BAD BOYS. his story of time KOREA OPPORTUNITIES INN LIMBO ROBIN PRONT AND JEROEN PERCEVAL ON THE ARDENNES EN FRANÇAIS LUKAS BOSSUYT S SUM OF HISTORIES

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1 TAKE 33 AUTUMN 2015 E 3.99 his story of time LUKAS BOSSUYT S SUM OF HISTORIES KOREA OPPORTUNITIES ONE EXAM TO END THEM ALL IN REACH FOR THE SKY INN LIMBO MANU RICHE CHECKS IN TO THE PROBLEMSKI HOTEL BAD BOYS ROBIN PRONT AND JEROEN PERCEVAL ON THE ARDENNES VEERLE BAETENS GILLES COULIER GILLES DE SCHRYVER ALAIN DESSAUVAGE ROBRECHT HEYVAERT KEVIN JANSSENS JAN & RAF ROOSENS WIELAND SPECK NATHALIE TEIRLINCK LUC VRYDAGHS #talentmatters EN FRANÇAIS

2 C NTENTS TAKE 33 Talent Matters The two Roosens brothers speak as one on set; plus news about Johan Heldenbergh; Felix van Groeningen; Matthias Schoenaerts; and Tom Geens i-opener Kebab Royal, the new film from Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens, follows a fictional King of the Belgians on a Balkan odyssey The Ardennes Robin Pront and Jeroen Perceval on the origins of their new thriller; Kevin Janssens on playing Kenny; and Veerle Baetens on being the only girl in the story Sum of Histories Writer/director Lukas Bossuyt on exploring alternative universes and why his film is really a time-travelling love story Problemski Hotel Documentary-maker Manu Riche on commandeering a derelict Brussels bank building to bring Dimitri Verhulst s novel to the screen Alain Dessauvage It s not your movie, it s the director s, insists the editor whose credits include Moscow, Belgium; Bullhead; The Ardennes; and Couple in a Hole Barber Shop There s nothing quite like a barber s chair for getting people talking, be it in Jenin or Johannesburg, says documentary-maker Luc Vrydaghs Reach for the SKY Simon Dhoedt and Gert Van Berckelaer of Visualantics took almost three years to capture Korea s mind-boggling university entrance exam Robrecht Heyvaert It s all about the story, says the 28-year-old cinematographer hailed as the new Robby Müller De Wereldvrede Gilles Coulier and Gilles De Schryver outline the plans for their production company as they launch TV series The Natives Under the Influence: Nathalie Teirlinck In pre-production on her feature debut Tonic Immobility, the filmmaker acknowledges the debt she owes to Ingmar Bergman and Michael Haneke Wieland Speck The Berlin Panorama chief picks his favourite from the Flemish films he has selected for his sidebar and insists it s his inner harp that guides him this is IN PRINT ONLINE ON SITE flandersimage.com The website keeps you up to date with audiovisual talent and content made in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium. Read the news when it happens, browse and search in the online product guide, or get the environmentally friendly digital versions of publications such as the magazine, brochures and flyers Flanders Image also attends several festivals and markets such as Annecy, Berlin, Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, Idfa, Locarno, Mipcom, Miptv, Montréal, San Sebastian, Toronto, Venice and many more The magazine En annexe de cette publication vous trouverez le supplément en français A series of content flyers and e-newsletters presenting an overview of recent, new and upcoming audiovisual productions made in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium screener.be The promotional V.O.D. platform that is available to sales agents, buyers and curators around the globe interested in audiovisual talent and creations from Flanders and Brussels, Belgium SOCIAL Follow, read, watch, like and share

3 talentmatters THE AUTUMN OF 2015 IS SET TO BECOME THE BUSIEST SEASON EVER FOR FLEMISH CINEMA, WITH 10 DIRECTORS PRESENTING THEIR FIRST OR SECOND FEATURES BETWEEN NOW AND JANUARY. TO CELEBRATE THEIR SUCCESS, FLANDERS IMAGE BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER FOR A PHOTO SHOOT. Pictured from left to right are: Jan Bultheel (Cafard, selected for Busan); Filip Peeters (Wat mannen willen/what Men Want); Bilall Fallah (co-director Black, selected for Toronto); Raf Reyntjens (Paradise Trips, selected for Mannheim); Lenny Van Wesemael (Café Derby, selected for Ostend and the Hamptons); Lukas Bossuyt (Sum of Histories, selected for Montréal); Cecilia Verheyden (Achter de wolken/behind the Clouds); Adil El Arbi (co-director Black, selected for Toronto); Wim Vandekeybus (Galloping Mind); and Robin Pront (The Ardennes, selected for Toronto and Ghent). With thanks to Flemish camera and lighting rental company Lites 4 5

4 6 # talentmatters talentwatch UNDER- GROUND MOVIE It s the title that has everyone assuming it is a metaphor. But it isn t: Couple in a Hole is about a couple who live in a hole in the ground deep in a forest somewhere in Europe (the film was shot in the Pyrenees), having escaped there to get away from society. Society, however, has other ideas. Directed by Belgium-born, UK-based Tom Geens, Couple in a Hole is a UK-Belgian co-production starring Kate Dickie and Paul Higgins, who last appeared together in Andrea Arnold s Red Road. The editor is Alain Dessauvage (interviewed on page 38). The film premiered in Toronto, with further festival screenings set in Zürich and London. ZOO STORY Johan Heldenbergh is the latest Flemish actor to land a major role in a US film with The Zookeeper s Wife, in which he is set to star opposite Hollywood s actrice du jour Jessica Chastain. Director is New Zealander Niki Caro (Whale Rider, North Country). The film is due to shoot in Prague this autumn for a 2016 release, with German actor Daniel Brühl also in the cast. The Zookeeper s Wife is based on the book by Diane Ackerman and tells the true story - based on the diaries they kept - of Jan and Antonina Zabinski. Jan was a noted zoologist at the Warsaw Zoo who, with his wife, managed to provide shelter for hundreds of people (and animals) during the Nazi invasion of Poland. He subsequently became a prisoner of war and was recognised by the State of Israel to be one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Heldenbergh, 48, has long been a familiar face on TV, films and the stage in his native Flanders, but attracted international attention playing the male lead, Didier (or Monroe), in The Broken Circle Breakdown, which was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film last year. Other key roles have been in The Misfortunates and Moscow, Belgium. The actor was most recently seen in Jaco Van Dormael s irreverent satire, The Brand New Testament, which was a boxoffice hit in France over the summer and is this year s Belgian Oscar entry. He will next appear in Felix van Groeningen s Belgica, now at an advanced stage of post-production. ALEXANDRA LAMY IN VINCENT AND THE END OF THE WORLD CROSSING BORDERS Flemish actress Veerle Baetens may be increasingly in demand in France these days (see page 18), but the cross-border traffic has been by no means one-way in the second half of 2015, with two top French actors - Isabelle Huppert and Alexandra Lamy - taking key roles in Flemish films. Huppert, who won Best Actress for La pianiste in Cannes in 2001 and was last seen in Flanders selling time-shares in Ostend in the 2010 film Copacabana, has an (on the surface) even less glamorous role in Bavo Defurne s Souvenir. She plays Liliane, who once competed in the Eurovision Song Contest but now works in a meat factory, adding bay-leaves to pots of pâté. Things start looking up when she meets Jean, a much younger boxer. She falls in love with him; he persuades her to make a comeback. It s about hope and making your dreams come true, says Defurne, who co-wrote Souvenir with Jacques Boon and Yves Verbraeken of production company Indeed Productions. Liliane has lost her career but, given a new opportunity to find happiness, she grasps it. The role of Jean is played by upcoming French actor Kevin Azais, who won the César for most promising newcomer in 2014 s Cannes Directors Fortnight entry Les combattants. Flemish actors Jan Hammenecker and Johan Leysen round out the cast, and music is supplied by US retro band Pink Martini. Lamy, meanwhile, plays the unconventional French aunt of a suicidal youth in Christophe Van Rompaey s new film, Vincent and the End of the World, which is expected to be released in The actress, who is known for her roles in François Ozon s Ricky and French box-office hit Brice de Nice, takes young Vincent under her wing and decides to cure his suicidal tendencies by showing him the joys of the world. The role of Vincent is played by teenage actor Spencer Bogaert who was on Belgian screens recently as young Frikke, the boy who gets sucked into a sinister computer game in Labyrinthus. Vincent was written by Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem of production company A Private View, with a cast that also includes Barbara Sarafian from Van Rompaey s breakthrough movie, Moscow, Belgium. SCHOENAERTS DIVERSIFIES Flemish superstar Matthias Schoenaerts has added another string to his bow, but this time a considerable way behind the camera. The actor, seen most recently in The Danish Girl and A Bigger Splash, has bought a share in Antwerp agency Hakuna Casting (featured in issue 31 of Flanders i). Set up by Nabil Mallat, Chafic Amraoui and Black directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Hakuna aims to introduce performers from more diverse ethnic backgrounds into Flemish films and onto the Flemish stage. Recent films on which Hakuna has worked include Black and Belgica. FELIX LETS THE RIGHT ONE IN Quizzed in the last issue about plans to go Hollywood, Felix van Groeningen commented he would have to be convinced that it s the right film for me to make before he did so. Well, it seems like he has found it, courtesy of Brad Pitt s Plan B Entertainment and minimajor New Regency. According to US trade paper Variety, van Groeningen is set to direct Beautiful Boy, a project to which Cameron Crowe was previously attached. Based on books by father and son David and Nic Sheff, the film (scripted by Luke Davies) deals with a father watching his son s struggle with methamphetamine addiction. The project is reportedly in an advanced stage of preproduction, with casting due to be announced shortly. Van Groeningen, meanwhile, is in post-production on his latest Flemish film, Belgica, set against the backdrop of the local dance scene at the turn of the millennium. 7 Souvenir on flandersimage.com hakunacasting.com Belgica on flandersimage.com

