Download pdf - Flanders Image

#15 | Autumn 2009 | e 3,50
Ella-June
FOREVER!
hARESAy
Jan Bultheel’s
Hareport
BElgium OR
BOllywOOd
Indra Siera on Old Belgium
All thAt JEF
Misfortunates composer Jef Neve
www.flandersimage.com

2
French journalist alex Masson recently interviewed soMe 20 eMerging FilMMaking talents FroM
Flanders. the interviews can be Found in ‘belgian cineMa FroM Flanders – interviews with a new
generation oF FilMMakers’ which is due to coMe out in septeMber. a French-language version (‘l’autre
cineMa belge – le renouveau FlaMand: entretiens avec une nouvelle generation de cinéastes’) is also
available. the portraits are FroM bart dewaele. to order your copy: FlandersiMage@vaF.be.

Inside
04 WIDESCREEN
Dorothée van den Berghe’s My Queen Karo, which will be premiering
at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival
07 SNEAK PEAK
A first glimpse at Jan Verheyen’s Dossier K, the long-awaited follow-up
to The Alzheimer Case (Memory of a Killer)
08 CHAT
Bo director Hans Herbots introduces his young lead actress,
Ella-June Henrard
14 PRODUCER
Producer Tomas Leyers had his first feature selected for this year’s
International Critic’s Week in Cannes
16 MAVERICK
Felix van Groeningen on directing The Misfortunates, which after playing
at Cannes is now heading for Toronto and The Hamptons
20 ANI.BE
The making of Hareport turned out to be a lengthy journey, as its creator,
Jan Bultheel, explains
22 IN FOCUS
Indra Siera likes to have complete control when it comes to making films
26 CRAFTSMANSHIP
Jazz pianist and composer Jef Neve about scoring for film
28 SEEN
Flanders Image’s Cannes 2009 photo album
30 UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Geoffrey Enthoven, whose The Over the Hill Band is selected for this year’s
Montreal World Film Fest, talks about the things that inspire him
32 HOTSPOT
Eyeworks producer Gunter Schmid on his favourite spots in Ghent
34 FANS
Focus Features CEO James Shamus talks about one of his favourite films
from Flanders
3

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My Queen
Karo
receiving its premiere at this year's toronto international Film Festival is dorothée van den
berghe's second feature, My Queen Karo, starring anna Franziska jäger, Matthias schoenaerts
and césar winner déborah François.
ten-year-old karo lives with her parents in an amsterdam commune in the 70s. an only child,
she leads a carefree existence in this utopia-for-adults where everything is to be shared by
everyone. however it soon turns out that not all commune members are able to honour these
ideals. karo is torn between her love for her mother and her loyalty towards her father and his
ideals as she comes to realise that nothing can stay the same forever. producers are Frank
van passel, bert hamelinck and kato Maes for caviar in brussels. doc & Film international
represents the film internationally.

5
widescreen

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Your contact Karl DESMET: +32 2 352 25 61

DECEMBER 2009 WILL SEE THE UNVEILINg
OF DOSSIER K, THE LONg-AWAITED FOLLOW-
UP TO ERIK VAN LOOy’S 2003 HIT MOVIE THE
ALzHEIMER CASE (AKA MEMORy OF A KILLER).
IT ALSO MARKS DIRECTOR JAN VERHEyEN’S
TENTH FEATURE AND AFTER SUCH FILMS
AS CUT LOOSE, TEAM SPIRIT, gILLES AND
EVERyTHINg MUST gO, IT’S HIS MOST
AMBITIOUS PROJECT TO DATE.
THE KANuN CASE
koen de bouw and werner de smedt are back as antwerp’s top crime investigators vincke and
verstuyft. this time though, instead of chasing a contract killer, they are confronted with arms
traffickers and a war within the albanian mob.
when nazim finds out that his father has been killed in antwerp, he turns to the centuries-old
albanian kanun laws that specify how murder is supposed to be handled. a bloody gang war
is the result. vincke links nazim’s father’s killing to a widespread arms trafficking network that
he successfully dismantles, but step by step, both crime investigators begin to realise that they
have been manipulated.
also starring are hilde de baerdemaeker, Marieke dilles (who won a Fipa d’or earlier this
year for her role in The Emperor of Taste), Filip peeters, blerim destani, r.kan albay and greg
timmermans (Ben X).
based on the novel by jef geeraerts, and adapted by carl joos and erik van looy, Dossier K is
produced by erwin provoost and peter bouckaert for eyeworks Film & tv drama.
director jan verheyen (r)
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sneak peak

8
A star is BOrn
WHEN HANS HERBOTS SAW ELLA-JUNE HENRARD ACTINg IN A STUDENT SHORT, HE KNEW SHE WAS
RIgHT FOR HIS NExT FEATURE. FOR ELLA, AgED 15 AND STILL AT DRAMA SCHOOL, IT WAS THE CHANCE
OF A LIFETIME. THE RESULT OF THEIR COLLABORATION IS BO, THE STORy OF A yOUNg gIRL WHOSE
yEARNINg FOR THE HIgH LIFE LEADS HER INTO DANgEROUS COMPANy. By Ian Mundell
the project had been at the back of director hans herbots’ mind for
four or five years, after he picked up a copy of dirk bracke’s novel 'het
engelenhuis' by chance in a bookshop. it’s the story of a girl in her
early teens who drifts into prostitution under the influence of a story of
a girlfriend who works as an ‘escort’ and an older man, a ‘lover boy’.
‘what struck me in the book is that here is a girl who sees no problem
with that,’ he recalls. ‘i thought that was an interesting thing to work
around: someone of that age, making that decision, and not having a
problem with it, but slowly being drawn into that world and ultimately
getting into trouble.’
at that time herbots had already directed Falling, based on a book for
young people by popular Flemish author anne provoost. but before he
could move forward with dirk bracke’s book, other projects came to
fruition. there was Long Weekend, a comedy with a social conscience
which escaped its intended fate as a tv movie and became a huge hit
in cinemas. then there was the big-budget action film Storm Force,
about the personal rivalries within an air-sea rescue team working
along the belgian coast, which was one of the best selling local films
of 2006.
‘i always like to tell different stories,’ herbots explains, ‘although they
all have something in common, such as a character or a theme. but
i like the different forms of storytelling. i think this film is smaller and
more intimate, and closer to my first film.’
while Bo is also based on a book written for younger readers, herbots
thinks that by bringing it to the big screen the story can be given a
broader appeal. ‘i think we are aiming at the same audience as, for

