27/05/2010

Filming started on Tuesday on Hot Hot Hot, the feature debut of young Luxembourg director Beryl Koltz.. The English-language feature is a co-production between Luxembourg, Austria and Belgium and will shoot for 37 days.

British actor Rob Stanley, who also appeared in Koltz’s shorts Your Chicken Died of Hunger and Starfly, plays the lead. The film is set in the world of saunas and hammams, though the exact story is being kept under wraps.

The film will be mainly shot in Luxembourg, with four shooting days planned in Verviers, Belgium. Stanley is joined on set by fellow Brits Joanna Scanlan (The Kick of It, Little Britain) and Gary Cady (Erik the Viking).

Some of the best Luxembourg technicians are part of the crew, including cinematographer Jako Raybaut (The Unemployment Club), sound engineer Carlo Thoss, production designer Christina Schaffer (who won a special prize during the 2009 Filmpräis awards for her recent work on a staggering nine films), costume designer Uli Simon and editor Amine Jaber, who also cut together Luxembourg director Max Jacoby’s debut, Dust, last year. Jaber and many others have worked with Koltz on her award-winning shorts.

Claude Waringo produces for Samsa Film, in co-production with Vienna-based Amour Fou Filmproduktion and Belgian outfit Artémis. The film is backed by the Luxembourg Film Fund.

Koltz also has Strangers in the Night, a documentary about a Luxembourg man obsessed with virtual online world Second Life, in post-production. That film is produced by Lucil Film’s Bernard Michaux.