26/05/2003

The Belgian film industry should be rightly pleased with its performance in Cannes. Actor Olivier Gourmet presented two films that screened out of competition: Les Mains Vides by Marc Recha and Le Temps du Loup by Michael Haneke and the one Belgian co-production of the official selection, Les Triplettes de Belleville [+see also:
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film profile] which also screened out of competition.
Cannes also validated the hard work of Belgian producer, Diana Elbaum who co-produced the two features selected through her Entre Chien et Loup slate. The strong Critics’ Week line up saw Julie Bertucelli’s Depuis qu'Otar est parti take home the Grand Prix Lycos and the Grand Rail d’Or for best feature. Bertucelli’s directorial debut was an emotional family tale about three women from as many generations eking out an existence in post-Soviet bloc Georgia. Mille Mois by Faouzi Bensaïdi won the Premier Regard award in Un Certain Regard. The film covers a little-known part of recent Moroccan history : the repression the country’s intellectuals had to endure during the 1980s, told from the point of view of a little boy who takes his appointment as school monitor extremely seriously.

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