example, Kids by larry clarke or Thirteen [by catherine hardwicke].
adolescents will see the movie differently from people in their thirties,
who have more experience and will see the same story from a different
angle.’
ROUgH DIAMOND
casting the lead role of deborah was a crucial step. ‘From the
beginning i wanted this to be a very authentic film, so i was looking
for a 15 or 16 year-old girl,’ herbots says. ‘we put some ads out and
we saw many, many girls, but there was always something missing,
or they were too young or too old. i was almost desperate, because
shooting was coming closer. we’d found someone who was pretty
much ok, but i wasn’t sure. and then i saw ella working in this short.
Bo
she was a bit like a rough diamond. you could see the potential was
there.’
ella was - and still is - at drama school. ‘My first idea was to perform
on stage,’ she recalls, ‘but then there was this chance to audition for
a short film, so i said: why not?’ Bafia was about a european man
who goes to a hospital in west africa demanding treatment for his
daughter, who has hurt her foot. as a result of his insistence that the
girl be seen, the african mother of a new-born child dies.
herbots was supervising the student director of the film, at rits film
school in brussels. ella’s role as the daughter was only small, but it
was enough to convince him. ‘i was looking for someone who was
really on the edge between being a girl and being a woman,’ he recalls.
‘and at that moment ella was there.’
9
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10
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© bart dewaele
the chance to act in a major film was, of course, the main attraction
for ella, but she was also drawn to the film’s message. ‘i want to set
an example for girls of my age, to tell them to be careful when dealing
with “lover boys” and people with bad intentions,’ she says. ‘it’s a very
current topic.’
MAIN ATTRACTION
For herbots, the benefits of casting an actress of the same age as the
main character had to be balanced against the risk of using someone
relatively inexperienced. ‘she couldn’t rely on technique of course,’ he
explains. ‘normally when you do four, five, six takes you can add things,
and i wasn’t sure that was going to work, so i aimed for first and second
takes. but she grew very fast, and already in the first or second week of
shooting she could add little things, and adapt and change.’
For ella too it was a change from stage acting. ‘it’s very different, of
course. on stage you have much more freedom to express yourself or
to improvise. with acting on set for a film you have to repeat things
- reach out your hand for something over and over, in different ways.
there’s less freedom, less scope for being yourself. but that’s the
process you have to go through in order to have the final product.'
hans herbots and ella-june henrard
ExPLICIT SCENES
the preparatory stage was particularly important. ‘deborah is not the
girl i am in real life, of course, but i read the script and the book, and
after several rehearsals and scenes i got more into the character. i
also watched other films on the same subject, such as Lilya 4-Ever
[by lukas Moodysson] to get to know the character and what it was
like to be deborah.’
herbots was also a little nervous about the explicit nature of the story
they were going to tell. ‘the first time we talked about the whole sex
part of the film, i was also ill at ease. i wondered: what does she know,
what doesn’t she know? but she was able to talk about things very
easily, and that helped,’ he says. it also helped that some of the more
explicit scenes were the most technical to shoot, involving crowds of
technicians and assistants. it was almost ridiculous. ‘often when i said
“cut” everyone would start laughing, but when you look at the images
you think, my god, what’s happening to her?’
they worked a little longer in rehearsals than normal, the director recalls,
to build up ella’s confidence. she was naturally concerned about how
she would be seen. ‘it was hard for her to step away from herself and
into the character, but she learned to do that during the shoot. we
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12
worked on that, so that she saw the role as a character and accepted
that it was not her, and that people would make the same distinction.’
‘it was hans’ persuasive power which enabled me to perform the role,’
ella adds. ‘the connection between us was very strong and he was a
good mentor and mental coach, because the role is very hard, the film
is very harsh for a girl of 15.’ although she is now relaxed about being
seen in the film, there is a lingering worry about the older generation
of viewers. ‘it’s a film that requires a lot of open-mindedness,’ she says.
‘i’m a bit concerned that my grandfather will have trouble putting it in
the right context!’
For herself, she didn’t have much time to dwell upon it. ‘when i left
the set the character of deborah was still in my mind, but i had exams
a week afterwards, so i had to become the normal ella again.’ For the
moment her education comes first. ‘the main thing is to finish school,
but if there are opportunities, if someone offers me another role, i’ll
be happy to say yes, if it’s a character that i think i can get into.’
and of course she has no regrets about taking the role in Bo. ‘the
shoot lasted two months and in those two months i learned more than
i could have in three years at school.’
MONSTER
For herbots, the next project is to adapt Flemish author tom lanoye’s
'Monster trilogy' into a 10-episode tv series. the story concerns the
members of a rich industrial family in west Flanders during the 1990s,
their personal stories unfolding against the background of events such
as the dutroux child abduction case and the death of king baudouin.
‘the nation went through some traumatic events which changed the way
we looked at politics, the judiciary and the police,’ herbots explains.

he describes the project as having the same sort of ironic, satirical flavour
as american series such as Six Feet Under or Desperate Housewives.
‘i like to experiment with forms of storytelling and try everything,’ he says.
‘perhaps one day i’ll find a synthesis and then stay with that. i have the
idea that with the 'Monster trilogy' it’s going to be a mixture of all the
things i’ve been doing so far.’
he is relaxed about the increasingly close relationship between
cinema and tv in Flanders. ‘there is a new generation of directors
who cross over between television and film, and that has given some
oxygen to the whole industry,’ he says. ‘For the first time you can start
to speak of it being an industry. there is a lot of shooting going on,
mainly for television, but the cross-over makes it possible for people
to develop, not only directors but in every department. i think it’s in
better shape than ever.’
Hans Herbots (°1970)
The Divine Monster (2010, TV series)
Bo (2009)
Stormforce (2006)
The Long Weekend (2005)
Falling (2001)
Omelette à la Flamande (1995, short)
Que Cosa (1994, short)
*selected filmography
‘The connection between us was very strong and Hans
was a good mentor and mental coach, because the role is
very hard, the film is very harsh for a girl of 15’
- Ella June Henrard
Bo
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© bart dewaele
14
‘I FELT LIKE THE LITTLE BALL IN A
PINBALL MACHINE,’ PRODUCER
TOMAS LEyERS JOKES OF HIS
ExPERIENCE IN CANNES THIS
yEAR. HE WAS ON THE RIVIERA
WITH Lost Persons AreA, THE
DEBUT FEATURE OF CAROLINE
STRUBBE WHO IS ALSO LEyERS’
WIFE. AS HE BOUNCED AROUND
TOWN, ATTENDINg SCREENINgS
AND DISCUSSIONS, LEyERS
RELISHED THE COLLISION
BETWEEN ART AND BUSINESS
THAT ALWAyS CHARACTERISES
CANNES. TO HIS AND
STRUBBE’S OCCASIONAL
BEMUSEMENT, SOME VIEWERS
OF THEIR FILM WANTED
TO DISCUSS ITS SECRET
SyMBOLISM: THE PHALLIC
SIgNIFICANCE OF THE PyLONS
THAT ARE SEEN AgAINST
THE SKyLINE OR EVEN THE
IMPORTANCE OF THE BANANA
ONE CHARACTER IS SEEN
EATINg. OVERALL, THOUgH,
THEy WERE HEARTENED By THE
‘WARM, TENDER REACTIONS’
TO THE FILM, WHICH WON THE
BEST SCREENPLAy PRIzE IN THE
INTERNATIONAL CRITICS’ WEEK
SECTION.
by geoffrey Macnab

