Lieven Debrauwer’s 2001 comedy about a woman suddenly faced with looking after her elderly, simple-minded sister.

As a musical, it is a world away from the big production of 'Daens'. ‘It’s very intimate, with six actors and four musicians.’

After that, a larger canvas presents itself with '14-18', an original musical about the First World War.

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THE SOUND OF MUSICAL

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One recent project where the collaboration was particularly rewarding was the TV drama Parade’s End, a collaboration between the BBC and HBO that was shot to a large extent in Flanders. Brossé was attracted both by the story and by director Susanna White. ‘The way she talked about how she saw the light, the colours and the acting, inspired me.’

She gave Brossé some references in the work of Gerald Finzi and Ralph Vaughan Williams, both exponents of British pastoral music, but otherwise left him to develop his own ideas. However, the first score that he put together was too powerful and risked overwhelming the dialogue-heavy drama.

‘I had to make the music sparser and more transparent,’ he recalls. ‘I tried to evoke colours with the strings, I used a lot of sparse piano and harp. That means that every signal coming from the music has its own meaning.’

Being challenged in this way is not a problem. ‘I like people who push you to the limits of your talent, even if it can be tough when you are in the middle of it,’ he says. ‘I did so many versions of the score, but in the end the result was very beautiful. It gave me an Emmy award nomination, so I’m happy with that.’

nter view i 'I like people who push you to the limits of your talent, even if it can be tough when you are in the middle of it'

stress one element

As a conductor, Brossé is also called upon to realise music by other composers that is destined for the big screen. The same skills apply. ‘When I conduct soundtracks in the studio I do what the composer wants, of course, and they always come up with changes. But I can also make suggestions myself, a way of playing, a way of articulation and so on.’

Unlike a classical composition, where each element is part of a coherent creation, a movie score has to function in relation to what is happening on screen. ‘Sometimes in film music you really need to stress one element, because it might stand for an action, or something that is going to happen, so it has a different meaning.’

Brossé has conducted thousands of film scores and has developed close collaborations with fellow composers such as Elliot Goldenthal, Gabriel Yared, Stephen Warbeck and Shigeru Umebayashi, to name but a few. ‘Even John Williams has asked me to conduct for him, so I can’t complain!’

Of those he has not worked with, the names James Horner and Danny Elfman quickly come to his mind. ‘Our paths have not crossed yet, but I would love to conduct for them one day.’ 

BROSSÉ ON THE ROAD Dirk Brossé moves in front of the camera in Brossé, a new documentary by Jacques Servaes. Shot as a road movie, it follows Brossé as he pursues his various engagements, from a performance of 'Star Wars: In Concert' in London to teaching students how to conduct, from working as music director with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, to conducting ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ with a Chinese orchestra performing on traditional instruments.

Of his film work, we see Brossé presenting Shigeru Umebayashi with a new arrangement of his music for House of Flying Daggers and working on a score with Roland Joffé.

The composer embraced the idea of appearing in the documentary. ‘I wanted to tell the story of my life, which is just a small story, but it might inspire other people,’ he says. ‘The message of the documentary is that if you have a goal in your mind, you have to go for it. Go where your heart, your soul and your talent is.’

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file i

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PEACE IN ONE MINUTE

MANY FILMS, T V SERIES AND OTHER ARTISTIC PROJECTS HAVE BEEN COMMISSIONED TO MARK THIS YEAR'S CENTENARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR. ONE OF THE MOST IMAGINATIVE FROM FL ANDERS IS 12 MINUTES ABOUT PEACE, A COLLECTION OF 12 ULTRA-SHORT ANIMATED FILMS ON THE THEME OF PEACE. TEXT IAN MUNDELL

The initiative came from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) and the Flanders Literature Fund (VFL), motivated by a desire both to mark the centenary and to focus attention on short animation and poetry, two forms that rarely find themselves in the spotlight. The idea is that young Flemish poets will be invited to use the winning one-minute shorts as inspiration for new work, also to be published or broadcast during the centenary year.

Partners were found for the project in Belgian cinema chain Kinepolis and Flemish public broadcaster VRT, which will also help distribute the films on the internet.

Peace was chosen as a theme in order to encourage contemporary perspectives and also to accentuate the positive, rather than focus exclusively on the negatives of war. Nevertheless, animators were allowed to address the theme in the way they wanted and with a free choice in form and technique. Films could be narrative or abstract, with or without dialogue, and draw on the widest range of animation styles. However, each film could only be one minute in length.

From the 71 proposals submitted at the close of the competition, 12 winners were chosen for their high quality, their diversity, originality and public appeal. While the accent is on young animators, the jury were careful to include some more experienced animators alongside them.