5 talentwatch # talentmatters JAN (L) AND RAF ROOSENS DOUBLE ACT TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE Back from the Cannes premiere of their short film Copain, the Roosens brothers are gearing up for their first feature. In May, a second set of Belgian brothers followed the Dardennes up the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes - metaphorically, that is. Jan and Raf Roosens did a montée des marches because their short film, Copain (Buddy), had earned a coveted Competition slot in the Short Film programme. Now it s all over, they are determined it will not be the last time they tread that particular red carpet. It was a unique experience, admits Jan, the older of the two (he is 32; Raf turned 30 this summer). When they told us we were selected, we went through the roof. The thing is, you get invited to all these really unique experiences and dinners, and you get to meet all these incredibly interesting people. Not to mention people who may help further your career. But, concedes Raf, a prize would also have been nice. During the 10 days we were there, he says, we had a chance of winning the Palme d Or. When there are a lot of people saying they really enjoyed the film, you start thinking, OK, the nomination was great but now it would be good to have the prize. You always want more: it s natural. In the end, Copain didn t make it so we said to ourselves: We have to come back here! Copain, in other words, is just the start. It s about teenage Fré, a boy from a comfortable middle-class background who lives in the suburbs but spends his days hanging with a group of friends from a run-down city housing project. One day, inevitably, the barrier between his two worlds comes crashing down and he is left to make the choice between bourgeois comfort - I think we should stop ordering the organic groceries are his father s first words in the film - and street cred. Copain didn t start out as a short: the idea for the film came as the brothers worked at developing a feature, with the tentative working title of Franco. The short film is about a guy who is stuck between these two worlds - or thinks he is - and has to make a decision, says Raf. For us, the film stops when he makes that decision. It s like a segment of the To the crew and cast, we re more like one person with one voice feature film: it has the same characters, the same setting. In fact, it was during one of the brainstorming sessions when we were writing the feature film that we came up with the idea for the short. The feature is about two brothers, one of whom has always looked up to the other, who asks himself, Do I have to follow the same path as my brother? As it turns out, the Roosens brothers themselves didn t originally plan to follow the same path. Raf went to film school while Jan opted to study economics. After I graduated, he says, I went to Paris for a year and, when I came back, Raf was making his graduation film. Because I was on vacation and had time, I helped him by producing the film. Afterwards I began working in the financial sector as a bond broker. COPAIN But of course we re brothers and he was always talking about what he was doing. Then, one night, we decided we were going to start our own production company. The next day I quit my job and started up the production company. It began with me being more the financial guy but it grew from that into a collaboration. The company, Rococo, has an impressive array of client commercials and a website bursting with videos. These include the trailer for the Roosens s first short, Rotkop (Skunk), which also features kids getting up to no good in a park beside a housing project, and whose central character also makes a choice, although this time it goes the other way: Olli chooses his cancer-stricken mother over his so-called friends. Fortunately, no such make-or-break choices have so far had to be made in the Roosens brothers working lives. When we first started, says Raf, I was the director and Jan would say OK, but this is my opinion. He had good opinions, so we started working together. To the crew and cast, we re more like one person with one voice. The thing is, chips in Jan, we actually try to avoid being two directors on the set. Both the crew and the cast feel that we re directing together, and the only discussions we have are when we re behind the monitor. That s how it works on set: we make a scene, we look at the shot, we discuss it and then one of us goes to tell the crew OK, the shot wasn t great maybe we ll do another angle, or we tell the actors You have to do it more like this. We have only one rule: there can never be a veto. Raf agrees. The main thing is, we try to act as one director on set, he says - something he claims comes naturally. We really like the same thing - the same images, the same way of telling stories. We re more like a sounding board to each other, and that s the good thing about working together. Collaboration will evidently continue with the feature, for which they already have a potential producer. In that way, Cannes was really good, says Jan. We met a lot of producers from France and other countries but it was really good to get to know people from the Flemish film industry as well. 8 9 Copain on flandersimage.com Skunk on flandersimage.com

6 i-opener KEBAB ROYAL A scene from Kebab Royal, the new dramatic comedy from Venice Lion-winners Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens, which wrapped on July 4 after shooting in Brussels, Istanbul and Bulgaria. A Belgian- Dutch-Bulgarian co-production, Kebab Royal is a road movie about Nicolas II, the last King of the Belgians, who gets lost in the Balkans. The King (Peter Van den Begin) is on a symbolic mission to Istanbul with British filmmaker Duncan Lloyd (Pieter van der Houwen), who has been hired by the palace to polish the image of the King. But, while he is away, Wallonia declares independence and the King no longer has a Kingdom. Rushing home to fulfill his only true royal duty - the demanding task of keeping Belgium united - Nicolas is hit by a solar storm which shuts down airspace and all forms of communication. Thus begins the King s odyssey across the Balkans and a series of marvellous encounters, instances of mayhem and moments of grace. The film is due for release next year. Kebab Royal on flandersimage.com 10 11

7 PREMIERING IN TORONTO AND CO-WRIT TEN BY ACTOR JEROEN PERCEVAL, ROBIN PRONT S FIRST FEATURE THE ARDENNES INTRODUCES AN EXCITING NEW DIRECTORIAL TALENT AND A STRIKING NEW STRAIN OF FLEMISH FILM NOIR. director/writer The first time Jeroen Perceval met Robin Pront, he was already an established actor with a leading role in Felix van Groeningen s With Friends Like These. Pront was still a film student, albeit a film student with a pretty clear idea of what he wanted. The outcome was a short film called Plan B, in which Perceval plays a coke-addled loser stuck with a drug debt that gets paid off in an unexpected way. Gleefully violent and cut to a rock n roll soundtrack ranging from Dion and the Belmonts to the Kinks, Plan B gave Perceval a role that couldn t be further from the good-natured dreamer he plays in van Groeningen s film. But it paved the way for characters he went on to play in Bullhead and Borgman, not to mention two further films with Pront: his graduation short Injury Time and The Ardennes, the new film which they wrote together. Plan B was my first short film in my third year at Sint-Lukas, remembers Pront of that first meeting, and I was looking for an actor who could play the type of character I d written, because it was pretty specific. I asked around and there was this guy called Jeroen but I never go to the theatre so I didn t really know him. I saw a film he did with van Groeningen where he played a really different character but I felt he could play my part. Then we met in Brussels and it was love at first sight. Perceval recalls being rather more circumspect. First he had to convince me a little bit, he says, but after a few months our relationship developed. And it was while they were working on Plan B that the first inkling of what would become The Ardennes emerged. Were they both a bit of a bad boy when they were younger? Pront and Perceval laugh and point at each other. He was! they say in unison INTO THE ARDENNES THE WOODS TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT FILIP VAN ROE ROBIN PRONT (L) AND JEROEN PERCEVAL 12 13

8 Actually, we made a movie out of the backstory of the play The Ardennes on flandersimage.com Jeroen Perceval on flandersimage.com Jeroen Perceval on imdb.com director/writer JEROEN PERCEVAL IN THE ARDENNES VEERLE BAETENS AND KEVIN JANSSENS IN THE ARDENNES just doing it Says Pront: Jeroen told me this story about two brothers and I was really convinced that there was something there that could be a movie, but it took a while to convince him that I was the right director for it. After the short film it just grew in an organic way and, in the end, I said, I want to make a movie about this and he said Just do it. So that s how it all came together. In between they worked together on another short film, Pront s graduation piece Injury Time, in which Perceval co-stars with a not-yet-famous Matthias Schoenaerts as a football hooligan so psychopathic he makes his Bullhead character look like Winnie the Pooh. It prefigures The Ardennes in its examination of a male relationship (in the new film, the two men are brothers) in which the gentler of the two (Perceval) is constantly wrongfooted by the violence of the other (played by Kevin Janssens). Neither film makes any attempt to hide the animosity which exists between the two halves of Belgium, with brothers Dave and Kenny from urban, Flemish-speaking Antwerp finding themselves finally adrift in the rural, French-speaking Ardennes. Belgium, especially Flanders, is one big suburb, says Perceval, and actually the Ardennes is the only spot in our small country where there are some woods to hide in. It s the number one location in Belgium where people can go to find different scenery, really different from where they live, adds Pront. And I like the fact you take these people who are so intertwined with the city out of their comfort zone. I like the fact that it s the place they went as kids and have really good memories of, but right now it becomes like a living hell for them. the one that got away Kenny is just out of jail, having served time for a burglary in which both brothers were involved but from which Dave got away. In the intervening years, Dave has grown closer to Kenny s girlfriend Sylvie (a fearless performance by Veerle Baetens), eventually moving in with her. The brothers reunion, in other words, is already compromised. Kenny knows nothing about the relationship, but even before he finds out his inability to control his violent instincts lands them with a major problem. And the Ardennes seems the obvious place to solve it. Or that was the idea The thing that was the biggest challenge is that it s really a simple, one-note story, says Pront. It s just one plot line that you follow and it gradually develops. For me, it was always really hard to find a balance between making Kenny someone who s damaged but for whom you care all the same. We tried to make it a bit layered so Kenny isn t just an arsehole: that was a big challenge for us. Actually, adds Perceval, we both grew up in suburbs around Antwerp where you find these kinds of guys. It s a bit based on our youthful experiences. So were they both a bit of a bad boy when they were younger? Pront and Perceval laugh and point at each other. He was! they say in unison. stuck in the 1990s Real life is also to blame for Kenny s spectacularly ugly haircut, a kind of modified mohican which is apparently known, in Belgium, as a Johnny. It s very 1990 s, explains Perceval. The two brothers are a little bit stuck in that era. I didn t want him to be a pretty boy, adds Pront. We wanted to give him something that immediately said that this guy is a bit off. Dave, who sports a rather less attention-grabbing No 1 haircut, has always lived in his brother s shadow but managed to create a life for himself when Kenny was in jail. All that is threatened when Kenny gets out. For all Dave s efforts to find his brother a job and live a normal life, Kenny succeeds in screwing everything up. Dave s good intentions never had a chance. Essentially, says Pront, he s just a good guy stuck in a world where there are not a lot of good guys. The two brothers remain joined at the hip - something Pront emphasises by framing them side-by-side whenever possible. If one brother is talking, then you should see the reaction of the other, he says. I did a lot of two-shots. It had to be a bit claustrophobic, because the brothers are always together, almost like they re attached to each other. I didn t want to give them too much space. But there is nothing cramped or claustrophobic about The Ardennes as a whole: produced by Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film (Bullhead), it is a full-on action thriller with a breathless beginning and an almost apocalyptic ending. It s hard, in fact, to tell that the original source is a stage play. That s the big difference between the film and the stage play, says Pront. The play was all in one place, one spot: not a lot of action but a lot of dialogue. The whole thing was set in the woods, and we decided that, if we wanted it translated to film, we had to establish the characters in the city first. So the big decision then was, when do they actually go to the woods? When we first started they went real early but gradually it got later and later. a violent climax Actually, says Perceval, we made a movie out of the backstory of the play. That backstory is, of course, the burglary that goes wrong. Pront shot the whole sequence but reluctantly ended up not using it (see also the comments of Ardennes editor Alain Dessauvage on page 41). It s a great scene, says the director, but it slowed things down a bit and I think it s more intriguing that you never know what happened: you know that something went wrong but you never know what and it makes the mystery bigger. Right now, the movie starts with a bang and it keeps on moving, but it was a really hard decision to make because I loved that scene - and it was also really expensive! The Ardennes ends with a bang, too, with a series of scenes which are pretty much what we ve come to expect from Pront. I wrote a version where Dave and Kenny just said I m sorry and they go to Center Parcs, deadpans Perceval, then Robin wrote the rough version. If you ve see his short movies, you ll know he likes violence. I think that the only possible outcome of the story was going to be violent because that s how the brothers grew up, says Pront. I love violence in movies when it s done well. It s a slow-burning story, so with the climax you want to get what you paid for: JEROEN PERCEVAL (TOP), JAN BIJVOET (L) AND KEVIN JANSSENS IN THE ARDENNES you want to see why you ve been watching this movie and I think it comes together pretty well right now. Having collaborated with Pront on the screenplay for The Ardennes (his first feature credit), Perceval recently made his directorial debut with a moody short called August; worked with fellow actors Steve Aernouts and Ellen Schoenaerts on the collectively directed (but as yet unreleased) Liebling; and starred in Raf Reyntjens s Paradise Trips. And he shows no sign of slowing down. Perceval spent the summer writing a feature film which he plans to direct himself, after that acting in Fien Troch s new film Home and also in a TV series. As for his own future plans, Pront is characteristically laconic. I ve made my movie, so I can tick that off my bucket list, he says. I m just going to lay back and chill, man, and sip cocktails all day. As if

