15/09/2022 - The Belgian filmmaker and theatre director has just kicked off filming on his new feature

It was yesterday that shooting began on The Other Laurens [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Claude Schmitz
film profile], the new feature film by Belgian director Claude Schmitz. Discovered by way of his world-acclaimed medium-length movies (Mali (In Africa), Rien sauf l’été and Carwash [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which won the Jean Vigo Prize in 2019), he unveiled his “lightweight” debut feature film Lucie Loses Her Horse [+see also:
film review
interview: Claude Schmitz
film profile] last year, a kind of hybrid project inspired by a video installation which was designed for a stage play but which was ultimately turned into a film project through good luck, though also necessity, on account of the health crisis. The movie focuses on the professional development of touring actor Lucie, as well as that of the many different creative brains involved in this theatre-project-turned-film.

The Other Laurens sees Schmitz making his return with a more classical feature film, in production terms. The movie follows in the footsteps of Gabriel Laurens, a private detective for whom suspicion and trailing designated individuals is his murky, everyday life. When his fifteen-year-old niece Jade bursts into his life, asking him to investigate her father’s death, memories which he’d believed dead and buried gush back into the detective’s mind. Confronted with the ghosts of his past, he finds himself getting to grips with a strange investigation, characterised by false pretences, fantasies and drugs trafficking.

French actor Olivier Rabourdin, who recently starred in Benedetta [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and the series L'Absente, and whom we’ll be seeing at the beginning of October in Léopold Legrand’s Le Sixième Enfant [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], plays the role of Gabriel Laurens. We also come across the enigmatic Marc Barbé (who also featured in Carwash), as well as Flemish actor Tibo Vandenborre and the unforgettable hero of Carwash Francis Soetens.

Shooting will take place between 14 September and 31 October in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in the Périgord noir region, on the French-Spanish border and, lastly, in Brussels.

The Other Laurens is produced by Benoît Roland on behalf of Wrong Men in Belgium and by Jérémy Forni on behalf of Chevaldeuxtrois in France, who are thus continuing a fruitful collaboration which already saw them join forces on Claude Schmitz’s previous films, as well as on Rachel Lang’s works (Our Men [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rachel Lang
film profile] and Baden Baden [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]). In Locarno, meanwhile, Wrong Men have just unveiled Tengo sueños eléctricos [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valentina Maurel
film profile], Valentina Maurel’s first feature film which subsequently walked away with the Best Direction, Best Actor and Best Actress trophies.

The Other Laurens was awarded support from the Wallonia Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre, as well as from Belgium’s National Film and Animation Centre, Wallimage, Creative Media and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Dordogne regions.

(Translated from French)