Some of the winning films are explicitly about the First World War, such as Letter from a Soldier by Silvia Defrance, which is inspired by a Wilfred Owen poem, or Daddy Went. Daddy Did by Joost Jansen and Thomas Ceulemans, which reinterprets a celebrated British recruiting poster. Some reflect the horror of that war, such as Otto by Marc James Roels and Emma de Swaef, while films such as Charge! by Gerrit Bekers are almost perversely light-hearted.

Some of the directors used the First World War as starting point to reflect on other wars. For example, Where the Poppies Blow by Michael Palmaers connects the poppies of Flanders fields with the opium poppies of Afghanistan. Then there are films that meditate on peace and conflict in a more general way, such as Child’s Play by Britt Raes and Bert Van Haute, Border by Reinout Swinnen and Bram Van Rompaey, and Peace by Roman Klochkov.

Now that these films are complete, the call has gone out for poets to match the images with new words.

file i A Battle for Peace

Border

12 M I N U T ES A BO U T PE AC E A BATTLE FOR PEACE DIRECTED BY JOOST JANSEN PRODUCED BY WALKING THE DOG Images and symbols of armed conflict shift and change in a red and black animated poster that cries out against the alldevouring monster of modern warfare. The message is underlined with a slam poetry-style voice-over.

BORDER DIRECTED BY REINOUT SWINNEN & BRAM VAN ROMPAEY PRODUCED BY S.O.I.L Two characters meet at a line that one insists is a border that should not be crossed by the other. Friendly gestures are seen as provocations until playful cooperation is established. Simple 3D computer animation that plays on the absurdity of lines on a map.

BRING US THE KEY DIRECTED BY BORIS SVERLOW PRODUCED BY ELEMENTRIK FILMS A boy rushes through wrecked streets and devastated countryside, bullets still flying. He is bringing the key that will unlock the box containing the pen that will be used to sign a peace treaty. But the waiting leaders are on a short fuse and may not be able to wait. An animated collage, mainly in black and white, combining photographic and drawn elements.

CHARGE! DIRECTED BY GERRIT BEKERS PRODUCED BY CREATIVE CONSPIRACY Two soldiers from opposite sides charge towards each other in the mud of no man’s land but are prevented from engaging by a sudden detonation. As the air clears they find themselves being drawn up into the light of the explosion. Elegant 3D computer animation with a magic realist touch.

Bring Us the Key

Charge!

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Child’s Play

Daddy Went. Daddy Did.

CHILD’S PLAY DIRECTED BY BRITT RAES & BERT VAN HAUTE PRODUCED BY VIVI FILM Two boys play with water pistols in the backyard until suddenly the violence that underlies their game breaks through to the surface. But just as quickly a magical sound recalls them to reality. The novel style combines the innocence of a child’s drawing with the motion of a first-person shooter computer game.

DADDY WENT. DADDY DID. DIRECTED BY JOOST JANSEN & THOMAS CEULEMANS PRODUCED BY SANCTA MEDIA A father watches his son play with toy soldiers, only to see them come to life and act out the horrors of his own military service. Combining live action and 3D computer animation that brings the toy soldiers to life, this short takes its lead from a notorious piece of British war propaganda which goaded men with the question ‘Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?’ FYI DIRECTED BY WENDY MORRIS PRODUCED BY VERTIGO PRODUCTIONS A message is passed from one means of wartime communication to another, from carrier pigeons and dogs, to field telephones, signals and lights, before revealing itself to be the time and date of the armistice. Animated pencil drawings merge technical detail with a poetic sense of communication and the message of peace.

LETTER FROM A SOLDIER DIRECTED BY SILVIA DEFRANCE PRODUCED BY CZAR TV A letter written from the trenches recounts scenes from a soldier’s last days, last words that will be read by a mother sitting in a poppy field. This impressionistic animation of inks and washes combines images with words drawn from Wilfred Owen’s WWI poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’.

FYI

Letter from a Soldier

file i Otto

Peace

OTTO DIRECTED BY MARC JAMES ROELS & EMMA DE SWAEF PRODUCED BY BEAST ANIMATION A young soldier waits anxiously for an artillery strike and is torn to pieces when it lands. Simple yet devastating evocation of the horrors of war, all the more shocking for its depiction in the directors’ trade-make stop-motion animation with fabrics, as seen in the short Oh Willy...

PEACE DIRECTED BY ROMAN KLOCHKOV PRODUCED BY LUNANIME War seems inevitable as rival factions bear down on each other, armed to the teeth and unwilling to negotiate. Then a single shot precipitates peace. Cartoon animals drawn in an expressionist style, tightly animated into a moral tale that recalls the work of Raoul Servais.

