30/03/2007

Artémis producer Patrick Quinet has a busy end of month, with two films in production – one in Belgium and the other in France.

The seven-week shoot of Dominique Standaert’s second feature, Formidable, began on March 13 and will take place in Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels.

The €1.2m film is being co-produced by Flemish outfit A Private View, with funding provided by public television broadcaster RTBF , a tax shelter, the Communauté Française de Belgique, the Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds and the MEDIA Programme.

Scripted by Standaert, in Formidable, due to a series of unpredictable circumstances, Mathieu (Serge Larivière), who is long-term unemployed, meets Marc (Stéphane de Groodt), director of a company that sells security accessories, and makes the latter realise he has major problems.

In a last-ditch attempt to put things right, the two men decide to head for the south of France but their car breaks down in the middle of the Ardennes.

In principle, “there is nothing funny about all that and that’s what I find interesting: finding the tone to draw the audience to the characters”, explains the director. “Using humour as a point of departure for empathy. Writing involves composing a menu with three dishes that spice up emotions, sometimes stiff, sometimes tragic, at times absurd and comical. Gastronomic writing".

A graduate of the INSAS, an assistant director, producer and lecturer, Standaert made his debut feature in 2002, Hop a black and white film shot in HD.

With a touch of madness, a lot of humour and a clear pleasure for storytelling, in Hop Standaert recounted the unlikely teaming up of a young terrorist (Jan Decleir) with a young Congolese boy trying to help his father, an illegal immigrant, to escape from the police. The director’s second comedy also deals with serious social themes.

Formidable will be released through Cinéart in Belgium in late 2007.

(Translated from French)