19/03/2010

Michaël R. Roskam, the director of several acclaimed shorts (Carlo, The One Thing To Do, Today Is Friday), will start shooting his debut feature next week. He will helm Beefhead, a gangster film set in the dark underworld of the Belgian hormone mafia.

Inspired by a news item that shook the country in the mid-1990s (the story of veterinary surgeon Karen Van Noppen, who was allegedly murdered by the Belgian hormone mafia), Beefhead is first and foremost a story of friendship and loyalty between a young Flemish cattle-breeder, and one of his childhood friends, who reappears from the past. Roskam transforms the vet into a policeman, whose murder leads to an investigation that attempts to uncover the ins and outs of hormone trafficking in Belgium’s cattle sector.

Young Flemish actor and rising star Matthias Schoenaerts (Loft [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) plays the lead role, alongside Jeroen Perceval and Barbara Sarafian. Behind the camera, Roskam reunites with highly sought-after DoP Nicolas Karakatsanis (Lost Persons Area [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), who lensed his shorts.

The film is produced by Bart Van Langendonck for Savage Film in co-production with Flanders’ Eyeworks Film & TV Drama, Francophone company Artemis Productions, and Holland’s Waterland Films, in association with VTM.

The film achieved the Grand Slam in terms of Belgian funding for it obtained backing at the first session of the Wallimage/Bruxellimage fund, from the Belgian French Community Film and Audiovisual Centre and the Vlaams Audiovisual Fund, as part of their co-production agreement. Shooting, which will kick off on March 24, is scheduled to last 36 days, until May 10, in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Kinepolis Film Distribution will release the title in the first half of 2011.

(Translated from French)