PEACE? YIPPEE! DIRECTED BY JOKE VAN DER STEEN & VALÈRE LOMMEL PRODUCED BY VERENIGDE PRODUCTIES A man emerges from an underground shelter at the end of a war to find peace declared and the world in ruins. When another trapdoor opens and a woman emerges, the prospects for the future suddenly look more attractive. For a moment, at least.

Spare cartoon animation that looks at the lighter side of survival.

WHERE THE POPPIES BLOW DIRECTED BY MICHAEL PALMAERS PRODUCED BY WALKING THE DOG The life of a poppy plant as it grows, flowers and then sheds its petals connects the craters of Flanders Field in WWI with the mountains of Afghanistan in the present, with only the change from tanks to drones marking the passage of 100 years.

A smooth collage of time-lapse images and digital landscaping.

Peace? Yippee!

Where the Poppies Blow

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CAVIAR EXPANDS ITS HORIZONS

TEXT IAIN BLAIR

BELGIAN PRODUCTION POWERHOUSE CAVIAR SURPRISED THE HOLLY WOOD COMMUNITY EARLY DECEMBER WHEN IT THREW A LATE NIGHT BIG PARTY TO CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF ITS CHIC NEW LA HEADQUARTERS, INCLUDING PRODUCTION FACILITIES.

Hollywood - This company town may be the de facto center of gravity for filmmakers all over the world, but in keeping with its longtime, self-imposed strict regimen of early morning set calls and all-day business meetings, it’s never really been party central – at least, for those in the industry. At premieres, wrap parties and even holiday bashes, executives and creatives alike tend to stick to Perrier and then head home by 9.30 pm – 10 pm latest.

So it came as quite a surprise when Belgian production company Caviar threw a late night big party to celebrate the opening of its new LA headquarters – a party that didn’t even start till well after 9 pm, and which was still going strong at 2 am, with plenty of spirits, wine and beer being consumed by the 1,400 partygoers to ward off the early December chill.

‘We wanted to celebrate Caviar in LA and also show off our fantastic new offices here,’ said Bert Hamelinck, CEO of the Caviar group of companies. Mission accomplished. The impressive 17,000 square foot facility, located in the heart of Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard, occupies a former

nter view i

Wells Fargo building next door to the Arclight cinemas and Amoeba Music, and features a mix of open-plan floor space, conference rooms and private offices, with a stylish, minimalist décor that mixes poured concrete floors and walls with plenty of distressed stainless steel panels and soaring ceilings.

brilliant move

The next day, in a much quieter setting, Hamelinck explains that Caviar, which started in 2004, began as a merger of two production companies – Roses are Blue, his company, and Pix and Motion, which was owned by the Belgian media group Corelio. ‘The reason we did the deal is that while we had a very successful commercial business, we were already thinking about the future and the fact that there were big changes happening in the industry. We knew that producing our own content would become a very important part, and that by merging we could focus on film and TV as well.’

Within a year or so, the company was already eyeing the US market and discussing setting up a Hollywood base. ‘Around 2002 I came here to shoot a commercial, and Michael Sagol, the partner who now runs Caviar LA, was then advertising in Europe offering a service for European companies who wanted to shoot here,’ he reports. ‘We got on great, and he wanted to move more into production. And I felt that by coming from a small country like Belgium, it’s always difficult to grow in Europe and the UK, so I suggested he took several of our top directors and sell them here instead.’

The move worked brilliantly. ‘We got a lot of jobs, and that’s how it all started over here,’ adds Hamelinck who himself moved to LA last July. ‘And having a Hollywood base is very important for us, as we cover the whole US market, which has now become our biggest market – over 60% of our revenue and profit comes from America – and we’re growing in the Hispanic market too.’

content

While the vast majority of commercial and production houses are based in the Santa Monica, Venice, Culver City and Westside media corridor, Caviar, which was previously based in the mid-Wilshire district, opted to move to Hollywood – ‘for several reasons,’ he notes. ‘We looked at a lot of buildings, all over town, and we loved this location and the fact we could take an empty space and put our own identity on it. Is it a gamble? Not really, as Caviar’s always been successful by not doing what everyone else is. And while there are other companies that might be similar to us, they’re either very successful in the US with a smaller operation in Europe, or vice versa. But we have two very strong bases, in both America and Europe.’

The company’s plans include growing the commercial market ‘and really working on the script content market,’ Hamelinck says. The latter area includes a recently signed deal with A&E to remake the top-rated Flemish TV series Clan. ‘It was a very successful show that got a lot of international acclaim, and we’ve partnered with E1, the Canadian company, and Steve Blackman, who did Private Practice, is the showrunner and writer on it,’ he says. ‘Right now we’re writing the pilot script, and while I can’t say much about it yet, it’ll definitely differ from the original, which was just one season. Here, we’re already planning ahead for several seasons, and I think it’ll do very well as it’s such a great concept.’