Pinball Wizard
Lost Persons Area was leyers’ first feature as a producer. he has
an unlikely background for a would-be movie mogul. leyers grew
up in hoboken, an industrial town in belgium. his father was one of
the two co-founders of the belgian communist party. no, the young
tomas didn’t grow up reading Marx and engels. ‘i was too young,’
he explains. his father eventually quit the party.
tomas then swung toward the world of privilege, attending a catholic
school where he played cricket and rugby. at university in leuven,
he studied farming engineering... a route more likely to lead to a
career as a bioengineer than to take him to hollywood. however,
after his studies were over, he resolved to do something completely
different. he worked as an actor, did candid camera-style stunts
for tv and eventually went into video production, making corporate
films. leyers also began to stage hugely complex live events.
‘the biggest event i did was called “belgian dances”. it was a
celebration to mark 175 years of belgium,’ he recalls of a spectacular
contemporary dance extravaganza staged simultaneously in 12
different cities. this was filmed with 48 cameras with a huge crew
and broadcast on national tv. in theory, this was an excellent
preparation for the stresses and logistical challenges of feature
films.
‘i’ve done some big things,’ leyers agrees. ‘i’ve organised a concert
for our king as well as some other events for our royal Family... and
yet... film production is the hardest thing to do. oh,’ his voice tails
off, ‘it’s heavy!’
IRON MAN
after shooting wrapped on Lost Persons Area, the producer was in
a state of exhaustion. he likens his tv work to a sprint but suggests
that feature filmmaking is far more intense. ‘it’s not even a marathon
by comparison... it’s like the iron Man!’
For all the stresses of making the film, leyers describes it as an
overwhelmingly positive experience. Made for e1.8 million, Lost
Persons Area was a complex co-production with pieces of financing
from many different sources. nonetheless, it is no euro-pudding.
in the course of preparing Lost Persons Area, leyers and strubbe
enjoyed ‘a great ride' winning support from almost every organisation
they approached. they were therefore able to make the film exactly
as they had planned, without compromise.
the project was selected for both rotterdam’s cineMart and the
berlinale co-production Market. Meanwhile, leyers was part of the
eave programme in 2006. he was fast learning the intricacies of coproduction
while also cultivating many new contacts.
after strubbe saw White Palms (2006), a sports drama starring
and partly inspired by the real life of former gymnast Zoltán Miklós
hajdu, she was determined to cast hajdu as the foreign worker in
Lost Persons Area. this led to laszlo kantor coming on board as the
hungarian co-producer.
HOME-MADE
the three leads in the film are all dancers by training, not actors. this
alarmed some potential investors but leyers wasn’t worried in the
slightest. ‘what’s an actor? if a heart surgeon said, “oh, i didn’t study
to be a heart surgeon,” of course i would be worried when he operated
on me. but if somebody says i’m going to act, then he or she becomes
an actor.’
and, no, the rigours of working together didn’t affect leyers’ relationship
with strubbe. ‘i keep it [the personal and professional] separate.
during the shoot, we were never a couple. i was the producer. she
was the director... at the same time, this was a very home-made film.
our kitchen was the meeting place for so many discussions [about the
film] while cooking the dinner.’
WHAT COMES ALONg
leyers doesn’t just work with strubbe. through his production company
Minds Meet, he is now producing Resurrection, a new feature from
kristof hoornaert whose short Kaïn screened at the berlin Film Festival
earlier this year. ‘and i am not married to him!’
strubbe’s original screenplay for Lost Persons Area, written six years
ago, stretched to 350 pages and was intended as a trilogy. she and
leyers will soon return to the co-production trail to finance and shoot
the next two parts. they’re keeping an open mind as to where they will
shoot. spain and england are both possibilities.
where does he see himself in five years time? ‘on the Moon... or dead,’
leyers chuckles. he has just been reading nassim taleb’s ‘the black
swan’ which argues that it is impossible to predict the future. ‘i am
going to continue to do what i am doing but i am open to other ideas...
i don’t think it will be film production only but what comes along.’
15
prOdUcer
© bart dewaele

© Thomas Dhanens
16
Felix ALFrESCO
IN CANNES THIS MAy, FILMMAKER FELIx VAN gROENINgEN WAS BRIEFLy TO BE SEEN BICyCLINg DOWN
THE MAIN CANNES THOROUgHFARE, LA CROISETTE, WITH NO CLOTHES ON AT ALL. NOT THAT HE’S A
NATURIST. IT WAS ALL PART OF A STUNT TO SUPPORT THE DIRECTORS’ FORTNIgHT SCREENINg OF HIS
NEW FILM THE MISFORTUNATES WHICH FEATURED A SCENE OF THE NE’ER-DO-WELL STRUBBE BROTHERS
RIDINg NAKED ON BIKES. THE STUNT - COVERED IN MEDIA OUTLETS ALL OVER THE WORLD - DIDN’T gIVE
THE yOUNg DIRECTOR MUCH PLEASURE. by geoffrey Macnab
‘we mentioned it once in a meeting but then we forgot about it.
we said, no, stupid idea,’ van groeningen recalls of the idea of the
bike ride in cannes. his film’s French sales agents Mk2 liked the
idea of the director in the buff with some of his key collaborators.
van groeningen and co. weren’t so keen but were eventually talked
Felix van groeningen
round. that’s why the world’s journalists were confronted by naked
belgians on bikes. weeks after his alfresco cycling, van groeningen
can’t entirely hide his embarrassment. at the same time, his pride at
being able to make such an impact at the world’s most important film
festival is obvious too.

The Misfortunates is based on an autobiographical novel by dimitri
verhulst. it tells of the deeply dysfunctional strubbe brothers − hairy,
hard-drinking layabouts leading a nihilistic life in a dead-end provincial
town, looking for escape at the bottom of a beer glass or in the roy
orbison music they so love. the narrator, looking back on his childhood,
is gunther, the sensitive and articulate son of the boorish Marcel (koen
de graeve).
HUMOUR AND RAWNESS
verhulst has been nicknamed ‘the jacques brel of Flemish literature’.
his novels are grim but scabrously funny affairs, drawing heavily on his
own troubled childhood. van groeningen had long followed his writing. ‘i
loved his style: that combination of humour and rawness. there are really
rough situations with real people. when you read the novels, you are
embarrassed and you want to laugh,’ the director reflects on the novelist.
when van groeningen first approached verhulst about a potential
collaboration, the novelist wasn’t keen. he didn’t like van groeningen’s
ideas. ‘he immediately said no!’
a year or so later, The Misfortunates was published. van groeningen
read it immediately ‘to see if there was a film in it.’ at first, the director
was sceptical that there was any scope for a film adaptation, the book
consisted of nine chapters. its style was anecdotal and very personal. there
wasn’t much development of character or obvious narrative momentum.
however, after he had finished the book, the director began to see ways
he could bring the story to the screen. one key episode comes late in the
book when the narrator gunther, by then an adult, visits his grandmother,
who is suffering dementia and living in a home. he tells the old woman
how much she meant to him and reassures her that he has been able to
make something of his life, in spite of his adverse upbringing. this, the
director decided, could work as an important framing device in the film.
audiences would be aware that the narrator was looking back on his
troubled childhood from a settled and even contented perspective.
IMMENSELy APPEALINg
The Misfortunates is set in an industrial town 20 km or so outside
brussels. here, once a year, there is a carnival. all the men in the
town dress up as women, drink all they can and piss and vomit in the
streets. the town has its own rich folklore. all this is caught vividly in van
groeningen’s film.
on the face of it, a sensitive arthouse director like van groeningen
doesn’t appear to have much in common with the boorishness of the
low-life characters in The Misfortunates. arguably, that’s what makes
the film seem so rich. the director brings a lyrical and humorous touch
to characters and situations that, in other hands, could easily seem
dour in the extreme. Moreover, the director believes he has an affinity
with the world that verhulst is describing. ‘i have seen a lot of different
environments in my youth and life,’ he says. ‘it is not where i come from
but my own parents split up and then they came back together. they
had a lot of lives. one of the lives that my father had was that he was a
bartender. For a long period, i lived above the bar. it was really quite a
rough bar. i went there before school. i got up and my mum was working
there and sometimes my father too.’ before going off to school, van
groeningen would stop by for a hot chocolate. he’d see the drunks who
had been in the bar all night.
while making The Misfortunates, he felt close to the strubbe brothers.
despite their self-destructive behaviour, there was something about the
characters that he found immensely appealing.
his casting was surprising. as the drunken, boorish father, he chose
koen de graeve an actor best known for playing genial, laid-back types.
de graeve had appeared in van groeningen’s earlier film, With Friends
17
MaVerick
© bart dewaele

