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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.’
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© bart dewaele