Caviar is also remaking the hit romcom Belgian film Smoorverliefd (Madly in Love) by director Hilde Van Mieghem, which they also remade for Holland. ‘It’ll be titled Twist Me Up in America and we’re doing it ourselves,’ he explains. ‘It’s a bigger budget – around $12 million – and we’re just starting to cast it now and hope to shoot in the spring in New York. We think it’s got mass appeal here, with its stories of four strong women from one family, all living under one

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roof, but we need some stars to ensure financing. That’s the name of the game.’

And Caviar also plans to soon start its first original USproduced feature. ‘We have a feature that is going into production on 20 January 2014, and the movie is called Diary of a Teenage Girl, but I can give you no more info at this stage,’ he says. ‘We’re closing the final actor deals as we speak.’

In addition, Caviar co-produced the new Lars von Trier film, Nymphomaniac, partly shot in Ghent and slated for a US release in March.

global market

With today’s rapidly emerging markets and production centers in China and throughout Asia, and with tough competition from both the UK and domestic production centers thanks to aggressive tax breaks and incentives in such states as New Mexico and Louisiana, as well as in Canada, many industry analysts feel that Hollywood is facing a tough uphill battle if it is to reclaim its lion’s share of production. ‘It’s definitely become a more global market,’ notes Hamelinck, ‘but Hollywood’s still the most important crossing-point where everything comes together. I feel that for independent movies, people are looking for financing all over the place, but LA is still the center for movies and it’s important to be here. As for foreign markets, as filmmakers we can afford to wait a bit, and the more the middle class grows in China and Latin America, the more demand there’ll be for content.’

Timberlake

'Content is king', he stresses, which is why Caviar produces across all formats - commercials, music videos, TV drama, Bert Hamelinck

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CAVIAR BY THE THE NUMBERS Caviar produces 16 hours of TV and 2 features each year, in addition to some 400 commercials and 25 music videos.

Today it counts 100 employees worldwide, of which 35 in the Belgian office and 40 in the LA office. And they also represent 50 directors worldwide.

Caviar has subsidiaries in six countries with offices in Brussels, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Prague and LA

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'TKO', clip by Justin Timberlake

Madly in Love

shorts and feature films – and so much more. ‘We do more than one commercial a day, every year,’ he reports, ‘and music videos have become “the art gallery’’ of a production company. It’s where a director or creative can really make their mark, and YouTube has become this huge global distribution network. Music videos have come back as a key way of communicating now, and while budgets are still way down from the ‘80s and ‘90s, a clip by Justin Timberlake will get millions of views, and videos are still a place where a young creative can really be free to experiment.’

As an example, Hamelinck cites LA Caviar’s young director Ryan Reichenfeld. ‘He just pitched this great idea to Justin for “TKO”, and we just shot it – and it’s already had close to 20 million hits.’

digital

They also have a digital department, Caviar Digital, ‘where we create interactive content – everything Web-related, which is becoming a big part of communication,’ Hamelinck reports. ‘Even for promoting movies, the digital campaign has become so important now. So we do apps, but no games yet. But games may happen down the road.’ Also very active is Caviar Post, which handles editing and VFX. ‘It’s based here and in Belgium,’ Hamelinck reports. ‘We operate on both platforms and we’re still building it out here.’

Looking to the future, the plan is 'to keep the same business model we have, which is the same as one for a small studio,’ says Hamelinck. ‘It’s a very exciting time for content creators like us, and Belgium is more and more on the map these days, thanks to great movies and TV. It’s no longer just great chocolate, fries and beer!’ Then he quotes a funny line that’s been floating around the office: ‘First we conquer the world, and then we go to New York!’ 

Clan

‘While there are other companies that might be similar to us, they’re either very successful in the US with a smaller operation in Europe, or vice versa. But we have two very strong bases, in both America and Europe’

CAVIAR DIRECTORS Alex Stapleton Amir Farhang Arnaud Uyttenhove Bram Coppens Bram Van Riet David Rosenbaum Fleur & Manu Frank Devos Jake Szymanski Jason Woliner Jeremy Konner Jody Hill Jonathan Levine Jorma Taccone Keith Schofield Reynald Gresset Rian Johnson Ryan Reichenfeld Ruben Fleischer

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TRACKING THE DESERT

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SOFIE BENOOT'S FASCINATION WITH THE USA HAS TAKEN HER ALONG THE BORDER WITH MEXICO IN FRONTERISMO AND DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI IN BLUE MERIDIAN. NOW HER NEW

DOCUMENTARY, THE VISIONS DU RÉEL SELECTED DESERT HAZE, GOES TO THE SOURCE OF AMERICA'S IDENTITY. TEXT IAN MUNDELL

PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE

‘In our western imagination the desert is an empty place, ready for humans to conqueror,’ she says.

