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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
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