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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
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Page 3 and 4: Inside 04 WIDESCREEN Dorothée van
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Page 34 and 35: Fans The Memory of a Killer FOCUS F
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