18
Like These (2007). during shooting, director and actor had had a row
and had briefly fallen out. remembering this spat was what prompted
van groeningen to give him the role in the new feature. ‘that is who the
father in The Misfortunates has to be. he’s the guy who everybody likes
but who all of a sudden changes. this should shock you. this guy has
these fits of aggression that come out of nothing. that also creates this
tension between father and son which is at the heart of the movie.’
ENJOyABLE AND ExHAUSTINg
van groeningen has various trusted collaborators who’ve worked on all
his features. these include cinematographer ruben impens, editor nico
leunen and producer dirk impens. ‘the producer is maybe the biggest
collaborator because he is really there from a to Z. he’s in at the start of
the scriptwriting and, of course, on the shoot, the post-production and
the releasing,’ the director reflects on dirk impens.
van groeningen begins his movies with a clear artistic vision but still
wants and expects input from his colleagues. ‘collaboration is the key
word in filmmaking... i like to say that i don’t exactly know where i will end
but i know where i want to go.’
during the build-up to The Misfortunates, dop ruben impens was
present at rehearsals. the editor, nico leunen, was then heavily involved
in creating the look of the film, which is shot on digital and combines
both grainy-looking colour and some black and white sequences.
this was an enjoyable, if exhausting, film to make. the director and crew

didn’t emulate the characters in the movie by drinking vast quantities
of beer − not, at least, until after the movie was over. ‘but a lot of
raw sausages were eaten, a lot of different raw meats.’ what van
groeningen wanted above all from his cast and crew was energy − a
desire, as he puts it, to ‘take it one step further’ and to push the limits
to make the film as raw, tough and funny as possible.
in one scene, we see the pet cat eating up Marcel’s vomit as he lies
asleep on the floor. no, this scene didn’t require any great technical
ingenuity. ‘we just put meat in the vomit!’ the director explains how he
cajoled the cat into lapping up such unsavoury fare.
PSyCHOLOgICAL HEAD BUTT
some international critics have pointed to overlaps between The
Misfortunates and another recent Flemish film, koen Mortier’s Ex
Drummer. both are adaptations of books. both have the same
aggressive, in-your-face quality in their depiction of working-class
Flemish life.
van groeningen is not a real fan of herman brusselmans, the ‘bad boy’
author of 'ex drummer'. ‘i don’t think he has love for his characters.
that’s my problem with it.’ nonetheless, the director agrees that both
his film and Ex Drummer are striving after the same raw authenticity.
he was heartened by the response to The Misfortunates in cannes
where audiences warmed to the film and understood it in spite of its
intensely Flemish origins. to his relief, the novelist also liked the film.
‘it was quite weird,’ the director reflects on his oscillating relationship
with dimitri verhulst. ‘during the process of the scriptwriting, at first he
was involved. then, he didn’t want to be involved any more. he said
what we did with the script he wasn’t too fond of.’
although he had written the book in the first person, using his own
name and drawing on his own experiences, verhulst was wary that
the movie would be too close to his own life. in the end, he watched
the film at home with his girlfriend. his response? ‘he really thought
it was a good film and was touched by it... he liked the film but said
it was also like a psychological head butt!’ now, van groeningen is
waiting to see which international buyers will pounce on his film. The
Misfortunates has already played as the closing movie at the Munich
Film Festival, will screen in toronto and the hamptons, and is likely to
surface at one of the major autumn festivals.
CROSSROADS
the young director is keen to take advantage of the heightened
international profile that his presence in cannes has given. that
doesn’t mean he is planning any more naked bike rides or that he is
looking to make movies outside Flanders. it’s just that he wants to get
back behind the camera quickly. at present, he is between projects
and is busy reading scripts and novels. perhaps, he acknowledges, he
is at an important crossroads in his career.
‘before cannes, i would never have said i want to go and make a
film outside Flanders because i never thought that opportunity would
happen,’ he reflects. ‘but i have mixed feelings about that. i feel really
comfortable here. the people around me are very important. i also feel
that identity is really important... it’s not obvious for me to direct a film
in a foreign language and a foreign country. on the other hand, life is
great because sometimes you get these opportunities and you have
to take them!’
Felix van Groeningen (°1977)
The Misfortunates (2009)
With Friends Like These (2007)
Steve + Sky (2004)
*selected filmography
all stills The Misfortunates
19
MaVerick

© bart dewaele
20
The wild side of Disney
‘IT’S A LONg HISTORy. DO yOU HAVE TIME…’
BRUSSELS-BASED JAN BULTHEEL ASKS WHEN
CALLED ON TO ExPLAIN THE LENgTHy JOURNEy
TO SCREEN OF HIS ANIMATED TV SERIES,
HAREPORT, ABOUT TWO yOUNg HARES WHO
SET UP THEIR VERy OWN AIRPORT.
By Geoffrey Macnab
Flashback to january 1, 2004. bultheel is
getting up on new year’s day with a slight
hangover − ‘i had a very good party’ − and
beginning to start a new life. at the end of
2003, bultheel had quit his old company
pix & Motion after 15 years during which he
had established himself as one of the most
successful commercials directors in belgium.
his credits there included hundreds of live-
action and animated films for clients ranging
from Mercedes to playstation, from cocacola
to citroën. he travelled the world and
earned plenty of money.
‘they were big companies and big
commercials but, at a certain point, i was
fed up,’ the director says of his many years
as a hired hand for prestigious clients.
‘commercials are really fascinating. you have
the best cameras, the best crews, the best
everything... the only problem is that if you
make a bad film, it is always your fault and if
you make a good film, it is always the agency
that takes the credit.’
INNOCENCE
keen to make a clean break, the director sold
his assets and prepared to start from scratch.

