28/05/2009

The Film Selection Committee of the Film and Audiovisual Centre (CCA) has just announced the results of its first 2009 session. Sixteen features have been selected for writing, production and completion grants, for an overall budget of €2,030,000.

There was surprise success for newcomer Sumeya Kokten, who received two grants, one for the completion of her debut film Sens Interdits (“Wrong Way”), the other for writing Cercle Vicieux (“Vicious Circle”). The director’s self-produced feature, Sens Interdits describes the troubled love affair between a Belgian girl of Turkish origin and a young Brussels-based policewoman, against a backdrop of intolerance, violence and drug dealing.

Two debut features have also been chosen: Vincent Merveille’s La Douceur de Vivre (“The Gentle Way of Life”, Novak) and Pierre Duculot’s Au Cul du Loup (“In the Wolf’s Arse”, Need Productions).

Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, whose hilarious A Town Called Panic [+see also:
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film profile] will soon be released in theatres, didn’t wait long before moving onto their next project: they are set to co-direct Ernest et Célestine alongside Benjamin Renner (winner of the Golden Cartoon Award for A Mouse’s Tale). The film will be co-produced by Belgium’s La Parti, France’s Les Armateurs and Luxembourg’s Mélusine.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud returns to the narrative genre with Fatwa, produced, like his previous feature The Pomegranate Siesta, by the Dardenne brothers’ company Les Films du Fleuve.

The final majority feature to receive production support is Marc-Henri Wajnberg’s Kinshasa (Wajnbrosse Productions), which will paint the portrait of the Congolese capital through the daily life of its musicians.

The first subsidy allocated as part of the new agreement between the CCA and Vlaams Audiovisual Fund went to Koen Mortier’s 22 of May, produced by Ryva and CCCP. The director’s aesthetically powerful debut feature Ex Drummer [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was full of cynicism and irreverence, won acclaim at numerous festivals.

Finally, the Committee has selected two minority features: UK director Alicia Duffy’s The Republic of Trees (Artemis Productions) and Tajik filmmaker Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov’s Waiting for the Sea (Entre chien et loup).

(Translated from French)