‘I believe this is where America first took its real distance from Europe. The east coast resembles Europe, but in the desert they were able to set a new story for themselves that is more about individualism, optimism and the male as a hero. It’s like their creation myth.’

While she is intrigued by this myth, Benoot also sets out to question some of its assumptions.

‘I don’t see this desert as ahistorical, empty and dead, but full of human traces,’ she explains. These traces encompass migration and colonisation, tourism and property speculation, internment camps and bomb tests, country music and, of course, the Western movie.

In each case Benoot carried out extensive research to identify specific stories and people who could tell them. For example, the desert internment camps set up to hold Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbour are represented by the story of the archaeologists working to recover the camp’s gardens. The Western comes through in the true story of tumbleweed and a less certain suggestion that John Wayne developed cancer after shooting a film in a part of the desert used for testing the atomic bomb. Then there are unexpected traces, such as the ‘astronauts’ simulating a mission to Mars in the desert sands.

Nico Leunen

Most of her research was done remotely, but Benoot also spent two months travelling in the desert with a small team, looking for leads. ‘Stories come and go throughout the whole process of the film, from the beginning to the editing. We filmed a lot more subjects than there are in the film,’ she says.

‘I see it as a puzzle. I make that puzzle at the beginning, then at each stage it changes and becomes more complex.’

doc i

The editing is particularly important in deciding which stories remain in the puzzle. ‘It’s about how stories communicate with each other. That’s really how the film works for me, the connection of one subject with another, not in a line but in geological layers.’

Editor Nico Leunen has been a presence in all of Benoot’s films, but this is the first time they have worked closely together. ‘He has the biggest influence on the movie outside myself,’ she says.

They discussed the stories in advance and then sifted through around 200 hours of rushes that Benoot brought back from the USA. ‘He is very quick to see patterns,’ she says. ‘He can influence your film a lot, but he never wants to make his own film from the material. He always looks at the film through your eyes.’

Another important collaborator is Fairuz, the cinematographer. ‘I know how I want to frame and shoot each scene, and she really understands that,’ Benoot says. ‘She is very particular and very precise, and I need that kind of person behind the camera.’

The sound design begins with Kwinten Van Laethem, making recordings in the desert. ‘We had hundreds of takes that are just the wind, and hundreds of takes of insects and other things he found.’ This material was then passed to sound designer Michel Schöpping, who has a close working relationship with Leunen, for example on films such as The Broken Circle Breakdown and The Fifth Season. ‘They can surprise you so much with sound design,’ Benoot says.

Archibelge!

Desert Haze, which is produced by Off World, completes her trilogy on America, although it remains a presence in her next project, Solid Ground. ‘It’s about the ground beneath our feet, about rock and stone, and how everything that we see as stable and reliable in the ground may not be as solid as we think.’

Like Desert Haze it will be a mosaic of stories, ranging from newly born islands near Iceland to sinkholes in Florida, from earthquake predictors in California to a kidney stone collector in Berlin.

While preparing this film, Benoot is working on Archibelge!, a documentary series, also made by Off World about the quirks of Belgian building. In one strand she will be looking at the chaotic mix of architectural styles that have spread along Belgium’s highways, while another examines the wall of highrise apartments built along the country’s relatively short coastline.

While these landscapes are different, there is a link with her previous work. ‘It brings a lot of stories together, and it’s about the relation of people with buildings,’ she explains. ‘It’s a puzzle.’ 

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UNDER THE INFLUENCE

48

BAS

DEVOS TEXT IAN MUNDELL PORTRAIT GERT VERBOVEN

BAS DEVOS WENT TO FILM SCHOOL ON A HUNCH. 'I DIDN'T KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT FILM AND I'M STILL NOT A CINEPHILE,' HE SAYS. BUT HALFWAY THROUGH HIS STUDIES AT SINTLUKAS IN BRUSSELS HE REALISED THAT THIS WAS HIS MEDIUM. 'I GOT A STRONG SENSE THAT HERE WAS A SOMETHING I COULD ONLY SAY THROUGH FILM.' THAT TRIGGER WAS A SEQUENCE HE WANTED TO SHOOT IN WHICH THE CAMERA FOLLOWS A MAN THROUGH A WOOD. RATHER THAN TREAT THIS AS A SCENE FROM A THRILLER, DEVOS WANTED TO STRIP AWAY ALL THE GENRE ELEMENTS. 'IT HALF-WORKED,' HE RECALLS, 'BUT I JUST GOT THIS ENERGY FROM IT. THAT HADN'T HAPPENED BEFORE.' DEVOS’S FIRST FEATURE, VIOLET, IS SELECTED FOR COMPETITION AT THE BERLINALE’S GENERATION PROGRAMME.