9 16 BROTHER OUT OF LAW TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT JOHAN JACOBS WITH HIS DISTINCTIVE HAIRCUT, KENNETH IN THE ARDENNES IS ONE SCARY GUY - A WALKING TIME-BOMB EVEN HIS BROTHER DAVE CAN T DEFUSE. BUT KEVIN JANSSENS WHO PLAYS THE ROLE INSISTS HE S A DOWN-TO-EARTH PERSON. It is two days after the triumphant Toronto premiere of The Ardennes, the dark Flemish thriller in which Kevin Janssens plays one of the two lead roles: a tough guy who has served time and is trying clumsily to go straight. Summer lasts longer in Toronto and the tattooed Janssens, wearing a singlet, could almost be in character - if he wasn t grinning amiably and answering questions politely And if the weather outside wasn t totally different from the snowy forest in which the final, explosive scenes of The Ardennes are set. Janssens admits that the shoot was a tough one and that Kenneth, the character he plays, is a demanding role: a hair-trigger psychopath whose downward spiral is made all the more tragic by the fact that, deep inside, he knows he s majorly messing up. Characters like Kenny are very three-dimensional, he says, and quite unlike anything he has done before. Missing Persons Unit [the Flemish TV cop show in which Janssens starred]: I had fun doing that, but it wasn t about my character. It was about the victims. It s more like informational acting. But in every part you play, you have to be authentic and try to find a way to let the character breathe. first-hand experience Janssens also admits that, having grown up in the suburbs of Antwerp - where Kenny and his brother Dave (played by Jeroen Perceval, interviewed on page 12), also come from - he has known lots of Kennies in his time. I used to hang out with guys like that - the fucked-up guys who didn t get any chances in life, he says. Robin [the director] and I talked a lot about the part; about the way he talks, the way he moves, the way he thinks. But Janssens is absolutely adamant that he isn t Kenny. Every day you take it home with you a bit, he concedes, because you re rehearsing the scenes, learning your lines. But not in a psychological way - not like Oh my god, I don t know who I am anymore! It s still acting, you know? We re actors. Janssens trained at drama school in Antwerp. Ironically, his first project after leaving was a play written by Perceval s uncle, in which he and Perceval played brothers. Since then, he has divided his time between the stage (his next project is the title role in a revival of Albert Camus s Caligula), television and movies. His roles are those of a professional actor - hapless travelling salesman in Madonna s Pig; no-nonsense cop in Missing Persons Unit; gay financial trader in TV series The Divine Monster - with no hint of type-casting. The writer writes, the director directs; he acts. only believe I m a down-to-earth guy, he insists, and I m happy that I can do a lot of different things. But I don t really have a style. I try to be authentic in every way and I have to believe in myself every time. But he does prefer doing movies: that, he says, is where he feels most at home. I really like theatre because you go back to the basics with a real connection with the audience. But with film you can create an environment, a world of imagination, and show it on a big screen. I feel more comfortable doing movies. That s my greatest passion. Strangely enough, it was in the theatre that Pront first thought about him for the role - strangely enough because the director rarely misses an opportunity to say how much he hates theatre. But the two already knew one another. I met Robin a few years ago at a party, says the actor. He sent me his short movies and I was really blown away by them. Then we met again and we talked about The Ardennes and the rest is history. In the film, co-written by Pront and Perceval, Kenny is just out of jail; his brother Dave is about to move in with Kenny s girlfriend (Veerle Baetens) but can t bring himself to tell him. Discomfort gives way to anger, anger to violence and, before long there is a corpse in the back of the car and the bothers are heading south to the Ardennes. a ticking time-bomb That s the explosive nature of Kenny, says Janssens. On the surface, he s laughing; but inside he s a ticking time-bomb. He s very unpredictable - which is what makes him scary. You feel that every time someone says something, he could explode. Dave tries to help, but the two brothers are never quite on the same page, a point reflected by Pront s decision to shoot most of their dialogue scenes with the two of them seated side by side, facing front. That s what Robin tried to do in the movie - show that they never really communicate with each other, says Janssens. When they re sitting in a car, it s shot with a window between them. There is always a great distance between the brothers. Toronto is Janssens s first major festival premiere and he is still on a high from the experience. Everybody was like really ecstatic about the whole thing, he says. They asked questions about how I tried to make the character work, how I did my research and stuff. But he refuses to be drawn on whether the film s success will launch him internationally, as happened with Matthias Schoenaerts after the Berlinale screening of Bullhead. Would I like to do that? It depends on what happens. It depends on what comes on my path, he says. I m happy to do what I do now and if there s any interest, we ll see. It s a very dull answer, I know, but I want to grow as an actor: keep on growing, keep on discovering myself in things I can play and can do. Meanwhile, in the short term, he and Perceval and Pront are heading south to New York, not to take meetings but to have fun (they ve got tickets for the Jimmy Fallon Show) and see what s on Broadway. Maybe Pront doesn t really hate theatre that much after all. The Ardennes on flandersimage.com KEVIN JANSSENS WITH VEERLE BAETENS (L) AND JEROEN PERCEVAL IN THE ARDENNES talent watch 17

10 talent watch 18 STILL CRAZY VEERLE BAETENS TALKS ABOUT THE CHARACTERS SHE HAS RECENTLY PLAYED - FROM THE ARDENNES VIA A CREEPY TV SERIES TO ONE SHE HAS WRITTEN FOR HERSELF. Back home in Belgium after shooting two movies and a TV series in French, actress Veerle Baetens is enjoying the calm before the storm. In the month after we speak, she will start filming Tabula rasa from a screenplay she co-wrote with Malin-Sarah Gozin (Clan) and Christophe Dirckx (The Misfortunates). And then there is the small matter of a sold-out concert at the legendary Olympia in Paris on October 12 by the bluegrass band that continues to play long after The Broken Circle Breakdown - the film from which it takes its name - folded up its tent. We played a bit in France over the summer- in Lyon and in Brittany, she says, and we have a little concert the night before the Olympia, a secret place like a pop-up venue with no reservations. I m looking forward to it all, but I m a little bit scared. The songs will be in English, representing one of a trio of languages between which Baetens has been alternating since she made her international breakthrough with The Broken Circle Breakdown. She spoke English in BBC TV series The White Queen; Flemish in TV series Cordon and The Team, plus features Halfway, The Verdict, Breakdown and The Ardennes; then French in Emma Luchini s Un début prometteur; Dominik Moll s Des nouvelles de la planète Mars; and Arte series Au-delà des murs. a bigger choice The French seem to have taken to Baetens in a big way (the Olympia concert sold out more or less overnight), but she has no intention of moving there. Nor is language a big factor in deciding what she does. It s just that I have a bigger choice, says the actress. I have more projects presented to me so I can go Ah, it doesn t matter what language it is in, but does the character interest me? Does the film and the people who ve written it interest me? Are they going to shoot it in an interesting way? Interesting doesn t quite do justice to the range of projects Baetens has tackled of late. The Ardennes - already extensively covered elsewhere in this issue - sees VIVIANE DE MUYNCK (L) AND VEERLE BAETENS IN THE ARDENNES TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT IVAN RUK her transformed into a blonde-tressed waitress working in a sleazy bar, torn between two bothers neither of whom has, to be honest, much to offer. Sylvie is quintessential tough Baetens, cousin to Alabama, dealt a lousy hand and playing it with grim determination to squeeze whatever she can out of it. Working with a director whose feature debut it is didn t worry her at all. I need to feel that the director will pull out all the stops to make his film, and Robin [Pront] sure did, she says. Anyway, I like to work with first-time directors: they mostly approach projects with an open mind and are full of ideas. a touch of melancholy The character of Sylvie was similarly intriguing. She immediately appealed to me, says Baetens. I love characters who are a bit crazy, with a touch of melancholy and a bit of rock n roll. But she is also highly vulnerable, yearning for a normal life. There s a scene in which she says All I want is to be fucking boring, come home from work at five, cook potatoes, watch TV and ask my man how was his day at work. It makes you understand who she really is. In the more recent films, we have seen quite a bit of this side of Baetens. All my characters are crazy, she admits, only half-joking. In Un début prometteur, she plays a weirdo who lives in her car, making her living gambling at dog tracks. In Moll s film, she is also very much of an outsider, playing a nervy vegan who shies away from physical contact. Working with Moll - for whose films Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien and Lemming she has great respect - was a little unusual at first she admits, since he believes in sticking exactly to the script. But we had a really nice chat before we started and I have to say that if the script is that good, I don t tend to make suggestions - especially when it s a French movie, of course, because it s not my language! along came arte With the Moll movie complete (it shot in the early spring of 2015), Baetens intended to spend the summer working on Tabula rasa. I wasn t going to take on any work, she says, because I wanted to focus on the film that I ve cowritten. Then, all of a sudden, something came into my mailbox and, when I started reading it, I was hooked. It has horror elements in it and my character is so freaking interesting. She doesn t talk much, so my French isn t so important. She inherits a house from a guy she doesn t know. She moves in and she hears stuff behind the walls, so she goes behind the wall and then has difficulty getting back Entitled, appropriately enough, Audelà des murs (Beyond the Walls), it is a three-part series for Franco-German cultural channel Arte. What was also really nice was that I was playing with Géraldine Chaplin, and that was Wow!.. It clicked well: I really like her and I really like her work. Now, however, the decks are cleared for Tabula rasa, insists Baetens, reaching across a cluttered work table to brandish four neatly bound drafts. This time, her character really is crazy - certifiably so. It s about a woman who wakes up in a secure mental institution with amnesia, she explains. She doesn t know why she s there and she doesn t know what s happening. Then a police inspector comes in and says she was the last person to be seen with a man who has gone missing. Until she finds out where this guy is, she will never get out of the asylum. But she doesn t have a clue who he is! It is, admits Baetens, a complex and challenging story very, very loosely inspired by Memento. But it comes as no surprise that a character she created (along with Gozin and Dirckx) with the sole intention of writing a role for herself to play should be well, a little bit crazy. The Ardennes on flandersimage.com Veerle Baetens on imdb.com talent watch 19

