Switzerland, Ça rend heureux

by Anne Feuillère

13/07/2006 - The participation of young Belgian director Joachim Lafosse’s Ça rend heureux [trailer, film focus] (lit. "That Makes One Happy") in the official selection of the 59th Locarno International Film Festival has been confirmed.

Ça rend heureux is the director’s second feature, after his very recent Private Property [trailer] (see interview) – rumoured to make an appearance at Venice.

The film, which got a preview screening at the Brussels European Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award (see news), has got excellent and enthusiastic press reviews.

Filmed in digital beta on a low budget, Ça rend heureux recounts the efforts of a Belgian director – played by Fabrizio Rongione – who has to stick posters of his film everywhere (the poster is of Private Madness, Lafosse’s first debut feature) and harass crowds to get people to come and see his film.

When it turns out to be a flop, he is jobless and his partner (Catherine Salée) leaves him. To help him get over all this, his friend and actor (Kris Cuppens) leads him on an adventure to make a new film, despite all the difficulties.

From adventures to misadventures, the tender, lively and funny film is the story of a fighter. With humour and self-derision, Lafosse questions the relationship between the individual and the group, from collectivism or the place of art in the world of work to the gap between reality and fantasy of the artist in society and fantasy in love – here with the woman he loves.

Co-scripted by Cuppens, Samuel Tilman and Rongione, the film was produced by Eklektik, Tilman’ and Rogionne’s production company. Distributed in Belgium by Cinéart, the film was backed by the La Communauté française de Belgique et des Télédistributeurs wallons.

Other Belgian-made films at Locarno include The Weakest Is Always Right [trailer] by Belgian director Lucas Belvaux, which will be screened in the Piazza Grande.

Two other Belgian co-productions feature in the programme. First up is competition film Le dernier des fous [trailer, film focus] (lit. "The Last of the Crazy People") by France’s Laurent Achard (see news), produced by Versus Production – co-producers of Cannes festival title Days of Glory [trailer, film focus] by Rachid Bouchareb.

The second is the latest title from Simple Productions, Vincent Dieutre’s Fragments sur la grâce (see news).

(Translated from French)