screen.brussels supports Micha Wald and Olivier Pairoux
- The Brussels regional investment fund is supporting 10 new projects with almost a million euros, with L’Île de la demoiselle and Vigilante in the lead
For its first session of 2025, screen.brussels is investing in 10 projects for a total sum of 999.000€, amongst which are the new films by Micha Wald and Olivier Pairoux.
The first (the director of In The Arms of My Enemy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], selected in Cannes’ Critics’ Week, and Simon Konianski [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Micha Wald, director of Sim…
film profile]) shot his third feature at the end of 2024, titled L'Île de la demoiselle and freely inspired by the true and forgotten story of Marguerite de la Rocque, played by young Belgian actress Salomé Dewaels (discovered in Lost Illusions [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Xavier Giannoli
film profile], and seen a few months ago in Headwind). In 1542, during Jacques Cartier’s second mission in Canada, the young Marguerite de la Rocque, pregnant by another man than her future husband who is leading of the expedition, is abandoned on a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland with the man who raped her and her female companion (read the news).
As for Olivier Pairoux (SpaceBoy [+see also:
film review
interview: Olivier Pairoux
film profile]), he is currently shooting between Brussels and Charleroi his second feature, Vigilante, with a first leading role in cinema for French musician Eddy de Pretto. The film paints the portrait of Morville, a solitary thirtysomething who has become a vigilante, tricking pedophiles by pretending to be a child on social media (read the news).
screen.brussels is also supporting the new project by prolific Brussels animation studio nWave (The Inseparables [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jérémie Degruson and Matthi…
film profile], The Queen’s Corgi [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Stassen
film profile], The Son of Bigfoot [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Stassen
film profile]), which is currently producing its new film, Yugly, the story of the kindest dog you’ve ever met… but also the ugliest. Yugly is directed by Jérémie Degruson and Yanis Belaid, and co-produced in France by Octopolis.
The fourth supported feature film is The Wolf Will Tear Your Immaculate Hands by Costa Rican and Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, noted for her excellent debut feature Clara Sola [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nathalie Álvarez Mesén
film profile] presented in Directors’ Fortnight. This gothic drama, co-written with Icelandic writer Sjon (who has already co-written Lamb [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valdimar Jóhannsson
film profile] and The Northman), begins in the rural America of the Pacific North in the 19th century, where Isabel, a Native American governess, is sent to the home of an English family in order to instill Christian values in its two young daughters, following the tragic death of their mother. The upcoming arranged marriage of the eldest, the fathers’s obsession with wolf hunting and the appearance of inexplicable phenomena make tension rise in the home. The film is produced by Hobab (Sweden) and co-produced by Quiddity (UK) and Need Productions in Belgium.
Finally, this new session has given out an aid to a documentary project (Ne jamais gaspiller une bonne crise by Sergio Ghizzardi) and five series (the fiction series Alma, directed by Julien Henry and Gary Seghers, the documentary series Mag ik (ik) zijn? by Frederike Migom and three animated series).
(Translated from French)
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