23/07/2007

Selected for the 22nd International Critics’ Week (SIC) (August 30-September 8) at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, Small Gods [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is for the time Belgium’s only representative on the Lido.

The feature debut is also competing for the Lion of the Future award. After several shorts, Dimitri Karakatsanis, who previously directed commercials, set out on the adventure of making his first feature, which he also wrote. Small Gods was shot in 35 mm by his brother, cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis.

After making several requests for funding that fell on deaf ears, the two brothers decided to finance the film themselves working with a team that previously directed the first ten minutes of their film three years ago.

Re-written since then and filmed over a year, Small Gods is a road movie on the grief that brings together an adventurous and melancholic group of three characters each as lost as the other.

Elena (Steffi Peeters) loses her son in a car accident. While convalescing in hospital after the accident, she is kidnapped by a stranger (Titus De Voogt of Steve + Sky , soon to star in Ben X ), who brings her on a journey where they meet up with a young girl, a mute orphan.

Self-produced by Karakatsanis brothers (through Kanibal Films) for €50,000, Small Gods, once completed, found a producer (CCCP, Ruben Goots & Koen Mortier), completion support from the Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (€60,000) and a sales agent (who is also distributing the title in France), French outfit Insomnia World Sales.

In Belgium, the film will be presented at the upcoming Ghent Film Festival and is slated for an autumn release through A-Film Distribution in Belgium and the Netherlands.

(Translated from French)