28/02/2023 - Regional investment fund is throwing its weight behind 7 new fiction, series and animation projects following its 21st financing session

The 21st funding session led by screen.brussels has resulted in a decidedly Belgian line-up, with support winging its way to some long-awaited new films by established local filmmakers.

In terms of fiction, the fund has selected the new project by Fabrice Du Welz, a decidedly prolific director who previously gave us Inexorable [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fabrice Du Welz
film profile], presented in Toronto in 2021, and Adoration [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fabrice du Welz
film profile], presented in Locarno in 2020. Du Welz is currently in the midst of producing Maldoror, a film noir–investigative thriller which is once again steeped in mystery (read our interview with Fabrice Du Welz). Co-written by Domenico La Porta, the film will be produced by Frakas Production in Belgium and co-produced by The Jokers in France.

This session also marked the return of two other genre film specialists: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, whose new film has been hotly anticipated since their hard-hitting movie Let the Corpses Tan [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
film profile] was released in 2018. This will be a large-scale, international co-production carried by Kozak Films (Belgium) and supported by Savage Film (Belgium), Tobina Film (France), Les Films Fauves (Luxembourg) and Dandy Projects (Italy). The story revolves around John D, a seventy-something man living in a luxury hotel on the Côte d’Azur, who’s intrigued by his neighbour across the hall who reminds him of the craziest times he experienced on the Riviera in the ‘60s. At the time, he was a spy in a rapidly growing world full of promise. One day, this neighbour mysteriously disappears... leaving John once again confronted with his demons: have his adversaries of former times returned to sow chaos in his idyllic world?

The last fiction feature film to receive backing is Solange Cicurel’s TKT, starring Emilie Dequenne. The director who made her name with two vitaminised comedies, Don’t Tell Her [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Isn’t She Lovely [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Solange Cicurel
film profile], is changing register and trying her hand at a fantastical-style dramedy, telling the tale of confident, 16-year-old Emma who’s popular at high school but who falls into a coma. Why? What happened? In order to understand, she becomes a "ghost" for a few days. The film will be carried by Beluga Tree (Belgium) in co-production with Deal Productions (Luxembourg).

screen.brussels has also opted to award aid to Sylvain Chomet’s new project. Following the success of Belleville Rendez-Vous [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Illusionist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sylvain Chomet
film profile], the director is returning with an animated biopic about Marcel Pagnol. When, in 1955, Elle magazine commissions a column on the famous writer’s childhood, he sees it as an opportunity to get back to where he started: writing. Realising that his memory is failing him and affected by the mixed success of his latest plays, Pagnol begins to doubt himself. Until little Marcel – the boy he once was – appears to him as if by magic... The movie is produced by Onyx Films and What the Prod in France, in co-production with Walking the Dog (Belgium) and Bidibul Productions (Luxembourg).

Other projects supported off the back of this 21st session are the documentary Les Snuls, de toute façon, dans 20 minutes vous aurez tout oublié by Guillermo Guiz and Gilles Dal, as well as season 2 of the series Pandore, created by Anne Coesens, Savina Dellicour and Vania Leturcq, and the first season of Putain by Deben Van Damme, Frederik Willem Daem and Gorik van Oudheusden (aka Zwangere Guy, a well-known rapper on the Belgian scene).

(Translated from French)