21/01/2010

The genre film The Hunters wrapped filming in Luxembourg earlier this week. The debut feature of Etienne Huet is a Franco-Belgian-Luxembourg co-production that started shooting late November last year.

The film centres on the lives of five seemingly normal men: an IT man, a waiter, a teacher, a student and a public official. In their regular lives they are soft-spoken non-entities, but in their free time they let loose their inhibitions on the hunting grounds of a 19th century fort. Each Saturday, they release an unwitting man into the grounds for them to prey on, and obviously, things get out of hand.

Described as a tense psychological thriller – that seems to have something in common with the likes of The Blair Witch Project, Them [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Ordeal [+see also:
trailer
interview: Fabrice du Welz
film profile] – The Hunter was made without any help from the regular French channels (the film is in English).

Huet and his producer Thomas Malmonte are both 28-years old and from the northern Lorraine region that borders on the Grand Duchy. Neither have any experience making feature films, and found the money to realise their dream by cleverly employing the various monetary aids available in the region, with Tarantula stepping in as a co-producer to gain access to funding for shooting in Luxembourg.

The regional authorities of Lorraine have also chipped in, as part of the project was shot around Queuleu fort in Metz.

A quarter of the budget was raised privately, with companies and individuals buying shares in Nancy-based production company Humal, explained Malmonte in regional paper Le Républic Lorrain. Humal is responsible for 55% of the film’s €2m budget.

Distributor Eurozoom will distribute the film on at least 100 screens in France. Canadian outfit Cinemavault handles international sales.