‘i thought, now - what am i going to do?’
animation had always been his passion. he
studied the craft under animation legend
raoul servais in ghent. his teenage son
was keen on cartoons, too. he therefore
decided to throw himself into the toon world.
For a belgian, this is not an easy prospect.
in Flanders, he suggests, ‘the options for
doing animation are really very limited...’ nor
was bultheel much enthused about trying to
make a career in short films. that’s why he
decided a tv series was the best option.
‘in my innocence i thought that would be
possible. little did i know that it would take
me five years to accomplish!’
his first step was to begin drawing... and
drawing and drawing. eventually, he decided
he wanted to make a series with hares. ‘a
hare is a symbolic kind of animal because it’s
not a rabbit. a hare is like a wild rabbit - a hare
is the punk of the rabbit. that’s what i liked.
it’s the wild side of the disney films.’
PEANUTS
at the time he was doing his first hare pictures,
there was a big debate in the belgian press
about the noise and environmental impact
of the national airport on brussels. that
sparked the idea of the ‘hareport’.
the first draft of the synopsis was finished
almost five years ago. in the summer of
2004, bultheel headed off to the annecy
Film Festival in search of backers. there, he
met corinne kouper from French production
company sparx. she was interested. however,
sparx was bought by disney europe. kouper
resigned and bultheel seemed to have lost
one important potential supporter. he had
approached several of the major belgian
animation companies to help him make a
pilot episode. it still rankles with him today
that they all turned him down. ‘not one of the
producers made me a serious offer.’
For a brief period, activity on the 'hareport'
threatened to grind to a halt. bultheel was
becoming increasingly frustrated. he had
worked for two years ‘for peanuts’ and the
project wasn’t anywhere near production.
it was at this point that kouper called him.
she had now formed a new company called
teamto and was still keen to make the
series.
through kouper, Hareport was brought to
French tv station tF1. slowly but surely,
the project began to build up momentum.
through his own outfit Filmwerken, bultheel
managed to secure support from the Flanders
audiovisual Fund (vaF). Finally, the director
was able to make a two-minute pilot. tF1
expressed certain reservations. the French
company was looking for a series that would
appeal to 9 to 12 year olds but the pilot’s look
and humour played to a younger audience.
keen to keep tF1 on board, bultheel went
back to the drawing board to redesign the
characters and to rewrite the bible.
AIRBORNE
‘after a while, i thought the tF1 guys were
right,’ bultheel concedes. ‘i think the idea of
an airport is better suited for an older public.’
when he presented the new Hareport pilot in
cartoon Forum, the response from tF1 was
altogether more enthusiastic and committed
to funding the project. there were still
hurdles to be overcome as kouper looked
for international co-production partners
in canada, the us and elsewhere. in the
meantime, the project regularly got updated
and reworked. eventually, vivi Film's viviane
vanfleteren came on board as the belgian coproducer.
‘it was me who had started it, who had
invested my time, my energy, my money since
2004, working for almost nothing during
five years,’ bultheel says of his long battle
to get Hareport airborne. early on, he was
working largely on his own. when the series
finally went into production, he suddenly
found himself at the head of a small army of
animation professionals. the final production
of the series took about a year and a half with
a crew of 12 in paris, 25 in valence and about
a dozen in ghent.
what now? a second series is on the cards.
as for a feature film version of Hareport,
bultheel says: ‘why not but it’s not for me to
decide. the rights are with the producers.’
Five years on from that new year’s day in
2004, bultheel looks back with mixed feelings
on his five year quest to get his project to the
screen. ‘yes, it has been a very rewarding
experience and i am very happy with it. but...
with everything that i know now, i should have
been able to do this in two years! with what i
do know, i’ll do it better next time - and i won’t
spend five years of my life on another series.’
Jan Bultheel (°1959)
Hareport (2009, TV series)
A DVD project of shorts: ‘About love
cat. No. #1 to #12 (2000)
Mi Corazon Venenoso (1998)
Flamma Flamma (1996, short)
Diana (1996, short)
*selected filmography
????????????? ani.Be
all stills Hareport
21

© bart dewaele Absolute
AN EARLy DEVELOPER, INDRA SIERA BEgAN MAKINg COMMERCIALLy SPONSORED FILMS IN
HIS TEENS. HE MOVED ON TO ADVERTS, BEFORE BEINg HIRED By STUDIO 100, THE BELgIAN
ENTERTAINMENT gROUP SPECIALISINg IN CHILDREN’S AND FAMILy ENTERTAINMENT. THERE HE
DIRECTED TV SERIES EPISODES AND THE FIRST TWO FILMS FEATURINg K3, A gIRL gROUP VERy
POPULAR WITH BELgIAN AND DUTCH KIDS. BOTH PRODUCTIONS ENJOyED CONSIDERABLE LOCAL
SUCCESS. SIERA HAS JUST FINISHED SIx EPISODES OF oLd BeLgium, A TELEVISION SERIES
THAT AIMS AT SLIgHTLy MORE MATURE AUDIENCES. By Alex Masson
control
FrEAK

