Van Groeningen picks up pen, Enthoven launches into fifth feature
The Vlaams Audiovisual Fund (VAF) has announced the results of its March funding committee session, which was partly devoted to narrative features. The list of selected projects is a perfect illustration of the diversity of Flemish films.
Three projects will receive a writing grant, including the new, improbably-titled work by Felix Van Groeningen (The Misfortunates [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felix van Groeningen
film profile]): The Broken Circle Breakdown Featuring the Cover-ups of Alabama. Van Groeningen is once again embarking on an adaptation, this time of a successful comedy musical written by Johan Heldenbergh.
Set to songs, the play explores how two country musicians grieve for the child they have just lost. Menuet is expected to handle production, and Van Groeningen will co-write the script with Carl Joos (The K File [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).
Bart van den Bempt’s Conversation with the Sun and Kevin van Doorslaer’s Van Stad Tot Stad will also get writing grants, while Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth (Altiplano [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) will receive development funding for their new project, The Fifth Season.
On the production side, Geoffrey Enthoven is setting to work on his fifth feature. After focusing on a group of elderly women who decide to take to the stage again in The Over the Hill Band [+see also:
trailer
film profile], this time the director turns his hand to a tragicomic road movie. It follows three young disabled men who travel to Spain to lose their virginity in a rather unusual establishment.
The film is based on a BBC documentary, For One Night Only. It will be produced by Fobic Films.
A production grant will also go to Benny Vandendriessche’s atypical project Drift, which traces the wanderings of Belgian artist Dirk Hendrickx in nine episodes; and puppeteer Jan Maillard, who makes the transition to features with The Big Bad Movie.
Finally, as part of the mutual support agreement signed with the French Community Film Centre, the VAF will also back Joachim Lafosse’s latest, Aimer à Perdre la Raison (“To Be Madly In Love”), produced by Prime Time and Versus.
(Translated from French)
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
