05/06/2023 - Filming has kicked off on the Belgian director’s first feature film, produced by Dragons Films and co-produced by Same Player in France

Actress Sophie Breyer (© Aurore Engelen/Cinevox)

Shooting has commenced today, 5 June, on Discordia, which is the debut feature film by Belgian director Matthieu Reynaert, who notably gave us the short film Hey Joe, but is also the co-writer of Joachim Lafosse’s Loving Without Reason [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Lafosse
film profile] and Luc Jabon’s Les Survivants [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

The story revolves around a middle-aged lumberjack who lives like a hermit in a cursed forest. Fifteen years before, a mysterious tribe took his daughter from him. He has searched the whole wide world looking for her, but all in vain. As he returns to his starting point, it turns out his daughter is the one to find him. But she’s been followed... A dark forest, a widowed lumberjack, a lonely and mysterious young woman… It all makes for an intriguing and surprising tale, conjuring up a fantastical, timeless universe reminiscent of fairy tales and myth. With the feel of a heroic fantasy story, the author actually intended it to be an intimist fantasy story and an outdoor huis-clos; a genre film, in other words - still a rare thing in French-language Belgian cinema – revolving around a handful of strong characters and a place which invites phantasmagoria.

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Stepping into the shoes of the intrepid heroine is young Belgian actress Sophie Breyer, who revealed herself to wider audiences in the three series The Break, Laetitia and Baraki, and who recently dazzled in Christophe Hermans’ The Hive [+see also:
film review
interview: Christophe Hermans
film profile], scooping the Rising Star Award at the Rome Film Festival and the Magritte for Best Female Newcomer back in February. Joining her in the cast are Thierry Hellin and Soufian El Boubsi.

Discordia is produced by Stéphane Lhoest on behalf of Dragons Films, who were also notably responsible for Laura Wandel’s highly successful debut feature film Playground [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Wandel
film profile], selected in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. The film also received backing from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre, as well as from Be TV, RTL and Tax Shelter. Co-produced in France by Same Player, filming on the feature is set to continue in Belgium until 27 June.

Discordia enjoyed aid from the lightweight production support scheme which was initiated by the WBF with the dual objective of facilitating directors’ transition to feature films and encouraging narrative and aesthetic risk-taking by welcoming genre films with curiosity and openness. A wide range of films have benefitted from the initiative since its launch, including Madly in Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Raphaël Balboni & Ann Sirot
film profile], an unusual comedy about the impact of neuro-degenerative illnesses on families by Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni, which went on to win awards in multiple festivals and bagged 7 Magritte awards; the trashy, schoolkid comedy selected for Sundance Mother Schmuckers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Harpo and Lenny Guit
film profile] by Lenny and Harpo Guit; Aya [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Simon Coulibaly Gillard
film profile], an intimist portrait, buoyed by a documentarian approach, of a young woman from the Ivory Coast torn between tradition and modernity, by Simon Coulibaly Gillard; It’s Raining in the House [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paloma Sermon-Daï
film profile] by Paloma Sermon-Daï, which was selected for this year’s Critics’ week where it won the Jury Prize; and Lost Children [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michèle Jacob
film profile] by Michèle Jacob, whose selection in Karlovy Vary has just been announced.

(Translated from French)