11 WHAT IF..? WRITER/DIRECTOR LUKAS BOSSUYT MAY HAVE DONE SOME OF HIS RESEARCH BY READING STEPHEN HAWKING S A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME. BUT HE INSISTS HIS FILM, SUM OF HISTORIES, IS FIRST AND FOREMOST A LOVE STORY. TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE Time is one of the themes of Lukas Bossuyt s debut feature, Sum of Histories. And time - quite a lot of it - played a part in the film s genesis: it s 16 years since his graduation short Strawberry Flavour, and almost a decade since he first sat down at his kitchen table to map out what would become Sum of Histories. In between came a lot of commercials - I graduated in December 1999 from the London Film School, he says, and I made my first commercial in January! - and a lot of research. Stephen Hawking s A Brief History of Time gets referenced quite a lot as he explains the theme of his feature, which hops about in time, and Bossuyt has become adept at explaining something called the Casimir Effect. But the director is at pains to point out that his film is not mainstream sci-fi and even less an exploration of philosophical complexities. It is, he insists, basically a fun movie which happens to have some serious ideas behind it. I wanted to write a script that was challenging for me structure-wise: if you go with timejumps, it s a challenge. I was looking at that kind of area of film but it didn t come from any philosophical angle. If anything, he says, it s about love. One of the films that definitely inspired me is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It s not sci-fi but I like the idea of time and I wanted to make it realistic. Stephen Hawking said it s possible that microscopic things can go back in time. For me, the film lets you think What if this or that had just gone a little differently if I had talked to that person a long time ago - or not talked to her, because she s now my wife? That s the theme. And it s one that s essential in finding a balance in your life: accepting that chance is part of it. director an back in time The film is set in two time periods: now (or sort of); and 25 years in the future. In the future, a researcher finds a way of sending an back in time in such a way that it will change crucial events, including a death that occurs during an 20 21

12 KOEN DE GRAEVE (L) AND ROBRECHT VANDEN THOREN IN SUM OF HISTORIES went well in rehearsals but on the set, for whatever reason, it didn t happen. That s not what happened with Polleke: it was like she d done it for years, and she was only seven. The Flemish title for Sum of Histories is Terug naar morgen, which translates as Back to Tomorrow. Bossuyt rejected a straight translation for the English title because of the echoes it brought with it of a certain series of cult movies starring Michael J Fox and a DeLorean car. The director also wanted to play down the sci-fi angle so that the human story registered more strongly - something which was made easier by the fact that what happens in the film is, if not factual, at any rate feasible. Out of all the sci-fi films, this one is not so far from reality, he insists. And the theory that sounds most outlandish when it is first mentioned in the film - the Casimir Effect, named after a Dutch scientist called Hendrik Casimir, is firmly anchored in science, not sci-fi. choosing your future The film s portrayal of the future is likewise distilled from modern reality rather than taken from some futurologist s scrapbook. There are some neat transparent handheld devices (a design Apple might like to take a look at) and no cars. I did quite a bit of research on how the future might look, says the director. I didn t want any cars in the film because what would they look like? I went to see lots of people in industry about their visions of the future and they all said, You have to decide: do you want a positive view or a negative view? Energy will be very scarce, so either the light will go out the second you leave the room or they will find alternatives and there will be more energy available. I think my view is positive and green. Even so, insists the director, the film is playful rather than philosophical. It s about destiny and stuff. Initially, that s the hook. With the film now ready for release, Bossuyt is doing his best to escape from the pressures of time past, present or for that matter future to work on a new screenplay. On Sunday I go away to the seaside to an apartment, just me, for four days - what do you call it? - a retreat, he says. I have ideas for a script but I m still looking for the hook. If there s anything I ve learned, it s that time and distance make all the difference. I know I m not going to finish this in six months; I need time. But I don t think I will do many more commercials. Now that I ve been out of it for a year and a half, it would take a lot of energy to get back in there, and I want to channel that energy into directing other fiction or screenwriting. Commercials are still fun because they re short and they re quick, but the longer projects attract me more now. Sum of Histories on flandersimage.com director ecological protest. To reveal more would take a lot of the fun out of a film which is basically emotional but propelled by a puzzle based around the words What if..? It s about how one little detail can change the course of history. Bossuyt s own career seems to have had very little to do with chance. Nor could he be said to have been dazzled as a youngster by the prospect of a life in film. When I was 17, I wanted to study engineering! I liked films and saw lots of them and made home movies like everybody, I guess. But it was only when I was 20, with Reservoir Dogs, that I really started thinking about studying film. Which is why, in a roundabout way, he ended up in London. I looked at Belgian film schools, he says, but there, everybody is 18 and it s a four-year course. By the time I graduated I was 23 and I didn t feel like doing another four years because there s a big gap between 18 and 23. In London, the average age of people on my course was 23, 24, 25 and it was a two-year course, completely practical. I liked the handson experience. spare-time scriptwriting Bossuyt started writing Sum of Histories in 2006, after five years of working pretty much full time on commercials, with his spare time spent on another script that ended up going nowhere. I graduated in 1999, he says, and I started writing a script about young people - a romantic comedy. I worked on it for a couple of years - I have a draft, about 70 pages - but in 2005 I ditched it because I knew it was never going to be good enough: it was just an exercise. Professionally, I made commercials, but from I started writing scripts. The first draft of this feature was finished around the beginning of 2008, which is when people from the industry started reading the draft and telling me I could write dialogue. At this point, Sum of Histories entered what is euphemistically known as development. It just takes so long finding finance, says Bossuyt ruefully. It s funny looking back; I was so naïve. I d have a meeting and say OK, when do we start shooting? Which is when they said, Yes, we definitely want to make this film. We think the script has lots of potential but we re not sure you re the one to direct it because we don t know you yet; you haven t made a first feature. But no way would I let anybody else direct it! I know as a first time director it s the only way to get in - or go through TV, and that s not my thing. we have to have polleke The film wrapped almost exactly a year ago (September 2014) as a co-production with the Netherlands, produced for Flanders by Frank Van Passel and Ivy Vanhaecke of Caviar, with Koen De Graeve and Karina Smulders as the adult protagonists and an extraordinary performance from (then) seven-year-old Polleke van der Sman as the young Lena. She s Dutch, says Bossuyt. They ve got 18 or 19 million people and we re only six million, so there are more actresses there! We saw nine or 10 girls, but our casting agent said We have to have Polleke. She s amazing. She s one big heap of energy. I ve heard lots of stories from fellow filmmakers about how everything It s about destiny and stuff. Initially, that s the hook KARINA SMULDERS AND KOEN DE GRAEVE IN SUM OF HISTORIES 22 23

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17 frans CINEMATEK, FLAGEY & FONDS RAOUL SERVAIS PRESENT Tank Raoul Servais, 2015 Screening in the presence of Raoul Servais AND restored by CINeMAteK: Goldframe, Chromophobia, Operation X-70, Harpya & Nachtvlinders :00 / Flagey EXTRA SCREENINGS ON : / 19:30, / 19:30 & / Flagey

18 The humour that Dimitri uses is very much in the language, so I had to find a way to translate that into cinema director EVGENIA BRENDES IN PROBLEMSKI HOTEL LIVING LIFE IN LIMBO MANU RICHE (L) AND TAREK HALEBY ON THE SET ADAPTED FROM THE NOVEL BY DIMITRI VERHULST ABOUT A BELGIAN CENTRE FOR ASYLUM-SEEKERS, PROBLEMSKI HOTEL MARKS DOCUMENTARY-MAKER MANU RICHE S FIRST FICTION FEATURE. BUT REALITY IS STILL VERY MUCH ON THE AGENDA. TEXT NICK RODDICK Dimitri Verhulst s novel Problemski Hotel began life as a reportage for a Belgian news magazine about a centre for asylum-seekers in Arendonk, a small town near the Dutch border. But the subject was so rich and complex that Verhulst produced a fictionalised account instead. That novel has now been filmed by acclaimed documentary-maker Manu Riche, neatly squaring the circle: a documentary that became a novel made into a film by a documentary maker making his first fiction film. Riche, whose film Snake Dance - a creative documentary about the invention of the atomic bomb co-directed with British journalist Patrick Marnham - won the Buyens- Chagoli Prize in Nyon in 2013, was sufficiently intrigued by the book to approach Verhulst about the film rights, then began working with producer Emmy Oost of Cassette for Timescapes to make it happen. She was interested in doing a first fiction feature with me, he says, and I was interested in doing the same thing. Because I m a documentary-maker, the book gave me the opportunity to explore something that was actually a documentary in itself, and was then turned into a novel. I did more or less the same with the film. I mean, I m a documentary-maker but there were certain things that I really couldn t imagine as a documentary. That s why I chose to make a fictional drama. TARAK HALEBY IN PROBLEMSKI HOTEL hard, tough and cynical Of course, I ve known about the whole problem of refugees in Belgium and in Europe for a long time, Riche continues, but I never really found an interesting way into it as a documentary. When I read the book, I really thought that he had found the right angle: a very hard, very tough, very cynical way of approaching it. To me, that was the right way. Problemski Hotel, Verhulst s fourth published book but his first major success, was translated into 10 languages. A wry first-hand account of life in a temporary holding centre for refugees awaiting news of their asylum applications (which are always rejected), the novel is narrated by Bipul Masli, a photographer who has fled Crapopia and ended up in a modern-day European version of limbo. It is bleak, cynical, politically incorrect and very funny, like a guided tour through purgatory led by Lenny Bruce. Riche and his British co-writer Steve Hawes have kept the tone of the original while, of necessity, changing some of the details. Bipul, for example, no longer comes from Crapopia. Instead, he is suffering from amnesia and has no idea where he is from. This, as another character observes, gives him a trump card in the Problemski Hotel: No one knows where he comes from, so they can t send him back. In the film as in the book, however, Bipul is still the central 34 35

