24/08/2020 - Belgian public television starts filming on Baraki, its first 26’ format series, Coyotes and Pandore, as post-production on Unseen is wrapping up

The RTBF and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation continue their joint program of TV series production, hoping to find successors to La Trêve, Unité 42 or Ennemi Public. The COVID-19 crisis has interrupted the filming of Unseen only a few days before wrapping (the last takes were finally shot in June and the show should be broadcast some time in Autumn), and has delayed that of Pandore. But this Summer saw the return to film sets in order to guarantee new content to broadcast in 2021.

The first production to get started is Baraki, a series by Julien Vargas, Peter Ninane and Fred de Loof, which follows the trials and tribulations of a working-class family (people referred to as “baraki,” a belgian term rather impossible to translate). It will be the first comedy supported by the fund to have been conceptualised for a 26’ format, and it will be directed by 4 promising young filmmakers: Fred de Loof, Adolf El Assal, Adriana Da Fonseca and Bérengère McNeese. In production, we find Koko Arrose La Culture as well as 10:80 Films, the organisation founded by producer Benoît Roland and filmmaker Nabil Ben Yadir.

Last week, filming also began on Coyotes, a series also typically anchored in the belgian territory since it follows the unusual Summer of a troop of scouts – a true institution in Belgium – facing an overwhelming situation. Created by Vincent Lavachery and Axel du Bus, the show is directed by Belgian filmmaker Gary Seghers (director on Ennemi Public) and Luxembourg filmmaker Jacques Molitor. It is the fund’s first series to be co-produced abroad, with Les Films Fauves in Luxembourg. In Belgium, it is supported by Panache Productions and La Compagnie Cinématographique.

Finally, filming will beginning on Pandore in September (when it should have taken plane in the Spring), a political-legal show imagined by comedian Anne Coesens (who will also play one of the leads), and filmmakers Savina Dellicour (All Cats Are Grey [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Vania Leturcq (Next Year [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), who will be directing. In the cast of this show produced by Artemis Productions, we will also find Yoann Blanc, hero of the first success story of the fund, La Trêve, and young comedian and director Salomé Richard.

(Translated from French by Manuela Lazic)