08/05/2008

Wallimage are celebrating their 30th session in style whilst highlighting the wide variety of film projects they support in French-speaking Belgium. The investment fund have chosen to back three very different films: one based on a famous comic, another about a photographer atop the Andes and a third about zombies.

Laurent Tirard’s Le Petit Nicolas is a film adaptation of the adventures of Sempé and Goscinny’s well-known character. Co-written by the director and Alain Chabat, among others, the title is already shaping up to be one of the highlights of 2009.

The young hero thus gets a homecoming, as Le Petit Nicolas was first published in the Belgian newspaper Le Moustique 50 years ago. The film will have an impressive cast, including Valérie Lemercier, Kad Mérad, Sandrine Kiberlain and Edouard Baer, who will appear alongside a host of mischievous children.

Le Petit Nicolas – which is set to start shooting at the end of May and will be set in France and Belgium – is produced by Fidélité Films (France) and Scope Pictures (Belgium).

After The Colour of Water [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jessica Woodworth
interview: Jessica Woodworth
film profile], which won the Lion of the Future at the Venice Film Festival, directorial duo Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth are back with Fragments of Grace.

After their Mongolian-set title, the directors will head off to Peru for a drama about sacrifice and redemption, with additional backing from the Vlaams Audiovisual Fund, the Film and Audiovisual Centre of the French Community of Belgium, and the Dutch Film Fund.

Finally, Versus Production (Belgium) are setting to work on a genre film. Inspired by the illustrious directors George Romero and John Carpenter, Giordano Gederlini is launching an army of living dead in the Battle of the Ardennes in Black Jack.

Co-produced by Noodles Productions (France), the film will start shooting in June and is expected to hit screens in February 2009.

(Translated from French)