Since graduating, Devos has made two shorts, The Close (2007) and We Know (2009), and his first feature, Violet. This follows 15-year-old Jesse (César De Sutter) through the aftermath of his best friend’s murder. ‘It’s a small portrait of grief and grieving,’ he explains.

‘It’s an attempt to make a movie that is as honest as possible about these big emotions.’

Devos and cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis (Bullhead, The Loft) set out to tell this story in images rather than through dialogue or plot. Rather than relying on outside references, they built on the style of the previous shorts. ‘We’ve already developed a language, a way of interpreting things in the same way,’ Devos says. ‘That took away the necessity to discuss the look of the film.’

He describes the style as photographic rather than cinematographic, with an emphasis on working with locations. ‘You make the film on the set. You look at what you have there, and it’s about really seeing what it is. I find that liberating.’ Finding the necessary light required creative solutions. ‘We started bouncing in light, using mirrors, and finding light in places where there couldn’t be light.’

Throughout the process, Devos and Karakatsanis prompt viewers to question what they are seeing, for example choosing a 4:3 aspect ratio rather than a wide format, and working with soft focus and shallow depth of field. In a way, this also becomes one of Violet’s themes.

‘The whole film is, in a profound way, about the act of looking. We are constantly looking at somebody who is looking. We are a witness to a witness. I find this intriguing.’

INSPIRATIONAL These are some of the works Bas Devos currently gets inspired by:

MUSIC

'Laughing Stock'

by Talk Talk

FILM

Larry Clark

Devos finds it hard to pinpoint influences for his work. ‘I’m easily excited by new things, but then I get bored very easily too. I’m the kind of person who is influenced by everything and nothing at all.’

He consumes as much material as possible, particularly music. ‘I assume that song structure and tempo are related to how I work with time in film, but I can’t say that there is a direct link between one scene and a particular piece of music.’

Apparent influences can be deceptive. For instance, the way in which Violet explores youth culture, showing teens hanging out, skating or riding BMX bikes, suggests a link with the films of Gus Van Sant. ‘Somehow I think that his influences work more strongly on me than his films,’ Devos says, suggesting that Larry Clark may be a more important name to drop.

‘But a film like Last Days still inspires me.’

A more direct presence in Violet is experimental filmmaker Herman Asselberghs, who has provided sequences to represent media intrusion into the closed world of the film’s protagonists. Devos had thought of shooting these himself, but wanted a clear break with the style of the film. ‘They add a level that I could never achieve myself,’ he says. ‘And it is also very interesting having somebody else do something in your work over which you have no control.’

While Violet may have no direct influences, Devos admires other directors who have changed the way we look at the world. This ranges from ‘the usual suspects’, such as Robert Bresson and Michael Haneke, to films such as Mother and Son by Aleksandr Sokurov and Old Joy by Kelly Reichardt.

Edwin Parker

by Tacita Dean

BOOK

'White Noise'

by Don DeLillo

PHOTOGRAPHY

Edwin Parker

Then there are more obscure inspirations, such as Edwin Parker, Tacita Dean’s short portrait of the artist Cy Twombly. ‘It’s probably one of the most important things that I’ve ever seen,’ Devos says. ‘I can’t really say what it is that touches me so much. It’s just this profound sense of depth and a connection between me and what is there.’

Devos is already writing his next project, about the complexity of the modern city. This will unfold on a much bigger canvas, with more characters, but he hopes to continue the visual style he has developed with Karakatsanis. ‘We will have to rethink everything, but I think that goes for every shot that you make,’ he says. ‘Every time you place the camera, it is a combination of everything you have done and seen before, but it is also about seeing through fresh eyes.’ 