why did you become a film director?
i always wanted to become a musician, then an actor. i quickly realised
that i couldn’t do either. i didn’t have enough talent to become an
actor, and since the quality of the music was so-so i turned towards
the profession of directing (laughs). My father was a producer, and i
spent a lot of time on set, where i became fascinated by the medium
of cinema. i started early: i was 14 years old when i directed my first
commercial commission, before shooting adverts…
Before directing films for children…
i needed the money (laughs)! it was an even more old-fashioned
reason than that: after making several videos for producers of
children’s programmes, they suggested that i direct a film. i said
yes. but it was a great opportunity, particularly since that audience
is very open. For example, children have already taken on board
rapid editing. it seems that they liked my experiments in this area:
K3 and the Magic Medallion was one of the ten most seen films in
belgium in 2004. even so, i still believe that this was a coincidence
(laughs).
is it the desire to be a musician that gave this very musical
rhythm to Old Belgium, particularly in its editing?
that’s exactly what i wanted to do. i don’t want to point the finger
at anyone, but i think that even if we have excellent directors in
belgium, the directing is often very ‘old-fashioned’. it’s time that we
got into the same habit as the current generation of american or
british filmmakers, who have gradually learned to use the narrative
conventions introduced by music videos. that remains complicated
because there are few belgian producers who want to put money
into films with this sort of visual language. in the medium term i
would like it if we could make films that speak as much with their
editing as with their dialogue. it’s not that i expect to excel in this
area. i just want to find the best formal means of telling the stories
that interest me. or simply to say to my backers: no problem, i’m
going to communicate the message that you want to get across in a
modern way. at first the producers of K3 and the Magic Medallion
were really inflexible. they had a very precise idea of what this film
should look like in order, in their eyes, to fit in a specific pigeonhole.
i gradually tried to get them out of that rut, at the same time staying
in the position that had been given to me. i’ve never had the
temperament of a director who immediately wants to impose his
ideas. that will come little by little.
Old Belgium is a television series. today everybody agrees
that television, and series in particular, is a more adventurous
testing ground for form and narrative than the mainstream
cinema. do you share this point of view?
For a director, a tv series has more advantages than cinema: a
bigger audience, more time to develop a story. with a film, you have
at best two hours to do that. how could you not prefer the least
mini-series of six one-hour episodes? and then i have to confess
that i want my work to be seen by the largest possible group of
people. in the cinema, you have to be a director of genius or have
a very good scenario to have a success. For the moment, i’m only
telling simple stories. the story of Old Belgium is the simplest…
to which you nevertheless give a density through editing and
wide-format images.
it’s true. i’m a cameraman and i was anxious to shoot in the widest
format possible, but with maximum of people in the picture. the feelings
expressed in Old Belgium are universal, but very ordinary, very everyday. i
wanted to give them a poetic dimension and force the viewer to seek out
the characters on the screen, so that they bond with them, so that they are
intrigued. in the same way, i use lots of symbols in the series. For example,
when a man goes out the weather is terrible, when it is a woman, the
weather is fine. sometimes it is a bit forced, i know, but i want to be sure
that the viewers pick up the emotions that i want to convey.
Are you the originator of Old Belgium, or was it commissioned,
like the two K3 films?
it’s a rather odd story. i was working on another tv series with stany
crets and peter van den begin, the two lead actors of Old Belgium. they
were in the process of writing the script for another producer, and stijn
coninx was meant to direct it, but he left the project to go and direct Sister
Smile. so stany and peter mentioned my name. i took over their scenario
and brought my own ideas into it.
in the end, you are credited as director, scriptwriter, cameraman
and editor. would you call yourself a control freak?
absolutely, but i don’t know why i need to have this control over things.
that seems pretentious, i know, and authoritarian, but i don’t like having
to justify myself in front of the crew. i’m the sort of person who tells a
cameraman: go home, i’ll do it, come back when it’s finished. the
same with a scriptwriter or an editor. i hope that the result is sufficient
to demonstrate where i’m coming from. evidently, that caused a bit of
conflict on the shoot. you don’t have much time and even less money.
even so, the pace was 75 shots a day – 150 when we had two cameras.
that was really very hard on the actors, but in the end it all went well, in
part because i knew where i wanted to go.
Old Belgium is firmly rooted in one decade, the 1970s, of which
you can only have a child’s memories…
…i was born in 1972, so i was a child at the time when the events in
Old Belgium take place. that decade is a strange period. i retain the
23
in FOcUs

impression that the people were more authentic than today, that human
relationships were stronger. they weren’t virtual or dematerialised like
they are now.
in that case, isn’t it strange to reconstitute that period using
contemporary technological methods?
the only thing that i used to give a 1970s feel is the zoom - which is no
longer used very much in fiction - above all to reinforce certain emotions
by bringing me closer to the faces of the actors. the rest has nothing to
do with way films were put together back then. this was for no precise
reason, other than that the setting of Old Belgium is not my natural
environment. i grew up in an upper class environment, my father was a
producer, my mother a school teacher. i didn’t know the world inhabited
by these characters.
in contrast you have included your passion for music in Old
Belgium, which operates on several levels, between the songs
the characters sing and the original soundtrack…
the songs have a music hall feel, while for the original soundtrack i wanted
something more contemporary, which would make a contrast. but i was
anxious for this music to be played on instruments from the same setting as
the series, in fashion at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s.
a little bit French touch. one of my favourite soundtrack composers is
François de roubaix: rather than the highly orchestrated passages of a
Michel legrand, his work has a minimalist side, contemporary, yet still with
feeling. i appreciate that French side, that slightly bitter-sweet irony.
that taste is still a bit unexpected in the original soundtrack of
Old Belgium which, from its scenario as much as its title, has a
distinctly Belgian identity…
true, but i think that the emotions in this series are universal. the strangest
thing is that the majority of the actors are more accustomed to speaking
French. For practical reasons we preferred to shoot in Flemish, but in
reality this cabaret was a very French place. the theatre was linked to
the olympia. generally the performers who could not play in this parisian
theatre brought their acts to old belgium. i was anxious not to make things
too belgian in form, to go towards something more intimate, everyday, a
little more in the tone of a tati. that includes the characters: jack is very
louis de Funès, i think. besides, from the outset it was clearly written in
a slapstick style.
do you have purely cinema projects in mind?
yes. two films have been proposed to me, but also another tv series…
(laughs). one of the two films came through an indian agent who wants
to represent me down there…
…in india???
…i know, i know, it’s bizarre. but it follows a logical series of events. My
professional career is peppered with unexpected meetings like this one.
to a certain extent, the photography and notably the colours in
Old Belgium are not too far from Bollywood musicals…
…i adore musicals. i would love to make one, because i’m convinced
that at this time we need feel-good movies. on top of that, this desire
is connected to my real memory of the 1970s. when i was little i didn’t
often go to the cinema, but i was permanently glued to the tv. in particular
i watched dozens and dozens of children’s films on tv, german and
danish productions, most of them musicals. all of that must have stayed
in a corner of my subconscious...
Indra Siera (°1972)
Old Belgium (2010, TV series)
Fans (2008, TV series)
K3 and the Ice Princess (2006)
K3 and the Magic Medaillon (2004)
25
in FOcUs

© alex vanhee
26
ALL
THAT
JEF

JAzz PIANIST AND COMPOSER
JEF NEVE IS USED TO COLLA-
BORATINg WITH OTHER MU-
SICIANS. BUT WORKINg WITH
A FILM DIRECTOR, SUCH AS
FELIx VAN gROENINgEN, IS
MORE COMPLICATED, HE TELLS
IAN MUNDELL.
‘when i’m working with musicians in a
band we speak the same language and that
makes a difference. here, we have to work
with a translator, and sometimes it is hard
to understand what a director really wants
to say.’
van groeningen first approached neve to
work on the soundtrack of his second film,
With Friends Like These. the piano-driven
music performed by neve’s jazz trio was a
perfect fit for some of the film’s key scenes.
but van groeningen also asked neve to
record versions of techno hits, such as
‘don’t you want Me’ by Felix.
neve resisted at first, but became intrigued
by how he could connect this stark,
rhythmic music with the film’s more complex
emotions. ‘how can i give the impression, at
least, that even in this music there is a sort
of romanticism?’ he recalls asking himself.
‘if people are saying “don’t you want me”
then they mean it, they connect emotionally
to it. so i had to think how i could connect
to it.’
the resulting tunes have been immensely
popular on the internet, reaching a new
audience for neve. ‘i think they are the most
popular things i’ve ever done!’
SPARKLINg FEELINg
he was then called in to work on The
Misfortunates, van groeningen’s adaptation
of dimitri verhulst’s novel 'de helaasheid
Jef Neve (°1977)
The Misfortunates,
Felix van Groeningen (2009)
With Friends Like These,
Felix van Groeningen (2007)
© Jos l. Knaepen
der dingen'. it was clear immediately that they could not repeat the piano theme, but neve
equally did not want to exploit the folk aspects of the story.
he was led by reading verhulst’s book. ‘the way that he describes all these scenes is
so brilliant and sparkling, and that makes the book what it is,’ neve explains. ‘the biggest
challenge of this movie was to have this sparkling feeling.’
they opted for an orchestral score, which gave them more flexibility in tone. they could
capture the slapstick of the film’s story, for example, with instruments such as trombones
and tubas, before making a transition to its darker side.
neve becomes involved in the process when van groeningen is beginning to edit. ‘i watch
the whole thing and then don’t look at the images for at least two or three weeks,’ he
explains. ‘i’ll start composing on characters, things that i’ve seen, scenery, things that i
recall, because for me those could be the strong points to build a story.’
MATCHES
he works on the piano or by making small musical demos on his computer. he produces
different options for van groeningen to consider, and back in the editing suite the director
starts to match music with scenes. they are not always the matches that neve anticipated.
‘then you start to understand what is in the director’s head, what he really wants to say,
how he connects emotionally or musically with that scene.’
with a wide musical knowledge, editor nico leunen plays a significant role. ‘he tries to
translate what Felix wants to say, so he is very important in this process,’ neve says. ‘if i’m
the composer, nico in a way is the arranger, the guy that arranges the tunes so that they
really fit on the images.’
TO THE POINT
working on these films has made neve much more aware of soundtracks. ‘now i realise
how difficult it is to make a good movie score, finding the balance between what is needed
emotionally and what is needed for each scene. there is always a danger that you go over
the top with your music when you are writing a score. i think the main thing is to get to the
point. don’t write a note too many, rather one too few, because it gets in the way of the
conversations, it gets in the way of the images.’
he has had other offers to compose soundtracks, but is waiting for a project he likes.
‘i don’t want to do this for a living, i want to do it for pleasure, because i believe in it.’
27
craFTMansHip