19 a long process Finding the cast for the film was, admits Riche a very long process, drawing on both theatre actors and actual asylum seekers, sometimes a mixture of the two. I started to work with people from theatre, he says, and did long sessions of castings with some people who basically came from refugee centres but who were involved already with some kind of artistic activity. Some were in amateur theatre groups. Tarak Haleby, who plays Bipul, is actually a very successful dancer who performs with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and other choreographers. Sometimes, the characters as written were adapted to the actors he found, in the same way that the mise-en-scène was adapted to the building in which they were working. This was the case with Evgenia Brendes, who shines in the role of Lidia, a part originally written as Albanian. She dropped in as the last candidate for the role, says Riche. She came from Kazakhstan but has lived here for 10 years. She arrived when she was 12, studied in Antwerp and went to theatre school. I think she is wonderful. There is no modesty in that space and I think the building reveals a lot of what our civilisation is about Problemski Hotel on flandersimage.com Manu Riche on flandersimage.com director GORGES OCLOO IN PROBLEMSKI HOTEL character - our guide to this world. The whole film is seen through his eyes, says Riche. He is somebody who is a presence and helps people do what they have to do, but he never interferes. avoiding miserablism The film likewise maintains the neutral viewpoint of a documentary, neither patronising the sometimes absurd behaviour of the hotel s guests (like the African refugee who pedals precariously but at great speed through the Brussels traffic on his bicycle), nor overstressing the awfulness of their fate. I didn t want to fall into miserablism, says Riche. It was more interesting to observe real human people who are stuck in this place. These people are in miserable conditions for sure, but they don t lack humour and they re highly energetic. They want to change. What the book also has but the film could not exactly replicate is the wry humour of Verhulst s language, which treads that same tightrope between despair and humour. The humour that Dimitri uses is very much in the language, says the director, so I had to find a way to translate that into cinema, and I ve always been attracted to absurd humour - like the Christmas tree. Problemski Hotel opens with a fast tracking shot following an enormous Christmas tree on the back of a truck which is eventually delivered, for reasons no one seems to know, to the asylum centre. It then makes periodic appearances, providing a kind of surreal running gag, as a group of inmates try to find somewhere to put it. But by far the film s most effective visual metaphor is the building in which it is set. A former bank in the centre of Brussels, all marble, steel and glass, it is quite literally a palace to the making of money, its cold luxury in stark contrast to the human souls to which it gives temporary shelter. a symbol of our civilisation It s the biggest bank building in Brussels, says Riche. The bank collapsed in 2008 and, two years ago, they decided to tear down the building and build a new one in the same place. With a lot of diplomacy, we succeeded in getting it for several months to do the shooting. It is right in the middle of Brussels - a very typical building from the end of the 1960s, early 1970s. There is no modesty in that space and I think the building reveals a lot of what our civilisation is about. It s a very empty, very frigid place. Symbolically, it was more interesting to put the refugees in that sort of building than in the refugee centres which were described in the book. I was looking for something more remote from reality. It is almost a kind of science fiction: it is a real building and yet it is not real. It is too big to be real - that really inspired me. The vast open spaces of the building also opened up the way for some elaborate camera movements and striking framing but, for all that these seem central to the film, the director insists that none of them was worked out in advance, let alone planned at script stage. To be honest, he says, I didn t plan anything and definitely not in the writing. At that point, I never think of how I will do the mise-en-scène. We adapted the whole script according to what we found. The script was not written for that building and the Christmas tree was not in it, either: it was only in the very final version that we added it. The camera movements were also completely decided on the spot. I really believe in, not improvisation, but creating a situation in which the actors feel a kind of freedom - that they feel relaxed about what we will do and that we will adapt ourselves to them. It s very close to a documentary. It s also the way Renaat Lambeets, my camera operator and I, have worked together for 25 years. EVGENIA BRENDES AND TAREK HALEBY IN PROBLEMSKI HOTEL a conversation with the actors And, much as the original book is a fiction based on a documented reality, so Riche drew on his previous experience when it came to working with actors. Directing drama, he says, is very different from documentaries, where you don t have to ask people to do something because they do it: it s their real life. But what is important, I think, is to create a situation in which I can ask or suggest things, but it s very much a conversation that is going on between the actors and me. It s not like me saying to them, Take a step to the right. That s really not what I m interested in. I m interested in a more organic thing with the actors I leave the situation quite open. The ending, too, is open, intercutting between two scenes: a dance in the asylum centre, and a container ship at sea, the latter being one of the most common - and very risky - ways for asylum-seekers to get to the UK. These two options, says Riche, reflect the position of the characters at the end of the film. The container ship: is that hopeful or not? I don t know. Deep down, I think the film and the book talk about the same thing: we are not going to be saved by something. Life is like that. The film is very much about saying Look, we re in it together so let s try to make the best of it

20 WITH A STRING OF CHALLENGING MOVIES ON HIS CV, ALAIN DESSAUVAGE IS ONE OF A NEW GENERATION OF TALENTED PROFESSIONALS PUTTING FLEMISH FILM EDITING FIRMLY ON THE MAP. editor THE MAGIC OF EDITING It s not your movie, it s the director s. That s something that s really important to know TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE When he first went to film school, Alain Dessauvage didn t really know what editing was. The RITS in Brussels, where he studied from 1991 to 1994, makes all students learn the basic techniques of filmmaking - camera, editing, sound - in their first year, he explains. And that is when he discovered the profession that would see his name appear on the credits of some of the most distinctive Flemish films of the past decade, starting with Moscow, Belgium (2008), via Bullhead (2011) to this autumn s dark thriller The Ardennes. Recalling his first year at film school, Dessauvage, now in his early forties, is full of enthusiasm for the eclecticism of the RITS. That s the magical thing about editing, he says. It s not something that you realise exists unless you really start to get involved with it. At first I thought the other technical stuff was cool, but the moment I started doing some editing I thought, This is something I really want to do. For me, filming and photography are things I like to do in my spare time but I felt my strength was a lot more in a dark room with a director trying to make a movie. I never looked back. From the second year on I started editing, and it just felt right. For the first seven years of his professional career, Dessauvage worked at the Ace Digital post-production house in Brussels, fine-tuning his trade on state-of-the-art equipment - Ace had the best kit in Belgium - and picking up a few useful extra skills on the side like VFX and compositing. VFX wasn t something he really fell in love with but found very useful when he started to work on features. The advantage was, I learned a lot about compositing and that is something I can really use. I can say to a director Look, this shot is problematic but we can fix it in post - which is something people always say, but in this case I can really show how to get rid of a problem. If you don t have the experience of what s possible in online, then maybe you would say to the director, Look we can t use this shot, we have to pick another one. But for me it s really handy to be able to say We can save this one: we can use it. getting the story right But digital wizardry, he insists, is not where the magic of editing lies. Scratch any editor and you will find a storyteller: Dessauvage is no exception. The challenge for me, he says of his work on The Ardennes, was to get the flow of the story right: that s the hard thing about editing, I think. It s not to edit the scenes, but to get them in the right order and to get the tension between them. That way, you don t get the impression of watching scenes one after the other but of watching a whole movie. That s something you only achieve when you start working with the director - fine-tuning, tweaking, taking things out and getting the feel right. There s always that moment when you think OK, this is starting to resemble a movie. Challenge is the right word: the movies which are the cornerstones of his career are all first features: Moscow, Belgium, Bullhead and now The Ardennes. But that was very much a matter of choice: offered a bigger, safer film at the same time as Moscow, Belgium, Dessauvage opted to work with director Christophe Van Rompaey. I knew Christophe THE ARDENNES because I d made one or two short films with him, says the editor. I was offered a film before that one but it was a much bigger commercial project - something which would appeal to a broader audience, but not a very interesting movie in my 38 39

21 BOMBAY SAPPHIRE QUEEN VIC CREST DARK BLUE CMYK opinion. I refused that one because I really thought to myself, My first movie must be something I can be really proud of. I was a little bit nervous but we had a very good script, good actors, good directing and it was nice to be able to participate in that. Dessauvage recently worked on his first UK movie: Couple in a Hole, an offbeat tale of a couple who end up living, just like the title says, in a hole in the ground. Directed by Belgian-born, UK-based filmmaker Tom Geens, it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and Dessauvage has, when we speak, just started work on Vincent and the End of the World, his second collaboration with Van Rompaey. I m editing chronologically, which is a good thing because it s kind of a road movie, he says. Normally, you start working maybe two weeks into the shoot. One day I would edit scene 55 and the second day scene 15 and the third day scene 166. But now it s in chronological order which makes it much more fun for me. Whatever the technical circumstances, however, it s always about the film, says the editor. Looking back to his first collaboration with Van Rompaey, Dessauvage remembers not the technical process of making the film (which went on to win three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008) but the story behind it. I read the script and I really loved the idea, I think a lot of people can relate to that movie. It shows life as it is and as it could be. Once in a while you get this kind of movie where you come out of the cinema a little bit different than when you went in, and that is one of them. VINCENT AND THE END OF THE WORLD MOSCOW, BELGIUM BULLHEAD being on set or the director always being in the cutting room. What I generally propose - and most directors are OK with that - is that I make the rough version on my own. So, let s say we have three months to edit the movie: then I would take half of that time, or maybe a bit less, to make the rough cut without the director. director V.U.: Wim De Witte, Leeuwstraat 40b, 9000 Gent, België Creatie: beginning is the hardest part The Ardennes - featured elsewhere in this issue - likewise passes the Dessauvage quality test with flying colours. It s hard to describe it, he says, and that s what makes it so interesting. It s a movie that I have the impression only Robin [Pront, the director] could have made because it s a universe he knows so well: it s weird in a way but also very personal. The story of two bothers whose relationship deteriorates as their world begins to implode - for further details, see page 12 - The Ardennes is, from an editor s point of view, a film in which the balance and flow are all-important. Its premiere at Toronto suggest they have got it right. The challenge for me was to get the flow of the story right: it s quite slow, but it s intriguing. We wanted to build up the tension with what s going to happen to these guys. That wasn t the easiest thing to pull off but I think we managed it. As Pront himself admits, finding the right way into the story was one of the biggest challenges. Yeah, agrees Dessauvage. To get the beginning right is always a very hard thing. We had the same trouble with Bullhead: I think we worked for a month on the beginning to get that right. In this case [The Ardennes] it was easier, because it just involved taking a whole scene out so the movie starts with a guy jumping into a swimming pool if you start with the aftermath of the action [that originally started the film], you have a whole different set-up. Collaboration doesn t necessarily mean the editor always analogy of an architect I always like to make an analogy of an architect. If you want to build a house, you go to an architect and you discuss what your plans or ideas are and you try to find somebody who has similar taste to you and you know that they can create something that you want to live in. From that moment on, you let the guy work. You re not going to be there when he starts drawing and trying things out. You want to be there the moment he presents something which isn t finished yet but which at least you can discuss. It s the same with editing: I like to make a first version and then I can familiarise myself with the rushes. Then, when I ve seen everything and I know what the weaknesses are, I can show the director a different view - or different from what he would have thought of when he shot it. And from that moment on we keep working together until the end. Realising the director s vision is rule number one. It s not your movie, it s the director s. That s something that s really important to know: as an editor, you participate in the process of making a movie. I always think that if a director edited his own movie, it probably wouldn t be very good; but if the editor edited the movie without the input of the director, it would probably be meaningless too, he concludes. There s a reason a director makes a movie and that s something I need to discover while working with him. I want his input. It s not about you, it s about the movie. Problemski Hotel on flandersimage.com Manu Riche on flandersimage.com 41

