09/07/2021 - The first 2021 session of the Commission gave its support to 56 film projects, including 21 features

Director Olivier Masset-Depasse, whose Largo Winch project has been selected

The Cinema Commission of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation has attributed 3,424 million euros to 56 film projects which are receiving a promise of writing, development or production aid.

Amongst these, we find three majority production aids, of which one is attributed to the upcoming project from Olivier Masset-Depasse (8 Magritte awards for his latest film, Mothers’ Instinct [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Masset-Depasse
film profile], and from whom we are expecting the American remake starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway), The Price of Money: A Largo Winch Adventure [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Masset-Depasse
film profile]. In this film, the Belgian filmmaker follows the tribulations of the billionaire adventurer created by Jean Van Hamme, whose adventures have already been adapted twice for the cinema by director Jérôme Salle (Largo Winch [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Largo Winch II: The Burma Conspiracy [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). The director intends to make his mark and probe the darkness of the capitalist hell into which the hero plunges. The film is produced by Versus Production (Belgium) and Pan-Européenne (France). To note that Masset-Depasse is also receiving a writing aid for the adaptation of the novel Le Champ de Bataille by Jérôme Colin.

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The Commission is also supporting the production of two first features. Pablo Munoz Gomez is adapting his documentary Integration Inch’Allah into a fiction feature, which will follow the traces of four Arabic-speaking newcomers who, to try and rebuild their lives in France, have to do 200 hours of French and thus validate their “Republican Integration Contract.” The film is also produced by Versus Production.

After presenting two short in Cannes (Paul est là, Cinéfondation prize in 2017, and Lucia en el limbo, selected in Critics’ Week in 2019), Valentina Maurel is moving to feature work with Jardin en llamas, the story of Eva, a teenager facing the consequences of her parents’ divorce. The film is produced by Wrong Men.

Also to be remarked is that the Commission granted an aid to Close, the new film from Lukas Dhont, produced by Menuet (Belgium), Versus Production (Belgium) and Topkapi Films (Netherlands), whose shoot just began, and to four other projects in artistic development: Maldoror [+see also:
film review
interview: Fabrice Du Welz
film profile] by Fabrice du Welz (Frakas Productions), Parricide by Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi (10:80 Films), La vie nouvelle de J-Y Machond by Stefan Liberski (Velvet Films), and Sunshine by Chloé Léonil (Stenola Productions).

(Translated from French)