Todd Hido

ART

Johan Grimonprez

OTHER

Will Oldham's face

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SPIRITUAL DESTINY BRUSSELS BASED PRODUCER-DIRECTOR PETER KRÜGER'S DECISION TO EXPLORE THE LIMITS OF FICTION AND DOCUMENTARY TOOK OFF IN 2011 WITH HIS FIRST FEATURELENGTH DOCUMENTARY-FICTION, THE AWARD-WINNING ANTWERP CENTRAL. IT WAS ON THE CULTURAL, HISTORICAL AND SYMBOLIC LIFE OF ANTWERP’S MONUMENTAL RAILWAY STATION. THIS YEAR'S BERLINALE FORUM UNVEILS A PROJECT THE DIRECTOR HAS BEEN WORKING ON SINCE 2005: N - THE MADNESS OF REASON. KRÜGER DESCRIBES IT AS HIS FIRST CINEMATOGRAPHIC COMBINATION OF DOCUMENTARY AND FICTION. N – The Madness of Reason recounts the story of encyclopedist Raymond Borremans who left Europe for Africa in the mid-20th Century. He devoted his life to the creation of the first encyclopaedia of this other world, dreaming of eternal recognition. He died, however, having only reached the letter ‘n’. Selected for the Berlinale Forum, this film is the story of an unusual obsession. It's about the Frenchman's obsessive attempts to complete his life's work from beyond death. With his encyclopaedia incomplete, his restless spirit drifts around West Africa, caught between life and death, past and present. Hovering between dream and reality, with Ben Okri written texts narrated by Michael Lonsdale, N plays on the confrontation between the Western mind and African spirituality.

When confronted with civil war, Borremans is shattered. What is the connection between an encyclopaedia and the war you filmed in the Ivory Coast?

Borremans’ view of the world is shaped by a typically Western way of looking at things which is closely bound up with the need to categorize. His obsessive attempts to classify and objectify, to create frameworks, names and definitions, reflect his desire to force reality into compartments. I would like to show – in opposition to this – how fluid and mysterious reality is, and to what extent our categories are mere constructions.

The tree that stands in the Ivory Coast is the same as the one with its roots planted in Mali, but because we have drawn a boundary between them, we classify them differently.

This film now aims to underline how an encyclopedic approach to the world can also affect political reality.

INTERVIEW PETER VAN GOETHEM

As a human being, you are given a national identity: you are Ivorian, Malian, Burkinese or whatever. But in reality, people are mobile; they move, and after a while their assigned identity no longer corresponds with their actual existence.

Identity therefore becomes an ideal construction that can have profoundly violent implications. If you belong to the wrong category, others can even claim the right to kill you.

N - The Madness of Reason shows that the creation of identity is always based upon illusion. Reality is always open to change, escapes all categories and rarely corresponds to the words and names we use to describe it. It can be dangereous to forget that there are profound differences between words and the things they are used to designate.

As an African intellectual states in the film: ‘The written word – the alphabet – these are in themselves means of exclusion.’

So classification is a source of conflict?

Absolutely. Entire populations have moved to the Ivory Coast, sent first by the colonial settlers and then by the President in order to work there, a migration which resulted in what was known as ‘the Ivory Coast miracle’. These socalled foreigners settled there, started families and began to view the Ivory Coast as their own country. This went well until the 1990s, when the economy lost its stability and President Konan Bédié launched the concept of ‘Ivorian-ness’.

Everyone who was not considered to have verifiable origins in the Ivory Coast lost their right to vote and was in danger of losing what they had come to consider their country. It was no coincidence that a civil war soon broke out between the natives and the immigrants. Drawing boundaries and insisting on definition and classification are definitely not innocent

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activities when human lives are at stake. What happened in the Ivory Coast gives us a glaring example of the dangers of such objectifying ways of thinking.

How do you present this in N?

It was important for me to find a way of visualizing how encyclopedic thought can lose its innocence. This is why I left for the Ivory Coast in 2009 to film the identification process.

In order to make elections possible, the Ivorian government needed to identify the population and determine who was entitled to Ivorian identity. It was this process that I wanted to capture visually. In 2011, I went back to the Ivory Coast to film the violent upshot of this process. When President Gbagbo was deposed, we entered the country via Burkina Faso and were confronted with the terrible violence that broke out after the elections.

Peter Krüger (r)

occurred. The signs were immediately visible and there was a possibility of new outbreaks. As a filmmaker I was in the right place at the right time, but I did not film the situation for its value as news, but to capture a universal image of human suffering, and to question how such things occur and how we view them. When one of the characters starts to take photographs of corpses and counts them, a correspondence is set up with Borremans’s encyclopedic outlook. The question being posed is whether or not this objective way of looking prevents us from being truly affected by pain and suffering.

Are the aesthetics of the film reconcilable with the violent reality?

When you film something or someone, you automatically distance yourself from them, no matter how involved you feel. The question is what you want to achieve with the visual material you build up. I asked a family in a refugee camp to return to their fire-damaged home. Normally they would never have done so this early, but they wanted to come with us and the UN troops. So there is a fictional aspect to the film, but the sheer intensity and silence that surrounded these events made us realize what it means to live in such circumstances. It is my responsibility to make the viewer feel or become aware of something he or she will not easily forget, and I can only do that by consciously directing the visual and aesthetic aspects of a film.