22 LIFE IN THE MIRROR TEXT IAN MUNDELL PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE The first time Luc Vrydaghs can recall noticing the barber shop effect was in Jenin, the Palestinian city whose refugee camp has played an important role in the conflict with Israel. He was there making a programme with the Flemish photographer Lieve Blancquaert, and he and cameraman Lou Berghmans decided to go to the barber s. At that time I still shaved my head, or had very short hair, and Lou and I went into Jenin to get a haircut, he recalls. And so there we were in the refugee camp, where the first Intifada began, and you could feel the life at the barber shop. All these people were coming in, like a soldier and children before going to school. That was the moment I thought: this is an interesting place. The more Vrydaghs travelled in subsequent years, with or without his camera, the more the idea appealed. To be in a place and to go to the barber is always a very special experience, he says. a way into the story In 2006, Vrydaghs completed Gas Station, a TV series looking at the communities around gas stations in six very different places: Arizona, India, Australia, Iceland, the Czech Republic and Israel/Palestine. Thinking about a follow-up series, barber shops had immense appeal. The episodes would not be portraits of the barber or discussions about hair, although both would sometimes become part of the story. Instead, each episode would use the shop and the conversations that take place in the barber s chair as a way into a community FOR DOCUMENTARY-MAKER LUC VRYDAGHS A BARBER SHOP ISN T JUST A PLACE FOR A SHAVE AND A TRIM. IT S SOMEWHERE WHERE LIFE STOPS FOR FIVE MINUTES AND PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THOSE THINGS THAT I WANT TO MAKE MOVIES ABOUT, HE SAYS. BEGINNING IN THE US, HE IS CURRENTLY FILMING A SERIES OF SIX SHORT DOCUMENTARIES IN BARBER SHOPS AROUND THE WORLD. and the issues it faces. I want to film the conversations, and then get the story just from the conversations, explains Vrydaghs. This does not mean that the camera has to stay in the shop all the time. When I feel I have a character with interesting things to say, sometimes I ll follow him to a place that reflects their personal life or the story. It s not only between the mirrors and the chair, but also the life around the barber shop. selecting the shops As in Gas Station, the locations for Barber Shop are selected to show a wide range of cultures and communities. The common thread in the series is people in transition, or in situations that are evolving. So all the pieces have to respond to that idea, says Vrydaghs. Each also has to have something to grab the viewer s attention. I like to tell stories with an original setting. It doesn t have to be spectacular or have violence and murder, but there has to be an angle where I can tell a story in a unique way. Vrydaghs carries out the initial research with Lotte Knaepen, then the groundwork in each location is done by a local researcher, who scouts out possible barber shops. Then Vrydaghs visits for four or five days to get a feel for the place and see if it is possible to tell the story he has in mind. I talk to the barber and, through him, get to know a few of the people who come to the shop, he explains. Interesting characters can then be coaxed back during filming. Vrydaghs has given himself 11 days to film each episode, with a crew of three plus local fixers for the tougher locations. This brief shoot must provide all the material for a 26-minute episode. It s a good time to tell a story in, he explains. You can tease and say just enough for it to stay interesting. Most of the time, people want to see more, and that s a good thing. All the Motown singers came to Larry s and they still come. This produces a strong sense of nostalgia. These old black guys are still living a little bit like they are 18 or 20. They do their hair like Chuck Berry; they don t have it cut, they style it. And they are very proud. At the same time, Detroit is undergoing a profound economic crisis, which will also be part of the story. The next location is likely to be in South Africa, where Vrydaghs wants to focus on the poor white minority marginalised by the fall of apartheid. Initially, he went to the Afrikaner town of Orania, but he felt that its story had already been told. Returning to Johannesburg, he heard about small, white-only settlements or plakkerskampen on the fringes of the city. These are camps where someone with a house has built some new outbuildings, and put a fence around them with some guards, and people live together inside. They are like little arks. The plakkerskamp in which he wants to film does not have a barber shop as such, but there is a woman who cuts hair in front of her shack. It s a very interesting setting and the story also has several layers, with the boss of the camp wanting to save the white race a little, the resistance to the system and the fear. other locations After Detroit and Johannesburg, the schedule depends on whether or not the initial research pans out. Situations can change, and promising ideas may be blocked if a particular community proves resistant or there simply isn t a suitable barber shop. Ideas in the air include Senegal, where Vrydaghs would like to explore the issue of polygamy through a women s hairdresser, and Cuba. He is also keen to film in the frozen north of Russia, where migrant labour is being drawn to new towns set up by the oil and gas industries. These are boom towns and the beginning of a new life in unbearable conditions, he says. I hope to find a barber for the people who have emigrated there to work so I can tell the story of these pioneers. Barber Shop is due to be completed by the end of 2016 and will screen on Flemish public TV channel Canvas. It is produced by Timescapes and sales agent First Hand Films is currently looking for international buyers. Gas Station on flandersimage.com spijkersite.com The common thread is people in transition, or in situations that are evolving director detroit and johannesburg The first location for the series is Detroit, and a barber shop connected with the city s long musical heritage. 42

23 documentary STEEP LEARNING CURVE SHOT OVER ALMOST THREE YEARS, REACH FOR THE SKY PROBES DEEP INTO THE JAW-DROPPING WORLD OF THE KOREAN UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE EXAM SUNEUNG. REACH FOR THE SKY TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE On the second Thursday in November, the whole of Korea comes to a stop - unless you re a student trying to get into a top university. As fixed a date as Christmas, that is when the Suneung - College Scholastic Ability Test or CSAT - is sat by 650,000 students, all sitting exactly the same papers at exactly the same time. The roads are closed off around the exam centres; police cars rush any student stuck in traffic to the building; for certain exams where noise might be a distraction, flights are grounded. The pressure to do well is, as the above suggests, intense, and Steven Dhoedt s remarkable new documentary, Reach for the SKY - which premieres at the Busan International Film Festival in Korea in October - records a year in the life of three students (two girls and a boy) and one teacher (male) as they prepare for Suneung and deal with its aftermath. A less than perfect score effectively closes the door to a top university - perceived as a disaster by status-conscious Koreans. Not getting into one of the three universities on whose names the film s title plays - Seoul National University, the University of Korea and Yonsei University, collectively known as the SKY colleges - can scupper a student s entire career. If you go to the top-class university, you can be sure of a good position in one of the big companies, explains Gert Van Berckelaer, Dhoedt s partner in production company Visualantics, who co-produced the film with Korean colleague Sinae Ha. taught by society There is a memorable scene in which one of the students tells his father that, for him, getting into a top university is more important than studying well. That s how he thinks, says Dhoedt. That s what society has taught him. His father doesn t believe him at all, but he doesn t want to listen. He really believes that, by going to that university, he s going to become a more important figure in society. But we shouldn t be too judgmental about this system, insists Dhoedt, whose film coolly and elegantly observes from what one might call an intimate distance. I think in any film, based on your edits, you do take a position, he says, but it s not very obvious here. I don t think it s my place to be judgmental. I m not saying I m just there to observe, but I think the most important thing is that you try to explain to a non-korean audience where all of this comes from, and to understand the context better. A lot of it is very similar to the situation in Europe after the Second World War, he adds. My grandparents were also very keen to have my parents go to university instead of learning a craft. Now that kind of idea is a bit gone with the new generation, but I think it s very similar to what you see now in South Korea. They still believe that going to university is a chance to go higher up in society; to have a more fulfilling life. It s also a lot to do with the sense of hierarchy, which is still a very important part of that culture: the hierarchy and respect for elders. That brings you back, of course, to the whole Confucian system, which is at the core of a lot of [East Asian] cultures. STEVEN DHOEDT (L) AND GERT VAN BERCKELAER professional gamers Dhoedt worked for a while in Hong Kong before his first of many trips to Korea. It really started with his first film, Inside the Metaverse, about virtual worlds, recalls Van Berckelaer. There was this one scene about Korean professional gamers and it was so strong that we decided to make a film about it. It didn t fit inside the other film because the game they play is not a virtual world. The result was State of Play (2010), which in turn nudged them in the direction of Reach for the SKY. For me, adds Dhoedt, it was kind of a logical progression to go from professional gamers to the education system, because what I discovered when I was interviewing them is that a lot of these kids became professional gamers to escape school life. When I discovered that, I obviously started exploring a little bit more about what was going on in the school system. That s how we came from one subject to the next. It s similar in a way because they re both about competition, just in two very different fields. repeating the year They began lining up six students to focus on and subsequently negotiating with Megastudy, the quasi-evangelical (and very expensive) private company which trains students in an almost round-the-clock programme designed to up their scores. The exam is only once a year, says Dhoedt. We had to cast our characters 10 months before it so we could follow them throughout the entire year and then follow them during the aftermath - the university applications and the graduation from school and the result of getting into a university. The roads are closed off around the exam centres and flights are grounded We did that once and we were happy with the characters, but we felt we didn t have enough, so we extended it to another year. That s when we finally got into the boarding school which you see in the film. That was really hard; there d never been a camera crew in these kinds of private schools before. Repeating the year was a tough financial decision, admits Van Berckelaer, and one of which he, Dhoedt and Visualantics bore the brunt. In documentary, he says, the financial part is always problematic, because it takes a lot of time to get the money together and you always have to start shooting before you do. You cannot save on camerawork and mixing and post-production: in the end it s the producers and directors who say OK, we ll invest our share of it and let s hope the movie sells enough and we can have some money. new platforms In the old system of sales agents and theatrical windows, he adds, this would have been a long shot. But with the new distribution platforms, it s a whole new world. As a production company, we are quite forward-looking; we really believe that you can release a film at the same time on television, in theatres and on VOD. With State of Play we did that. We had a very small theatrical release but, because it was a film about geeks on the internet and gamers, the VOD worked very well. We did it via VHX, a company based in New York. They take a small percentage and they arrange your whole website: it s really easy to sell the film. Now there s seven words to bring joy to the heart of any documentary-maker. 44 Reach for the SKY on flandersimage.com Steven Dhoedt on flandersimage.com 45

