24/04/2008

After the selection of their previous films Rosetta, The Son [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
film profile], the Dardenne brothers will once again be in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival with The Silence of Lorna [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arta Dobroshi
interview: Arta Dobroshi
interview: Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne
interview: Olivier Bronckart
film profile].

The Dardenne brothers have never left Cannes empty-handed: Rosetta picked up the Palme d’Or and Best Actress Award (Emilie Dequenne) in 1999; The Son received the Best Actor Award (Olivier Gourmet) in 2002; and The Child won the Palme d’Or in 2005.

Moreover, The Promise – which screened in the Directors’ Fortnight in 1996 – caused a sensation and received the CICAE Award.

Filmed last autumn in the Liège region, The Silence of Lorna is produced by Olivier Bronckart for Les Films du Fleuve, the Dardennes’ production company, in collaboration with the RTBF.

Their usual French partner, Denis Freyd (for Archipel 35), is handling international sales, along with Celluloid Dreams. For the first time, the Dardenne brothers also had co-production support from Arte France Cinéma.

The film – whose budget is estimated to be almost €4m – received backing from the Film and Audiovisual Centre of the French Community of Belgium, an advance on receipts from the National Centre for Cinematography (CNC), European co-production funding from Eurimages, production support from Wallimage, and tax shelter funding from Inver Invest, provided by four Belgian partners, including Les Films du Fleuve.

Following the Cannes announcement, more information has been gleaned about The Silence of Lorna, which has been kept under wraps until now.

Lorna (Arta Dobroshi, a young Albanian actress from Kosovo), is trying to get the correct papers together so she can stay in Belgium and fulfil her dream of opening a shop in Liège. Encouraged by her friend Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione), she agrees to a marriage of convenience with a young drug addict, Claudy (Jérémie Rénier). Lorna hopes for his imminent demise but her dream is thwarted by Claudy’s desire to break free from his drug dependency.

(Translated from French)