19/09/2025 - The film centre has selected 59 new movie projects in its first session of 2025

Director Valentina Maurel, who’s been selected with her new project À jamais ton animal maternel (© Aurore Engelen)

The Ministry of Culture has approved support awarded by the commission linked to the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre to 59 film projects, 25 of which are feature films. The members of the commission most notably granted production aid to two young auteurs whose second feature films we await with interest.

Valentina Maurel presented her first feature, I Have Electric Dreams [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valentina Maurel
film profile], at the Locarno Film Festival, where it scooped three prizes. She’s returning with a new project, A jamais ton animal maternel, which is once again set in Costa Rica, her country of origin, and which sees her exploring family tensions from a new angle, focusing on 28-year-old Elsa’s return to San José as she navigates between her mentally unstable sister, Amalia, and her disengaged parents. The film will be produced by Benoit Roland on behalf of Wrong Men, as per her previous title.

Another highly awaited second feature is coming courtesy of Emmanuel Marre, who presented Zero Fucks Given [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuel Marre and Julie Le…
film profile], co-directed by Julie Lecoustre, in Critics’ Week, where the film bagged the Gan Foundation Prize. Marre is returning with Notre salut, a historical movie which sees the director delving into his family history to paint the portrait of a normal man yearning for recognition who tries to create a space for himself in the Vichy regime. The film was already shot back in the spring, with Swann Arlaud playing the lead (read our news).

The film commission is also throwing its weight behind Le Fils du poète, directed by Nicolas Graux, who has just presented the documentary Hair, Paper, Water [+see also:
film review
film profile] - co-directed by Truong Minh Quy - in Locarno. This will be Graux’s first fiction feature, thrusting us alongside a young 26-year-old Russian called Sénia as he tries to avoid conscription at the height of the war in Ukraine. The movie is produced by Joseph Rouschop on behalf of Tarantula.

Le Faux Soir is far from being the first film by Michael R. Roskam (Bullhead [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bart Van Langendonck
interview: Michaël R. Roskam
film profile], The Drop, Racer and the Jailbird [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Roskam
film profile]), but it’s the first time Frakas Productions (Cassandre Warnauts and Jean-Yves Roubin) are taking the lead on one of his works. And for good reason: Le Faux Soir looks back on a glorious episode of Belgian resistance, offering audiences a movie which is ambitious in its historical reconstruction and entertaining in its form. The ever-brilliant, recent César winner Arieh Worthalter will lead the five-star cast, which also includes young Belgian actress Mara Taquin alongside Mélanie Thierry, Bouli Lanners and the latest recipient of the Best Actor César, Karim Leklou, to name just a few. Shooting will kick off imminently.

Last but not least, Night Vision - directed by Christopher Yates and produced by Rebeka Films – is benefitting from completion support, while Fabrice Du Welz - whose film is also being produced by Frakas Productions - has been granted development aid for Caoutchouc, alongside Aline Magrez for Dissonance, (also courtesy of Frakas), Noémie Nicolas for Johanne plonge (via Wrong Men), Sung-A Yoon for Le Sourire de Min Joo (via Michigan), and Basile Vuillemin for Les Silencieux (a feature film adaptation of Vuillemin’s short film, Les Silencieux, which scooped the Magritte for Best Short Film and is set to be produced by Versus).

(Translated from French)