31/08/2012 - Dominique Deruddere has just kicked off filming for his ninth film, Flying Home, a romantic comedy set in the world of pigeon racing

Dominique Deruddere has just started filming the Flemish scenes for his next film, Flying Home, a film starring… pigeons. Or rather, a film about pigeon racing. And there’s no joking around about pigeon racing in Belgium, where it’s a real sport. (People even talk of the sport of pigeon racing!)

This new film promises to be interesting. As Deruddere is not one to do things by half, he has imagined an international romantic plot featuring a sheikh from Dubai, a special correspondent from New York played by an ex-Calvin Klein model (Irish actor Jamie Dornan), a Belgian newcomer (Charlotte De Bruyn who is soon to appear in Little Black Spiders), and a stubborn Flemish breeder (the intense Jan Decleir). Loyal both in work and to his friends, Deruddere has also given a pivotal role to Josse de Pauw, the hero of his first feature, Crazy Love, an off-the-wall adaptation of a Bukowski novel that in 1990 won him the award for Best Flemish Film of the Last 25 Years. Even if he films relatively little (he made his last film Firmin in 2007), Deruddere’s unusual and international career has earned him a special spot in Belgian cinema. Right after his first film, he shot two international productions (Wait until Spring, Bandini, based on a novel by John Fante, and then Suite 16). In 2000, his fifth film, Everybody’s Famous, competed for the Oscar for best film in a foreign language. In 2005, he filmed The Wedding Party in Germany.

Flying Home is to be shot mostly in English. After 15 days of filming in Waton in Flanders, the set will then move to New York. The film is produced by Otomatic (Dominique Deruddere’s own company), and notably received support from the Vlaams Audiovisuel Fonds.

(Translated from French)