© Kris dewitte
28
A Town Called
CANNES
1
© Kris dewitte
2
© Kris dewitte
4
3
6
5 Altiplano co-directors peter brosens and
jessica woodworth, actresses Magaly solier,
norma Martinez and behi djanati at the
international critic’s week premiere of the film.
A LOOK IN
FLANDERS IMAgE'S
2009 CANNES
PHOTO ALBUM
1-4 no, they weren’t riding around on their bikes the whole time: director
Felix van groeningen (4), producer dirk impens, editor nico leunen and some
of The Misfortunates cast (koen de graeve, johan heldenbergh, wouter
hendrickx, bert haelvoet, valentijn dhaenens and young kenneth vanbaeden)
were on their best behaviour and, with a little help, dressed to kill.
© Kris dewitte
6 beast animation’s steven de beule (l) and ben tesseur (r)
accompany Flemish voice-cast director jan eelen to the
cannes premiere of A Town Called Panic.
© Beast Animation
© Chloé Nicosia - SiC
5

© tomas leyers
7
8-11 they certainly didn’t get lost in cannes! Lost
Persons Area director caroline strubbe and producer/
partner tomas leyers (9) and actors lisbeth gruwez,
Zoltan Miklos hajdu, sam louwyck and young kimke
desart (10). the result: strubbe took home the best
script award at the international critic’s week (11).
12 critic’s week artistic director
jean-christophe berjon having a
good time with Flemish directors
caroline strubbe (Lost Persons
Area) and christophe van rompaey
(Moscow, Belgium).
© Chloé Nicosia - SiC
12
© tomas leyers
9
© Chloé Nicosia - SiC
8
© Chloé Nicosia - SiC
11
© tomas leyers
10
29
seen

© bart dewaele
30
under the influence
AS A yOUNg MAN gEOFFREy ENTHOVEN WAS ALWAyS SEARCHINg FOR SOMETHINg. WITH INTERESTS
ACROSS THE ARTS, FROM PAINTINg TO MUSIC, HE CHOSE TO STUDy CINEMA AS A WAy OF HAVINg THEM
ALL. ONCE HE HAD MADE THE CHOICE TO gO TO FILM SCHOOL, HE SOON FOUND SIgNS THAT TOLD
HIM HE WAS ON THE RIgHT TRACK, SUCH AS three CoLours: BLUE By KRzySzTOF KIESLOWSKI. ‘IT’S
REALLy NOT My FAVOURITE FILM, BUT IT’S ONE WHERE I HAD THIS CLICK, LIKE MAyBE BEINg A DIRECTOR
IS PERFECT FOR WHAT I WANT TO DO.’ by ian Mundell
Geoffrey
Enthoven

partly it was the way music is used in Three
Colours: Blue, representing the connection
between people and a search for a meaning
to life. the way the unfinished concerto keeps
returning was particularly affecting. ‘it always
comes back on a dark screen, with no image,
and it becomes so spiritual.’
he was similarly touched by ingmar bergman’s
The Seventh Seal and, after seeing it in the
cinema rather than on tv, stanley kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey. ‘that taught me that
© bart dewaele
INSPIRATIONAL
These are some of the works Geoffrey Enthoven currently gets inspired by:
BOOK Life and How to Survive It by Robin Skynner and John Cleese
(William Heinemann).
MUSIC Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Radiohead
(Baby Rock Records)
DVD Little Miss Sunshine (2006) by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
CONCeRT Beirut live
you can explain a lot without using words,’ he
says. ‘in a way these films helped me think that
cinema could be my medium.’
Film school was a moment of intense cinematic
exploration, forming a solid body of references.
‘with everything i see now, i always refer back
to that period,’ he explains. ‘but there are fewer
and fewer moments when i’m completely
touched by a movie, and now i’m so busy with
my work that when i come home i’m not really
interested in watching films.’
MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM
enthoven’s work is based on detailed
research, during which he looks for points
of personal engagement in projects usually
suggested by his producers. he tends not to
look for material in other films. ‘i believe that if
you want to make a really good apple pie you
don’t start with another apple pie - you should
start with apples.’
but sometimes other films do make themselves
felt. For example, his debut Children of Love
began life as a documentary on divorce,
but when the families involved pulled out he
decided to move to fiction. ‘i tried to shoot it
as realistically as possible, because i wanted
to have all the qualities and intensity of a
documentary. i thought it was impossible to
do that in an artistic way, because then you
would feel that it’s a movie: you should believe
everything that you see - that was a phase, it’s
not how i think now! but at that moment i saw
Wonderland by Michael winterbottom, and i
thought ok, that’s how i can tell the story.’
the british director is also an inspiration for
the variety of his work. ‘i really feel connected
with winterbottom: his kind of stories, his
focus on people, the mixture of sadness and
humour in his films, and also because the type
of movie he makes changes constantly. every
project is different.’
MICHAEL HANEKE
outside influences can also be seen in the
dark psycho-drama Happy Together, about a
respected family man trying to cover up the
fact that he is ruined. enthoven admits this
was made with an eye on Michael Mann’s The
Insider and Michael haneke’s Funny Games.
‘Michael haneke in general really influences
me. every time i see one of his films i find it so
fascinating, because he talks about things that
i think no-one else dares to talk about. i have
the feeling with him of: oh, you saw that too!’
but with his latest film, The Over the Hill Band,
selected for Montreal and ostend, enthoven
thinks no influences will be apparent. ‘not at
all, in that way it’s really pure.’
LEIgH, LOACH, VON TRIER
one constant inspiration is working with actors.
‘i’m fascinated by how they perform,’ he says,
particularly the way they can make you believe
they are experiencing a character’s emotions.
‘sometimes they do have the feelings of the
characters they play, just by acting. For me,
that makes it really spiritual.’
he admires directors who get ultra-realistic
performances from their actors, such as Mike
leigh with Secrets and Lies, ken loach with
Family Life or lars von trier with Dancer in the
Dark. ‘i find it on the edge of perversity, to be
so real, to be so cruel. i don’t know why, but it
really touches me.’
however, he is not as demanding as some of
these filmmakers. ‘i’m not a dictator on set,
i’m a director. i like to surround myself with
creative people who are also inspired by the
story we want to tell.’
31
Under THe inFlUence