24 DO THE LIGHT THING AT 28, DOP ROBRECHT HEYVAERT IS ALREADY SHOOTING HIS FOURTH FEATURE AND KNOWS JUST HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT LIGHT. BUT WHAT REALLY MATTERS TO HIM IS FINDING THE STORY. TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE As he neared the end of his schooldays, Robrecht Heyvaert found his choice of career briefly challenging. When I was about 17 years old, I didn t know exactly what to do, he says, but I was quite clear what I didn t want to do - which was just about any job I could think of! What did interest me was film, so I went to film school at RITS in Brussels. There had been other little steps along the way, including a childhood obsession with the making of films, courtesy of a VHS on The Making of Forrest Gump. He also had a job as a projectionist which filled in the gaps in his film education. It was a 35mm projection room with two projectors you had to switch between. I was really happy, because I could combine the wonderful technique of 35mm film and at the same time see lots of movies, which was a dream come true. The dream became reality over the next three years at RITS, followed by a remarkable ascent of the career ladder which sees Heyvaert, at just 28, with a Black and The Ardennes are quite different films. I hope you wouldn t be able to see they were shot by the same DOP number of shorts - including the prize-winning Baghdad Messi - under his belt, along with a TV series (Vermist), three striking features (including Black and The Ardennes, both selected for Toronto) and a fourth one in production. Directors of photography are often a little on the macho side, says Nic Balthazar, director of the above-mentioned fourth film, Say Something Funny. The fascinating thing with Robrecht is that he is much more gentle and quietly persuasive. If you didn t know him better, you could mistake his modesty for shyness - until something in production or whatever stands in his way and you can see the pit bull coming out who will fight for every shot, every frame, every detail that matters. That s how you know you have an artist at work. I already call him Robby, after Robby Müller [the great Dutch DOP, famous for his work with Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch], because my bets are already on that he is going to be just as great. focus firmly on the film Balthazar s comments point to what it is that makes Heyvaert sought after: a determination to focus firmly on the film he is shooting without imposing his own style on it. One of the things I m really proud of is that Black and The Ardennes are quite different films, he says. I hope you wouldn t be able to see they were shot by the same DOP. I think it will be the same with Say Something Funny. We re shooting everything on location: back stage in small theatres and small green rooms, make-up rooms, hotel rooms Lots of limited spaces and lots of available light. Available light is also a key feature of Black, whose gangland Romeo and Juliet story is very much a summer-in-the-city film. The thing about Black is there had to be a lot of energy, a lot of motion, a lot of characters, lots of things happening at the same time, says Heyvaert. You have to feel that combination of energy and warmth actually, summertime is a better word. Says the film s co-director Adil El Arbi: Robrecht is a brother to us and a soldier of images. He will fight to the death to make the best movie. He is a true magician - every shot is a painting - and he is a genius in storytelling. a matter of contrast Heyvaert s website contains, along with links to films, a selection of photographs which reveal a passion for dark images which anticipates in some way The Ardennes. But, insists the young DOP, it s not really as simple as that. I like contrast even more than darkness. In most of the dark pictures, there s always some highlights or bright spots. The Ardennes is a lot deeper, a lot darker than Black; the tempo is slower and there is not very much camera movement, but I wouldn t say it is a very dark film. We had an atmosphere which was quite dark but the image itself is not. Finding the right light for the right scene has posed major problems for Heyvaert on several of his films. On Black, most of the exteriors were planned in terms of the sun s path, he says, because in Brussels you have very narrow streets with quite high buildings. This was the case in a key fight scene: There were only one or two hours of direct sun in that street so it all had to be planned around that. Filming Baghdad Messi in northern Iraq posed an extreme version of the same problem. Even though the landscape and the locations are very beautiful, says Heyvaert, to get lighting material into the country was very difficult, so most of it is shot with available light. We had some reflectors to reflect the sun inside the house. It was all planned by the path of the sun. I did the location scouting with the producer and the director two weeks before we started shooting and, on the basis of the sun s path on the compass, we made the schedule. It worked out quite well. it s the story that counts But in the end, it s the story, not the technical aspect, that counts, insists Heyvaert - a lesson he learned quickly when he went from shooting a commercial to a short or a feature. You shoot different shots and you tend to forget that all the different shots have to form a theme and the theme has to inform an entire movie, he says. The thing that is difficult for me about shooting features is keeping the overview - each moment you re on set knowing where you are in the story, and each shot that you film, how it will be part of the entire film. Setting up the shots is always the same but thinking about them is different. At all events, Heyvaert plans to stick to features from now on. I ve never really been a commercials DOP, he says. My main focus has mostly been short movies and television series and then the features. I do mostly fiction, and if I have to choose between features and commercials, I will always choose the feature - if it s a good story. One of the reasons I started in this business was because I m interested in movies. And beyond that? An ambition to direct, perhaps? The answer comes straight back without hesitation. No, he says. cinematographer 46 47

25 GOING NATIVE TEXT IAN MUNDELL PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE producer GILLES COULIER IS A DIRECTOR AND GILLES DE SCHRYVER AN ACTOR - BUT TOGETHER THEY ARE ALSO PRODUCERS, AND THEIR COMPANY DE WERELDVREDE ( WORLD PEACE ) IS ABOUT TO LAUNCH ITS FIRST MAJOR PRODUCTION, TV SERIES THE NATIVES. Gilles Coulier and Gilles De Schryver have been friends since working together on Coulier s 2010 student short Paroles. Since then, De Schryver has become a familiar face on screen thanks to the feature film Come As You Are and the TV series Tom & Harry and Code 37, with the latter also spinning off a movie. Coulier, meanwhile, followed up student films Iceland, a Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) Wildcard winner, and Paroles with Mont Blanc, which was selected for the Cannes Short Film competition in Throughout this time the pair discussed working together, and in particular going beyond their usual roles. As a screen actor, it was getting harder and harder for me not to mind about how things were written, how the story was told, whether it was well cast and if the right team was working on it, says De Schryver. So I was starting to feel the need to produce something myself one day - and by producing I don t mean only the business side of it. Producing is also being creative. Coulier felt the same way. Gilles comes from a family of entrepreneurs, as do I, and we were always talking about how cool it would be to produce, but we didn t have anything concrete to do, he says. We want to make the things that we want to make and not produce for the sake of it Gilles Coulier a company is born The opportunity came when Coulier was approached by a group of actors and writers with a script for a TV series. As well as presenting a chance to launch their company, The Natives was a project that Coulier and De Schryver thought would be best served by them being in control. It tells the story of a famous stand-up comedian, Freddy De Vadder, who moves from the city to a tiny little village called Bevergem. Why he has come is a mystery, and his presence has a strange effect on the locals. The script was so intense and so specific that I knew that any other producer would either not want it or would take it and tone it down, says Coulier. It s a really hard script. Everyone agreed that independence was the way to go, and the project was submitted to VAF for development funding on that basis. GILLES COULIER (L) AND GILLES DE SCHRYVER director and producer With the production underway, De Schryver and Coulier divided responsibilities. As director, Coulier took the creative lead. On set, I cannot be the producer because my team would fight me, he explains. At that point I m on the artistic side, and with my team beside me I want to fight for what they want and what I want. Meanwhile De Schryver became executive producer, drawing on his experience running his own theatre group, Het Kip. Sometimes there were difficult discussions, but never serious disagreements. The struggle between a director and a producer is part of the magic, says Coulier. But at the end of the day, he wants to make something that is beautiful and artistic and I want to make sure that we have the money to shoot on the next day

26 Of course I m there to remind Gilles about the budget, says De Schryver. He has to force himself to keep dreaming and I have to force myself to stop dreaming. So we try to keep that in balance. making the natives The Natives began with standup comedian Bart Vanneste, who got a group of actors together and ALL STILLS THE NATIVES workshopped a set of characters, mining their experiences and frustrations with life to produce his script. When Coulier and De Schryver s company De Wereldvrede took it on, there was a ready-made cast committed to the project. Coulier s first step was to polish the script and start working with the actors. That is another advantage of having your own production company, he says. We were able to rehearse for three months with all the actors to make sure that on day one of the shoot everybody knew what to do and the tone we were after. There are some familiar faces from Flemish film and television, such as Vanneste as Freddy, Wim Willaert, Maaike Cafmeyer and Sébastien Dewaele. But there are also plenty of new names, like Isabelle Van Hecke, Wannes Cappelle and Piet De Praitere. I think it s our responsibility as a young production company to introduce actors to the public who are not the usual suspects, says De Schryver. We will absolutely do that with this series. With director of photography David Williamson, Coulier devised a straightforward approach to shooting that showcased the performances. It s always very simple but it looks beautiful and very cinematographic, he says. Pushed to describe the atmosphere of the series he says it s a combination of The Big Lebowski and Lilyhammer. international ambition Running for eight episodes of 45 minutes, The Natives is part of the relaunch of Flemish public TV channel Canvas, hopefully bringing it a younger audience. The series is also attracting international attention, appearing in a side programme at Séries Mania in Paris and generating interest at the MIPTV market last April. De Schryver thinks it has a good chance of an international career. The difficulty with The Natives is that it is about a typical Flemish village, but we really believe that by zooming in this close you end up zooming out, and that we ve created something universal. In France they have these villages, in Scandinavia and in the UK as well. guest and cargo While The Natives was underway De Wereldvrede began its second production, a short film by Moon Blaisse following up her VAF Wildcard winner Maybe Later. Called Guest, it follows a man (Peter Van Den Begin) through a long, strange night after he has made a sudden break with the people in his life. This time it was Coulier who took on the business side of the production. The company s next major project will be Coulier s feature film Cargo, a drama about three grown brothers who come together at the death of their father to set the family fishing business back on its feet. Faced with desperate times, they turn to drug smuggling and then people trafficking. It s about why people commit crimes, but it s also a family story, Coulier explains. It takes place in a hard world, but a world that is also very visual. Cargo won a place in this year s Torino Film Lab, and Coulier is currently honing the script with co-writer Tom Dupont (Offline). The cast will include Sam Louwyck, Wim Willaert and Sébastien Dewaele, with David Williamson on board as director of photography. De Schryver will again take the executive producer role. de wereldvrede philosophy Now that De Wereldvrede is established, Coulier and De Schryver are starting to think about the future. We re not here to take over the industry, says De Schryver. We just want to make really good movies, and I think the key to that is to stay small and choose our projects with care. Coulier agrees. We want to make the things that we want to make and not produce for the sake of it. I know this is very utopian and idealistic, but we are young and we really want to do it like that. Beyond Cargo, the pair are developing a new TV series for a large Flemish network, a thriller that they have conceived together. They are also working on the feature debut of Wannes Destoop, whose student film Swimsuit 46 went to Cannes in And in addition to De Wereldvrede projects, Coulier will continue to direct for other producers. First up is The Day, a TV series written by Jonas Geirnaert and Julie Mahieu, produced by Woestijnvis. ACTING AND PRODUCING So far De Schryver has not appeared in any De Wereldvrede productions, although he is holding out for a cameo in Cargo. This time I want to be in it, because it is too much fun, he says. But his motivation for producing is not to line-up roles: It s to satisfy the part of me that worries about the bigger picture, rather than just my part in it. However, he doesn t rule out initiating projects that open new doors for him as an actor. I work a lot with people who write roles for specific actors, so in that sense I can see us developing a movie or a TV series which would fit me as an actor and allow me to play roles that another director maybe wouldn t give me the chance to play. At the same time, becoming a producer has changed his perspective on casting. Suddenly I take a lot of roles that I didn t get in the past a lot less personally, he says. As a film actor, you just look the way you look and there are only so many roles that your face fits. So you just have to be patient and not want it all at once. His forthcoming screen roles are all outside De Wereldvrede: Resurrection, the feature debut of Kristof Hoornaert, produced by Flemish company Fobic Films, and two Frenchspeaking roles for Belgian production companies Versus and Hélicotronc. So I ll be doing three features, hopefully, next year, all very different parts from those I ve done so far. director 50 The Natives on flandersimage.com dewereldvrede.be Gilles Coulier on flandersimage.com 51

