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RELEASES Belgium

Wat Mannen Willen: Actor Filip Peteers tries his hand at a rom-com

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- The adaptation of a German box-office smash should also appeal to Flemish viewers, thanks in particular to its impressive cast

Wat Mannen Willen: Actor Filip Peteers tries his hand at a rom-com
Adriaan van den Hoof and Evelien Bosmans in Wat Mannen Willen

Today sees the Belgian release of the directorial feature debut by actor Filip Peeters. Wat Mannen Willen [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
is a 100% Flemish film, a kind of Love Actually [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
relocated to Belgium, starring a host of actors who are well known to local audiences, and a soundtrack partly composed by a similarly well-known pop singer/actor. All the ingredients are therefore in the mix to turn it into the perfect end-of-year feel-good movie, an offering that should hit screens at just the right moment, assuming that the security situation doesn’t keep the public away from theatres too much.

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Wat Mannen Willen thus falls within the grand tradition of the romantic ensemble movie, which gained popularity largely thanks to Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually, and which has already given rise to similar titles in Flanders in the past, especially with Zot van A and Brasserie Romantiek [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. Nevertheless, Wat Men Willen offers a minor alteration to the paradigm, as the film lingers more over the romantic procrastination of the male sex. Incidentally, it is an adaptation of a German comedy by Simon Verhoeven, Männerherzen [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, which came out in 2009, and which drew in over two million viewers, spawning a sequel in 2011. It was adapted for the Netherlands in 2013 under the title Mannenharten [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and also proved to be such a great success that a sequel to it has been announced. 

Having appeared in such titles as Loft [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and in the series Salamander, Filip Peeters has now surrounded himself with such names as Tom Audenaert (Come As You Are [+see also:
trailer
interview: Geoffrey Enthoven
film profile
]
, Halfway
 [+see also:
film review
interview: Geoffrey Enthoven
film profile
]
), Gene Bervoets (Borgman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alex van Varmerdam
interview: Reinout Scholten van Aschat
film profile
]
), Evelien Bosmans (Marina [+see also:
trailer
interview: Cristiano Bortone
film profile
]
), Jonas Van Geel, Adriaan Van den Hoof, Louis Talpe, Ben Segers, Ruth Becquart and Nathalie Meskens. The movie was produced by Yoshi Aesaert for Marmalade Films, in co-production with Dutch outfit Lion Film Productions. The film received support from Screen Flanders, and Kinepolis Film Distribution is releasing it in around 30 theatres across Flanders, as well as in one cinema in Brussels.

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(Translated from French)

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