29/04/2015 - A teenager tries to find her roots and establish an identity in All Cats Are Grey, the first feature film of Savina Dellicour

This week sees the release of All Cats Are Grey [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Savina Dellicour in Belgium. As luck would have it, the film is being released one week after L’Année Prochaine [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Vania Leturcq, another first feature film by a young Belgian filmmaker which hinges on the torments of adolescence, problems of fitting in, and the quest for identity.

Paul, in his forties, returns to Brussels after being in exile for several years. He would like to pick up where he left off, and better yet, fix things. To start, he would like to get back in touch with his biological daughter, Dorothy, who he has never known and who has been raised by another. Dorothy is fifteen years old, almost sixteen, and lives in the well-to-do circles of Brussels society, which has always looked down its nose at Paul. Indeed, his brief and circumstantial relationship with Christine was never really accepted either, by her or her family. A private detective working in civilian society, he puts his skills to use for his own ends, watching Dorothy from afar. Of course, his surveillance activities quickly get him noticed, and the young girl, who is, herself, looking for her biological father, about whom she knows nothing, gets close to him, eventually asking him to help her find her father.

Paul is played by Bouli Lanners, who injects warmth tinged with melancholy into the character. We will soon be seeing Lanners in two other Belgian films: Je suis mort mais j’ai des amis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Guillaume and Stéphane Mala…
film profile] by the Malandrin brothers, which lands in theatres on 27 June 2015, and his own film, Les Premiers les Derniers, on which filming has yet to be completed. Acting opposite him is Manon Capelle, a new face (supported by Aisleen Mclafferty who plays her best friend Claire in the film) who brings a freshness to the role that works well. In the role of Christine is Anne Coesens, who plays a mother in a state of confusion, not so far removed from her character in L’Année Prochaine.

The film is produced by Tarantula, confirming its interest in working on debut Belgian films, after Mobile Home [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (François Pirot), A Pelada [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Damien Chemin), and the soon-to-be-released Baden, Baden by Rachel Lang, co-produced with funding from the CCA and Wallimage. All Cats Are Grey is being distributed in Belgium by O’Brother, and sold internationally by a new international sales company based in Brussels, Be for Films.

(Translated from French)