© bart dewaele
32
Designed to be filmed
Sint-Antoniuskaai - © Bart dewaele
FOR 10 yEARS FLEMISH TV COP SHOW FLIKKEN WAS
FILMED IN AND AROUND gHENT. NO-ONE KNOWS THE
VISUAL POSSIBILITIES OF THE CITy BETTER THAN ITS
PRODUCER, gUNTER SCHMID OF EyEWORKS FILM &
TV DRAMA. by ian Mundell
‘it was strange that 10 years ago no-one filmed here in ghent,’ he says. ‘it’s
such an ideal location: it’s a historical city, with a large student population,
with a port, with a lot of industry and lots of cultural activities and museums.
it’s a compromise, a village where everyone seems to know each other, but
with the features of a city. it was ideal for us: all sorts of crimes could be set
here.’ the series was shot half in the studio and half on location, developing
a relationship with the city that would be new for Flemish crime drama. ‘this
was the first series with a focus on the personal lives of the cops,’ schmid ex-

loods 20 - © Jo Van hende
plains. ‘we saw their lives at home with their kids, with their partners, and
since the main characters lived in ghent there was a kind of symbiosis
between them and the city.’
ISOLATED LOCATIONS
locations and events in the city drove the storylines. ‘at the beginning of
every season we sat down with the screenwriters and said: what do we
want in the series, what activities, what festivals? what part of the city
can we use to tell a story?’ as a ghent resident himself, schmid thought
he wouldn’t have an inquisitive enough eye to scout locations, so the job
was given to an outsider. ‘he came up with locations that you see a lot,
but you don’t know what’s behind the facade,’ he recalls. these included
vooruit, a grand public meeting hall from the early 20th century that is
now a cultural centre, and the oude vismijn, a baroque fish market. ‘a
beautiful building, but totally in decay,’ says schmid.
the scout also discovered an old winter circus in the middle of the city
that few people knew about, which is now being renovated as a media
centre. these derelict or isolated locations were particularly useful. ‘places
in decay are always beautiful on the screen,’ says schmid. and in cop
Bijloke Abbey - © Stad gent - Patrick henry
shows, people are always looking for somewhere to hide out. ‘we would
use them quite a lot to end an episode.’
NICE ATMOSPHERE
Flikken also made use of events in the city, from the Floraliën flower show,
which only takes place every five years, to the annual Flanders international
Film Festival and weekly fixtures such as football matches. ‘we did
wide shots on the actual football match,’ schmid recalls, ‘and the close
ups when everyone had gone, along with 100 extras.’ above all it’s the
historic city centre that schmid likes best. ‘with the old port, it has such
a nice atmosphere and it’s so beautiful when you see it on the screen,
at day or at night. it looks as if it is designed to be filmed. it has bridges,
water and terraces. and there are always people sitting around.’ while the
series had to have a special relationship with the local police force, this
was characteristic of a city at home with the film industry. ‘the inhabitants
are very understanding, and it’s very easy to obtain licences to film difficult
locations,’ schmid says. ‘not everything is possible - you have to keep in
mind that this is a city where people live and work - but really it’s a very
easy city to shoot in.’
33
HOTspOT
leie - © Stad gent
Port of ghent © Bart Dewaele

Fans
The Memory
of a Killer
FOCUS FEATURES CEO JAMES SHAMUS TALKS
ABOUT ONE OF HIS FAVOURITE FILMS FROM
FLANDERS: ERIK VAN LOOy’S the ALzheimer
CAse (AkA memory of A kiLLer).
34
it’s weird. here is the quandary - as a rule, i’ve always believed you
should only re-make really bad movies and so i feel that i am defiling my
own principles by my enthusiasm for this movie [for which Focus has
the remake rights]. that’s always tough. the movie is so good that the
injunction is - please don’t screw it up.
what the film does is two things. one, it is extraordinarily specific. there
is a particular malaise that i think is only available to Flemish artists these
days which has to do with the strange feeling that on the one hand you
− as a belgian − are the capital of nato, whatever that is, the centre of
western power - and, on the other hand, you don’t really know if you are
part of a real nation state.
your identity is bound up in categories that are on the one hand
gigantic and huge - you’re at the epicentre of basically 100,000 nuclear
warheads. on the other hand, at the local level, there is a deep category
confusion that affects everything. in the middle of a Flemish half-state,
there is a French-speaking capital. there is a lot of tension going on.
you’ve got all that and i also think of belgium as a kind of crossroads. if
you look at the history, it gives an alternative route into what we think of
a western history. we just think it is normal that nation states are nation
states and that how they came to be is completely natural. when you
look at belgium, there is nothing natural about that history! what is this
weird stuff about the congo. they didn’t even own their own empire - the
king owned it. there are all these crazy pieces of history that come back
to haunt people.
i think that in a very strange way, that informs alzheimer which - remember
- is about memory, about guilt, about power and loss of power and
about what form of allegiance you have to authority when push comes
to shove. authority seems very tenuous at the state level. people have
to have their own morality and their own sense of authority. oftentimes,
the people who end up giving you in the present the strongest version
of what an ethical sense is, are people whose histories are erased
because they are pretty awful. you have this historical present created
out of a sense of guilt, erasure and victimisation all at once. american
genre tends to focus on protagonists, not antagonists. protagonists
get the girl at the end and all that kind of stuff. this, though, is a film
that breaks genre rules. it looks and smells like a genre film but it is
really doing something very sly inside of that. in literature, europe has
much more dominated the genre side of the culture in ways that are
really interesting. the figure of the detective is incredibly fruitful for
manoeuvring round and through genre imperatives, especially at times
when authority is called into question. the detective is always the guy in
that grey zone. this is really a great example of that - of using that zone.
and jan decleir? that has to affect your liking of the film but you
can get great performances in not great films and vice versa.
this is a perfect match. the whole point is never to let this guy
play his cards because he doesn’t have them. it’s pretty amazing.
yes, it is a few years since Focus picked up the remake rights. welcome
to american development hell but we live in it every day. look, our
commitment to making this film is unwavering. it took me seven years to
get Brokeback Mountain made. we’ll just keep at it until either they tell us
to stop or we keel over from exhaustion.
As told to Geoffrey Macnab
* the follow-up to Memory of a Killer, Dossier K, is currently in post-production.
to Find out More about the Favourite FilMs FroM other
key players go to www.FlandersiMage.coM

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