Is the audience as powerless as Borremans when he sees so much misery before him?

The viewer sees the suffering of others without being able to do anything about it. What is the viewer’s role? How does powerlessness feel? The film looks for answers. You get bits and pieces that explain why the violence broke out, but no solutions. The film does show that a lot of violence stems from the construction of identity, the right to landownership, the ideological manipulation of people and the relationships between immigrants and natives, rich and poor. I also suggest that something inexplicable remains hidden in each human action.

How do you want the audience to feel then at the end of the film?

N - The Madness of Reason

So you wanted to be present at the place where the violence occurred?

Yes, we wanted to be close to the place where violence was breaking out, but for me I was not interested in filming the actual violence. The film is all about the reflection such violence provokes. When we arrived in the western part of the Ivory Coast, the massacre of Douekoue had just

I hope the film has a cathartic effect. As for Borremans, he realizes that everything is endlessly in motion and that nothing is ever complete, either for good or for evil. At the end of the film he understands his true spiritual destiny.

After a spirit-cleansing ritual he reincarnates himself in the wind, understanding that there is beauty in invisibility and that Africa no longer needs the presence of a Western spirit. So the question is: does Africa need a new spiritual renaissance of its own? Does the continent need to expel this Western spirit in order to shape its own unique destiny?

The film raises these questions without arriving at specific answers. If there are conclusions to be drawn from it, these are intentionally left to the audience. 

TAKE 28 | Spring 2014 | e 3.99 Cover Lize Feryn by Bart Dewaele CREDITS Editor Christian De Schutter Deputy Editor + Art Direction Nathalie Capiau Sub Editors John Adair, An Ratinckx Contributors Iain Blair, Ian Mundell, Peter Van Goethem, Boyd Van Hoeij, Henry Womersley Design Karin Pays Photo credits P 6-7 Bart Dewaele, P 14-15 Nyk Dekeyser, P 22-23 Kris De Witte All other stills copyrighted by the respective producers Print Wilda NV Translations to French by Miles Translations, Tongues Untied Translations Subscriptions By post: € 10 / year (three issues) Info: flandersimage@vaf.be This magazine is also available for free via the App Store, and can be consulted on issuu.com More news and features on www.flandersimage.com Published by Flanders Image/VAF Flanders Film House Bischoffsheimlaan 38 B-1000 Brussels Belgium/EU T: +32-2-226 0630 F: +32-2-219 1936 E: flandersimage@vaf.be www.flandersimage.com

Flanders Image is a division of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) Special thanks to: Albert Bimmel, Saidja Callewaert, Dirk Cools, Myriam De Boeck, Pierre Drouot, Siebe Dumon, Tom Van der Elst, Katrien Maes, Karla Puttemans, Jan Roekens, Stef Rycken, Koen Salmon, Dirk Schoenmaekers, Katrijn Steylaerts, Liesbeth Van de Casseye, Karen Van Hellemont, Marijke Vandebuerie, Sander Vanhellemont, Karel Verhelst, Helga Vinck, all the filmmakers and producers who helped us with this issue.

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ANDRÉ HAZES: THE BIOPIC • ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE • ARCHIBELGE! • ASTERIX: THE MANSION OF THE GODS • BETWEEN 10.00 AND 12.00 • BEVERGEM • BRABANÇONNE • CAFARD • CHICKEN TOWN II • CLEAN HANDS • DEADLINE 25/5 • DIMITRI • EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO • IN THE HEART • IT’S GREAT TO BE A CHAMPION • JACK AND THE CUCKOO-CLOCK HEART • KIDNEP • KIKA & BOB 2: THE FLIGHT OF THE PIGEON • LA TIERRA ROJA • LEE & CINDY C. • ME & KAMINSKI • MICHIEL DE RUYTER • OOPS NOAH IS GONE • PERCY AND HIS FRIENDS • PHANTOM BOY • RICHARD THE STORK • RINTJE • ROADGAMES • THE DERBY • THE LABYRINTH • THE LIFE ACCORDING TO NINO • THE SUM OF HISTORIES • THE SURPRISE • THE TEAM • THE TREATMENT • THE WHITE QUEEN • TRIPLE TROUBLE • VINCENT AND THE END OF THE WORLD • W. • WIPLALA • YOUR PROJECT HERE Your project could be among the next batch to receive up to € 400,000 each from the Screen Flanders economic fund. An annual budget of €5 million is to be distributed among audiovisual productions that spend (part of) their budget within the Flanders Region. And… Screen Flanders funding is easily combinable with other mechanisms such as the Belgian Tax Shelter.

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