27 LESS IS MORE AS SHE PREPARES TO DIRECT HER FIRST FEATURE, NATHALIE TEIRLINCK TALKS ABOUT THE IMPACT INGMAR BERGMAN AND MICHAEL HANEKE HAVE HAD ON HER APPROACH TO CINEMA. TEXT NICK RODDICK PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE Anyone tempted to think of the movie business as fundamentally glamorous would do well to check out Nathalie Teirlinck s schedule as she commutes daily from Ghent to Brussels during pre-production on her first feature, Tonic Immobility. We start shooting on November 5, she says in mid-september. It s not that close, but not that far either. I m a control freak so that doesn t help! Tonic Immobility, which Bart van Langendonck is producing for Savage Film, is basically a two-hander. The title refers to the self-induced paralysis animals use to protect themselves, colloquially known as playing dead. It s about a very atypical mother/son reunion, says the director, who studied - and now teaches - at the KASK film school in Ghent. It s a real character piece about a high-class call girl who is forced to take care of the son she abandoned years ago. It s really a portrait of their coming together with the only link being the parental bond. It s a very pure and simple story and I want to keep it pure so as to be able to tell it differently. Teirlinck has written and directed four theatre pieces - giving her the experience of working with actors and making her, she reckons, more aware of the importance of characterisation by behaviour. But her cinematic reputation rests on a trio of powerful shorts - Anémone (2006); Juliette (2007); and Venus vs Me (2010), the latter nominated for a European Film Award - all of which share the same poetic style. Water ebbs and flows, fields of long grass rustle, young girls stare straight at the camera or turn their backs on it. With their restless handheld camera movements and amplified natural sounds, the films are strange, slightly threatening and hypnotic. But, as Teirlinck would be the first to admit, it is not a style suitable for a feature. I had a hard time translating the language of my short films to my feature, she says, because it s a totally different viewing experience. I had a feeling I was working with another medium, like when you write poems and all of a sudden you have to write prose: the grammar changes and you have to adapt to it. I can t make it like a stream of consciousness for 90 minutes. Well, I can, but it s not what I want to do! Watching her shorts at festivals was the eye-opener. That s where I learned about the audience and I began to understand the viewer experience and the importance of how and when you provide or hide narrative information especially because, in my work, I like to explore this thin line. But Teirlinck won t be going right back to square one with Tonic Immobility. Yes, it will be more of a narrative but it will still be associative, she insists. What struck me with my shorts and is still there in my feature is that I learnt more and more the importance of films not showing things; that there is more meaning in what is hidden than what is shown. Teirlinck originally planned to make documentaries, but then discovered that fiction offered more possibilities. I felt the urge to show the world we know in a different way, she says. At the time I wanted to make documentaries as a mirror, but when I realised I was looking more for a magnifying glass, I found more tools for that in fiction. It was at this point that the director also discovered two masters of cinema, part of whose mastery lay precisely in knowing what to show and what not to show, and in demonstrating that cinema is not just a visual medium. First came Ingmar Bergman s Persona, which Teirlinck saw while at film school. I had such a physical reaction to it, she recalls. It was really about the way that sound and image were used as equals. That, for me, was a perfect example of what this medium can and should do: make the invisible visible. It s not always about what is shown, it s also about what s not shown; and that s only possible when you work with all the forces the medium has. Michael Haneke s Funny Games hit just as hard. It really made me shiver, she says. I wanted to turn away from the screen but I couldn t. It was such a strong experience: it took my breath away, the way he was able to observe normal human beings in an exceptional situation. I particularly remember one scene where the whole family is murdered and the mother is sitting there with her hands tied behind her back and the first thing she does is jump to the television to turn down the sound. That was so incredible. What this movie meant for my work is that I discovered the huge importance of characterisation through action and behaviour, Haneke is a master at this. My god, amazing! All other influences pale by comparison. At the moment I m really fond of Claire Castillon, a French writer. But cinema trumps the lot. I used to read more than I do now. Often, when I ve read 20 pages, I think I could easily have watched a movie INSPIRATIONAL THE THINGS AND PEOPLE THAT HAVE INSPIRED NATHALIE TEIRLINCK DVD UZAK, NURI BILGE CEYLAN DOCUMENTARY SANS SOLEIL, CHRIS MARKER NOVELIST CLAIRE CASTILLON PAINTER EDWARD HOPPER PHOTOGRAPHER BILL HENSON VIDEO ARTIST DAVID CLAERBOUT on imdb.com play button on wikipedia.com on wikipedia.com under the influence on wikipedia.com davidclaerbout.com 53

28 54 fans ONE FROM THE HARP BERLINALE PANORAMA CHIEF WIELAND SPECK RECALLS THE MOMENT A FLEMISH FILM SET HIS INNER HARP VIBRATING. Europe is made up of a patchwork of languages, dialects, cultures and identities, and it is that specific sensibility, setting it apart from its bigger neighbours, that gives Flemish cinema its unique feel, reckons Wieland Speck, who has curated the Berlinale s Panorama section since All these things are reflected wherever you go in Europe, says Speck. The village my mother came from has a different language than the next village. It s difficult to pin it down because it becomes quite artificial when you do so, but I think the self-reflection of this consciousness makes Flanders what it is - compared to the neighbours that it really doesn t want to be like. I think that s very European. THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN BULLHEAD The Panorama has a proud history of premiering Flemish films at its annual February line-up, showcasing new films by established directors alongside debut works by up-andcoming talents. And, while Speck s curatorial activities are not really driven by where a film comes from, he admits that trends frequently emerge - and Flemish cinema is currently right on trend. Sometimes you see certain countries all of a sudden becoming strong, he says, and then they disappear - like Germany disappeared for many years. Italy we re still waiting for to come back. But I think Flanders has been extremely exciting for us, he continues. The filmmakers that we ve shown over the years are very much Flemish. They re not Dutch, they re not this, they re not that: it s like a way of looking defined by what it is not. There s a freshness, a certain radicalism. Nor has it just been the past few years, which have seen Bullhead and Broken Circle Breakdown go from the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin to an Oscar nomination in Los Angeles. Going back, the early films of Dominique Deruddere in the 1980s, they were exciting, recalls Speck, and Broken Circle was a very strong piece of cinema. But definitely I think the one that made us all fall on our backs with admiration was Bullhead, the Michaël R. Roskam film: that one blew us away big time. What made it so exciting? Well, first of all we did not know this wonderful actor [Matthias Schoenaerts] who, in the meantime, has played himself into our consciousness everywhere in the world. But it was also the analytical view on gender roles in a rural context. My entire harp started to resonate. That s how I receive films: through my inner harp. The harp is an instrument where you only need a little wind to make a sound. Here it was the broken maleness. I thought it was very modern and very honest, beaming into the future instead of just fulfilling itself as a narrative. The film immediately caught on: every single screening was packed. I was astonished by how warmly it was received. I know that many filmmakers remember their premiere in Berlin for the rest of their lives, Speck concludes. I know that because I am a filmmaker myself, and I have been part of other festivals and I m thankful for those festival-makers. That is a very strong emotional point that I really like to remember. But otherwise I m quite humble in this respect. Often I think Wow, how wonderful that I can do something for this or that film. And in this case I wasn t disappointed. TEXT NICK RODDICK SCREENFLANDERS.COM FOLLOW US ON end credits TAKE 33 / AUTUMN 2015 / 3,99 COVER / Robin Pront & Jeroen Perceval by Filip Van Roe EDITOR / Christian De Schutter DEPUTY EDITOR + ART DIRECTION Nathalie Capiau CONTENT / Nick Roddick COPY EDITOR / Jo Roddick ART DIRECTION / Karin Pays DIGITAL Saidja Callewaert / Mathieu Van Neck Jo Roddick / Nick Roddick When you have finished this publication, please give it to your library or recycle it PHOTO CREDITS P 4-5 Johan Jacobs P 7 Ward Verrijcken (Schoenaerts), Thomas Vanhaute (van Groeningen) All other stills copyrighted by the respective producers PRINT / wilda.be SUBSCRIPTIONS By post / 10 / year (three issues) Info / flandersimage@vaf.be This magazine is also available for free via the App Store, and can be consulted on issuu.com More news and features on YOUR PREFERENTIAL CO-PRODUCTION PARTNER NEXT APPLICATION DEADLINE: 11 DECEMBER PUBLISHED BY Flanders Image/VAF Flanders Film House Bischoffsheimlaan 38 / B-1000 Brussels Belgium/EU T / F E flandersimage@vaf.be Flanders Image is a division of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) SPECIAL THANKS TO / Albert Bimmel, Gudrun Burie, Dirk Cools, Myriam De Boeck, Pierre Drouot, Siebe Dumon, Evert Eriksson, Katrien Maes, Erik Martens, Karla Puttemans, An Ratinckx, Jan Roekens, Koen Salmon, Dirk Schoenmaekers, Katrijn Steylaerts, Tom Van der Elst, Karen Van Hellemont, Barbara Van Lombeek, Marijke Vandebuerie, Leen Vanderschueren, Sander Vanhellemont, Stijn Verbruggen, Ward Verrijcken, Helga Vinck + all the filmmakers and producers who helped on this issue.

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